As I’ve mentioned before, it’s becoming almost too easy to produce convincing fake footage these days. Here’s a collision between the Star Wars universe and San Francisco…
(hat tip to James Senior)
Year: 2008
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When Alarm Bells Ring…
There are certain phrases that start alarm bells ringing in my head. An excellent example is provided by the Pub Philosopher. S/he’s commented upon that nasty little phrase that starts with "Speaking as…" -
Photosynth Released
I see that Microsoft has now released the first version of Photosynth that allows you to use your own photos to create 3D spaces. I can’t wait to try it out…Addendum: And of course Microsoft has now scrapped the Photosynth product and technology, so none of these links work anymore. It’s dead, Jim.
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Exorcise Your Inner Gay
Father Jeremy Davies sounds like a real bundle of fun. What I find astonishing is that he apparently studied at St. Bart’s Hospital in London and graduated with a medical degree in 1967. Perhaps Westminster residents should carry the equivalent of a donor card: "In the event of my hospitalisation, please do not let Fr. Davies anywhere near me".(hat tip to PZ Myers for the link) -
Antithetical Advert
Over at Obscene Desserts, the Wife points out an example of an advert that is meant to convey feelings of security and safety, but ends up conveying the complete opposite to those of us brought up on Orwell. Spooky in the extreme. -
Missing the Point
I see that Mark Vernon has taken another swipe at one of his favourite bête noires: Richard Dawkins. It strikes me as a particularly foolish piece. In it, he seems to be complaining that Dawkins’ latest series of TV Programmes (The Genius of Charles Darwin) focuses too much on the challenges to Darwin’s theory, rather than on some of the latest findings such as evolutionary convergence.Er, Mark, the clue is in the title, the programmes are about Darwin, his original theory and how he wrestled to reconcile it with his (and particularly his wife’s) religious beliefs, and about how the theory continues to challenge some believers to this day.Despite the mountains of evidence, a large number of people still insist on sticking their fingers in their ears and go "la la la, I can’t hear you…". I actually find their reaction perfectly understandable. I too, would find it difficult to reconcile species such as the Ichneumonoidea and Toxoplasma gondii with the idea of a loving god. Indeed, even Darwin said:"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."If anything, their existence (and of thousands of species like them) is evidence of either a sublimely indifferent deity or one who apparently revels in sadism. Or, of course, by Occam’s razor, the total absence of any deity at all.Mark also rather shot his bolt a little too soon, after apparently seeing only two of the three programmes. So his banging on about the absence of any mention of convergent evolution was rendered spectacularly pointless when, in the third programme, Dawkins pointed to the fact that eyes have been reinvented at least forty times in nature as a perfect example of convergent evolution. I would also point Mr. Vernon to Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, where convergence is examined at length; indeed, a whole chapter (The Host’s Return) is devoted to the concept of re-running the tape of evolution and to the emergence of recurring patterns. As Dawkins says (not that you would think it, from Vernon’s strawmen arguments):"As I look at these natural experiments, mostly I am impressed by how similarly evolution turns out when it is allowed to run twice. We have seen how alike Thylacinus is to a dog, Notoryctes to a mole, Petaurus to flying squirrels, Thylacosmilus to the sabretooths (and to various ‘false sabretooths’ amongst the placental carnivores). The differences are instructive too. Kangaroos are hopping antelope-substitutes."…"I am tempted by Conway Morris’s belief that we should stop thinking of convergent evolution as a colourful rarity to be remarked and marvelled at when we find it. Perhaps we should come to see it as a norm, exceptions to which are occasions for surprise. For example, true syntactic language seems to be unique to one species, our own. Perhaps – and I shall return to it – this is one thing that a re-evolved brainy biped would lack?In my opening chapter, The Conceit of Hindsight, I listened to warnings against seeking patterns, rhymes or reasons in evolution, but said that I would cautiously flirt with them. The Host’s Return has provided an opportunity to sweep over the whole course of evolution in the forward direction and see what patterns we can descry. The idea that all evolution was aimed at producing Homo sapiens was certainly well rejected, and nothing we have seen on our journey reinstates it. Even Conway Morris claims only that something approximately similar to our kind of animal is one of several outcomes – others being insects, for example – that we would expect to see recurring if evolution were rerun again and again."Mark finishes his article by venturing into woo-woo territory as far as I’m concerned:For example, if there is some kind of independent mentality within the universe, then this might help us to understand the existence of consciousness. Think of another branch of science, quantum mechanics. As the physicist Eugene Wigner put it: "The very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of consciousness is an ultimate reality." Consciousness existing like air, land and water? It is a contentious proposition but not simply "not science".Yeah, Mark, but applying the scientific method may not bring any comfort to that sort of wishful thinking. That way lies woo and Deepak Chopra. Methinks that the direction pointed to by the scientific method lies elsewhere.But what I think really takes the biscuit in Mark’s article is the closing:Ruse himself is more cautious: it is easy to run ahead of the science. "Darwinism has major implications for thoughts of purpose," he concludes, but be careful. On the other hand, it is easy to lag behind the science too, not least when evolution is used as a political stick rather than celebrated as part of the human quest for knowledge.The clear implication, to me, is that Vernon seems to be suggesting that Dawkins is guilty of using evolution as a political stick rather than celebrating it as part of the human quest for knowledge. If so, I find this absolutely outrageous, and the total opposite of the facts of the case. In all three programmes, Dawkins has explicitly celebrated both Darwin and his theory as part of the human quest for knowledge. And for Dawkins not to show that some are bent on extinguishing the beacon lit by Darwin would be failing in his duty to show the truth. Now I am beginning to think that not only is this piece by Mark Vernon foolish, but it also apparently has elements of both ingenuousness and mendacity in it as well. -
Foreclosure on the Shire
I first reported on The Shire – a Tolkien-themed housing development in Oregon almost two years ago. I see that good taste has prevailed, and that foreclosure proceedings against the developer are being brought. While I do feel somewhat sorry for the developer, I thought at the time that the project was doomed from the start. -
Reverse-engineering Religion
Over at a Blog From Hell, Norm Doering draws my attention to a talk given by Dan Dennett at the 2006 TED conference. It’s one that I don’t think I’ve seen before, although it deals with themes that he’s explored before in his work. It’s also an excellent critique of the false assertions contained in Rick Warren’s book: The Purpose-driven Life. Read Norm’s commentary, and then watch Dennett in action.Unjust Rewards
Johann Hari reviews Unjust Rewards by Polly Toynbee and David Walker. The review prompts me to put the book on my "get it and read it list". By coincidence, I’m currently re-reading Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew by Bernard Hare. This is the true story of a 12 year-old boy (Urban Grimshaw) and his friends. As the dustjacket blurb says:You’re twelve years old. Your mother’s a junkie and an alcoholic, your father might as well be dead. You can’t read, you can’t write, and you don’t go to school. While most kids your age are playing kiss-catch and computer games, you’re sniffing glue. An average day means sitting around a bonfire with your mates smoking drugs or stealing cars. You’ve spent years running away from children’s homes, but now you can run to the shed, where the crew is your family.It’s a glimpse into a real hell, that is by turns terrifying, achingly sad and sidesplittingly funny. Worth reading, if only to realise that the systems in place as described by Toynbee and Walker will continue to produce generations of Urban Grimshaws.The PC Minefield
In a globally-connected set of societies, then no matter what you do, someone is bound to take offense. Exhibit A: the rumpus over the Spanish Basketball team. I honestly believe that the team meant no harm, but the PC brigades are after their (and the reporter’s) blood. Sigh. As someone who used to be called, as a very young boy in primary school, the "China Doll", because of the shape of my eyes, all I can say to the massed PC brigades is: "get over it, you bunch of Marys".Rage
Over at the End of the Pier Show, Henry Gee muses on customer service. I know what he means, the sense that one is fighting marshmallow seems to pump up the rage factor with the greatest of ease.I think I’m currently embarking on one such pump at the moment. It involves a bank transfer of a not inconsiderable sum of my hard-earned money which disappeared into the ether of the international banking system almost a month ago without a trace. It’s early days yet, but the first skirmish involved a person at a financial institution trying to pass the buck on any responsibility whatsoever to investigate said disappearance. I batted that back to her, and we’ll see whether she follows it up, as she (reluctantly) said she would. Watch this space.Typical…
…the one day that I don’t take my camera with me on my daily walk in the woods is the day when I am just 4 metres away from a pair of red squirrels chasing each other around a tree trunk. I stood and watched them for about a minute before they realised I was there and scarpered up into the tree.I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with these rather poor shots of a squirrel from a couple of weeks ago. He was about 15 metres away, watching me from a perch high up in a tree.
The Slippery Slope
In an excellent article, Johann Hari points out the danger of choosing cowardice over questions. Worth reading. I honestly believe that all of us, believers and non-believers alike, will have grown up a little when the day comes that the equivalent of Monty Python’s Life of Brian can be made about Islam.Up, Up and Away
Last Monday, I managed to tick off one item on the "50 things to do before you die" list: I went on a trip in a balloon. The farmer next to us had organised it, and as well as taking his family, had a few places left over for neighbours. I was lucky enough to be able to join them. It was a terrific experience, and highly recommended. A few pictures are below – the full set of over 200 photos (well, you know me…) are here.
Looking at the full list of "50 things…", I note that I’ve only done six of the list. Mind you, most of the list I have no interest in doing whatsoever, so it’s no loss to me. I get more pleasure from a walk in the woods than contemplating the thought of such things as flying in a fighter jet, driving a Formula 1 car, or bungee jumping…Headline of the Year
This story in today’s Guardian definitely has a headline that is a contender for the 2008 prize: Giant Dog Turd Wreaks Havoc at Swiss Museum. I think that the museum itself must also be in the running for a prize for the most fatuous description of an art show, describing it as containing "interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones".Trepanation
Here’s a straightforward interview with Heather Perry, who voluntarily had a hole drilled in her head to improve her state of mind. It takes all sorts, I suppose. Sample:We went to see Bill’s doctor, who was a GP but he was into alternative kind of therapies. When he checked me over the following morning he said that we’d pierced the first meninges, but he didn’t seem overly concerned. He told me to eat Jello and drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. I had a cough, so I was a bit like a whale – every time I coughed, some fluid would come out of the hole in my head. He gave me some medicine for that and also prescribed me some kind of Chinese herbal remedy. I think maybe we did it in the wrong place because there is an artery there somewhere which is quite close to the surface, so in retrospect maybe we should have done it in a slightly different place.Somehow, I don’t think I will be rushing to emulate her. As someone has already commented, I need a trepanation like I need a hole in the head…Cod Sushi?
Albert Heijn is a Dutch supermarket chain. We are customers. Carl Zimmer draws our attention to the content of one of Albert’s prepacked fresh cod. Oh dear.Wait – There’s More…
I mentioned yesterday that the re-emergence of Joyce McKinney was surely evidence that the Silly Season was in full swing. In today’s Bad Science piece, Ben Goldacre confirms that hypothesis by pointing to a credulous article (in the Telegraph, no less) that mentions the QXCI machine. As Ben points out, the QXCI machine is somewhat suspect. Just how suspect can be found here. Ben also points out that the man behind the machine is a gentleman by the name of Bill Nelson. The video of Bill singing his own praises is strange beyond belief. But it gets better – here’s Bill, aka Desire Dubounet, belting out Crying:I’m speechless.The Amazing Randi
James Randi turned 80 years old a couple of days ago. Belated Happy Brithday greetings to him. Here’s to many more.The Genius of Charles Darwin
I’m pleased to see that Richard Dawkins’ new series on Charles Darwin is available on the Internet. The first programme was eminently watchable. I did wonder, though, about those schoolchildren. When I was their age, I would never have thought that evolution was not a fact, and that’s forty-five years ago. Has education slipped back so much?As usual, Charlie Brooker puts his finger on it.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 