1. Bill Maher's Religulous Opens Today

Comment #260057 by dansam on October 4, 2008 at 1:58 pm

choir! ;-)

2. Bill Maher's Religulous Opens Today

Comment #260050 by dansam on October 4, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Although I'm a BIG fan of Bill Maher, he (like others I could name) demonstrates that while you can be very reasonable in one field, you can be a moron in another.

Bill Maher is reasonably smart, very funny, liberal and has a pretty good philosophy about religion.

But he is an idiot about modern medicine!
He's one of these people that thinks that the cure for cancer is wheat-grass.

3. Conservative Pastors to Break Law by Endorsing a Candidate

Comment #255915 by dansam on September 28, 2008 at 2:54 pm

This is GREAT news!
FINALLY... god comes to the rescue!
The economy will be "bailed out" by the gazillions of dollars we can collect from churches!

4. When Atheists Attack

Comment #251875 by dansam on September 22, 2008 at 9:06 am

Sam gets it PERFECTLY right.
Palin's conviction that she didn't BLINK sounded to my ears like she didn't THINK!

This notion that "toughness/decisiveness" based on ignorance is as effective as informed rational contemplative thought is terrifying.

5. Unintelligent Design

Comment #232213 by dansam on August 17, 2008 at 8:46 pm

There is a nice list of unintelligent designs of the human here:

http://current.com/items/88905207_ben_stein_s_movie_defending_intelligent_design_being_released_april_18th

It may be a little long... but I feel compelled to list them here for people to enjoy.

1. Female pelvis too small for the human baby's head making birth difficult and prone to perinatal injuries to the baby and the mother.

2. Retinal arteries/veins lying on and in front of the retina of the eyes. Many causes of blindness come from this defective design.

3. Wisdom teeth frequently leading to secondary abscesses, occasionally dissecting up into the cranium - resulting in brain abscesses, meningitis, epidural empyema.

4. Larynx too highly placed, leading to common choking deaths.

5. A bony projection, called the Odontoid Process, an extension of the C2 vertebral body like a long finger up to the end of the brainstem. It can easily fracture, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. That leads to death or paralysis of all extremities and inability to breathe without a mechanical ventilator. A simpler rotatory ball-socket joint would have been better and safer.

6. Semi-soft disc material between vertebrae and just anterior to the spinal cord is suited well to quadrupeds. But in humans the upper body weight compresses these and can cause herniations with mild to moderate trauma. There are 6 of these (none at C1-2) in the neck, 12 in the thoracic spine, 5 (rarely 6) in the Lumbar spine. That is 23 flaws or accidents waiting to happen.

7. Hip joints perfectly suited to support human weight if there were four of them or 4 supporting limbs. In a biped, the stress causes extremely common hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and older people. How often do you hear of that in a dog or horse?

8. Knees similarly are not strong enough with the tibial cartilage in two legs for human weight, jumping down, and running. If we had 4 legs it would not be so bad. How often do you see cats with knee problems?

9. Foot and ankle bones are badly designed. Most quadrupeds walk on their toes or the balls of their feet. This puts more weight on flexible tendons, ligaments and several bending joints spreading the stress. With the human foot, we are walking on what is essentially our leg "wrists" and balls of the foot with an arch that is traumatised by walking and standing. When it falls it has an additional problem of severe foot pain. (see flaw #10).

10. In those fallen arches, the plantar nerves are badly placed. Instead of weaving between or over top of bones to their skin sensory receptors, these course "under" the ankle bones, under the arch to the metatarsal joints. When the arch slowly gives way it stretches those nerves and eventually compresses them. This never happens in dogs or cats.

11. Human wrists must extend to provide maximum finger flexion; a major human task is to hold things in our hands. So the wrist flexes a thousand times a day. Problem is that the median nerve runs through a bony trough covered by tough ligaments, the Carpal Tunnel. With every wrist flexion the median nerve is pulled in and out of that canal. The canal is easily narrowed by minor injuries or repetitive use. The nerve is injured causing pain, finger numbness, and weakness in thumb opposition.

12. The Elbow flexes and extends, but an important nerve, the Ulnar Nerve, mostly motor to the muscles of the forearm and hand, goes through the elbow bone. It unfortunately does not go in front of the elbow in the safer soft tissue. It courses behind the elbow which is fine in horses, but human flex the arm at the elbow that pulls and stretches the ulnar nerve in a long course behind the elbow in an "ulnar groove", and additionally, a sitting human often rests his elbows on a table, and that compresses the ulnar nerve. Dogs and cats don't do that.

13. The Brachial Plexus is a cluster of the nerves to the arm that travels through a triangle with the first rib being the bottom, the collar bone in front, and the scalene muscles behind. Also in the triangle is the brachial artery that supplies blood to the arm. Poor posture, hanging by exercise bars from the hands, or throwing balls, cause the triangle to compress either or both structures. This is the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the neuronal form when the plexus is injured, and the vascular form when the brachial circulation is impaired.

14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is very frequent and can lead to kidney damage as well as damage to the fallopian tubes. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?

15. The appendix is a seemingly useless relic of evolution that easily gets infected and ruptures in a life-threatening peritonitis unless removed quickly. A few postulate that it might have bacteria that make certain vitamins. That is unproven.

16. Large veins in the legs, progressively dilating from standing, walking, run the risk of blood clotting when the human sits for a period of time. These veins send those clots north to the heart's right ventricle and directly into the lungs causing pulmonary emboli (clots and lung infarction) that are often fatal.) Quadruped animals rarely die of this. Many humans do.

17. Venous Cavernous Sinuses at the skull base on left and right are large draining veins from the brain. But inside of the vein there is the carotid artery taking blood into the brain, and several important nerves: III, IV, VI that control all eye movements, pupillary diameter, and lens focusing, and V-1, V-2, and V-3 that supply sensation to the eye and face. This venous structure packed with these important structures is infected by sinus infection or pustules in or on the nose. Infection causes the blood to clot (thrombosis) that injures the nerves, makes the eye bulge and swell, and can cause spreading thrombosis into the brain which can be rapidly fatal.

18. Other cranial sinuses such as the transverse are located next to the middle ear that frequently gets infected in kids. The infection spread to the venous sinus and causes thrombophlebitis, the major effect is increased fluid pressure in the brain, venous strokes, and seizures. If all of those venous drainage pipes were internally situated, there would not be such a risk. (17 and 18).

19. Congenital birth defects caused by structures found only in primitive animals (but still in our genes): gills in our embryonic stage may have some left over at birth and a baby may have a partial gill (technically called a branchial cleft cyst.) These can cause pain as the person grows, or develop abscesses. Another is a chordoma, tumour composed of notochord tissue only otherwise found in ancient animals like Pikaea and Amphioxus. It preceded the evolution of the bony spine. We have one in our early embryo stages but absorb it. Sometime absorption is incomplete and notochord tissue (tumour) unfortunately grows in the clivus at the base of the brain.

20. Our abdomen. It houses our stomach, our liver, our spleen, great vessels (aorta) small bowel, and colon. In quadrupeds it is underneath. An attacker cannot easily get to it. The predator has to attack the tougher back and spine. But in the human the belly is sticking out there for some clawed or toothed predator or knife wielding human criminal to take a swipe and eviscerate us.

6. Brain That Changes Itself: into the abyss

Comment #220998 by dansam on July 29, 2008 at 9:02 am

Truly an inspiring article!

7. How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

Comment #217065 by dansam on July 23, 2008 at 9:32 pm

Celebrities are the perfect target demographic for charlatans! A very wealthy but typically undereducated group! (I'll probably get in trouble for that...)

There is of course the inherent bias in that celebrities (being famous) will attract the most media coverage....

8. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208369 by dansam on July 10, 2008 at 9:55 pm

My email:

************
President Bruininks,

I am writing to you today in support of Dr. PZ Meyers who is being attacked by the "catholic league" for his response to the ridiculous situation of a student being disciplined and subject to death threats for the "crime" of absconding with the "Eucharist" cracker from a catholic mass in order to study it.

The situation is beyond silly and I am urging you to ignore any emails from the "catholic league" and allow Dr. Meyers to continue in his work as a researcher as well as in his efforts to shine the light of rationality into the darkness of superstition and fundamentalism.

9. Common New Atheist Fallacies

Comment #200562 by dansam on June 27, 2008 at 10:32 pm

Not only is this lecture INTENSELY boring, it's also devoid of any rational argument.

It's just painful to watch.

10. Carlin on Religion

Comment #198839 by dansam on June 24, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Truly a devastating loss.
George Carlin was an incredible guy.

Clever, satirical, incisive, and hilarious!
He will be missed.

11. Scientists rally against creationist 'superstition'

Comment #186933 by dansam on May 31, 2008 at 9:21 pm

It's hard for me to believe the 40% statistic.
It just can't be *that* high!
Can it?

12. A Tribute to Douglas Adams: Towel Day May 25th

Comment #184369 by dansam on May 24, 2008 at 8:57 pm

Douglas Adams was one of my all-time favorite authors whose life was tragically cut short. The Hitchhikers series is a wonderful blend of satire, goofy comedy, and science. I re-read passages from it frequently.

I will be proud to carry my towel.

13. Geeks and Guinness: the formula for sexy science

Comment #182429 by dansam on May 20, 2008 at 4:59 am

There is something like it in NY:
http://secretscienceclub.blogspot.com/

14. Surviving an unholy school war

Comment #182079 by dansam on May 19, 2008 at 7:43 am

MagratGarlick,

If you read my later posts, we agree.

15. Surviving an unholy school war

Comment #181942 by dansam on May 18, 2008 at 9:38 pm

huzonfurst,

Although we certainly agree in spirit and my reptilian brain would *fantasize* about beating the crap out of these assholes, I don't think violence in this case is justified AFTER the fact. Catching someone IN the act of hurting your (or for that matter anyone's) child is a different story.

Although a jury would probably not convict you, I submit that they would be wrong.

Dan
A card carrying member of the ACLU

I include a beautiful quote by MLK Jr below.
**************
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

16. Surviving an unholy school war

Comment #181862 by dansam on May 18, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Well.... I said that I would be "ashamed" to resort to violence. In fact, I would hope that I would be able to resist the impulse to commit a crime regardless of how justified it might seem. I consider the abuse of children to be by far the most reprehensible crime that can be committed and as such I "fear" I might "lose it".

That said... I feel compelled to state for the record (although it sounds sappy) that violence is wrong.

17. Surviving an unholy school war

Comment #181850 by dansam on May 18, 2008 at 11:59 am

Reading this disturbing tale of abuse makes me physically ill. If I had a child that experienced this type of torture, I'm ashamed to say that I might lose my composure, follow the example set by these "men of god", and beat the holy shit out of them!

I (of course) would then repent.... and then do it again! ;-)

18. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178459 by dansam on May 11, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Truly one of the most horrifying and frightening articles I've ever read.

19. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #173103 by dansam on April 30, 2008 at 10:43 am

Elli,

If you liked that one.... check out this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJd3MgIcbnA&feature=related

20. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #173097 by dansam on April 30, 2008 at 10:33 am

Elli,

With regard to the term: "Self-Hating Jew"... I'm reminded of this scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pt8Nk95Yfk

Dan

21. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #168949 by dansam on April 25, 2008 at 1:28 pm

As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I STRONGLY support the asshole's right to free speech.

Sometimes it's tough being a liberal....

Dan
A man with a bleeding heart.

22. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #127984 by dansam on February 15, 2008 at 8:36 pm

Until I heard about this movie, I considered Ben Stein to be a smart guy with a technical background. He has written many reasonable articles in the Sunday NY Times business section on economics & investing.

So I'm actually pretty shocked & upset to see him spouting all the "usual arguments" that I'd expect to hear from the uneducated lot of pseudo-scientific creationist folk.

It's depressing.