1. Stupid flies live longer: study

Comment #189414 by Clintspark on June 6, 2008 at 8:24 am

Huh, what a report. It may be that the actual paper was worth something besides an Ig-nobel prize, but the news reporter at least totally failed to convey any of it.
Talking about intelligence in connection with flies is rather, well, stupid. As far as anyone can tell, a fly doesn't much cogitate or plan ahead or make emotional connections between memories, or any other thing generally associated with the word "intelligence." In terms of intellectual capacity, a fly would probably be best described as a sophisticated automat. It's got the neural systems it needs to do what flies do, and any extra processing capacity would be just a burden.
For more complicated animals the reverse may be true. Added brain capacity may increase, for example, a rodent's ability to adapt to a changing environment - in which case smarter rats would live longer on average.
A fly doesn't need to be smart. It would probably have to change to quite another animal altogether to benefit from a smarter brain.
Interestingly, humans with their big brains are among the longest-living vertebrates. That must be a statistical error, now that it's been proved in a lab that being stupid helps live longer.
Live smart, die young, leave a famous corpse?

2. Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory

Comment #183399 by Clintspark on May 22, 2008 at 3:30 am

When I first read the title, I thought "shroud of turin" would have been a statement about information theory. Something between the Turing test and "the fog of war." Heck was I disappointed to find out it only was an old rag with a pic of Mr H. Christ.

The only interesting thing for me about this piece of linen is how the image has been made, IF there really is any controversy over even that. I can't bother to try find out whether the "controversy" is actually just people not wanting to believe evidence, or has some medieval artist actually invented a strange way of making pictures. The latter might even be scientifically significant in giving insight to medieval technology though.

3. Texas Megachurch Minister Busted in Internet Sex Sting

Comment #182107 by Clintspark on May 19, 2008 at 8:20 am

But hey, in the biblical times a thirteen-year-old wasn't a minor! So he's done nothing wrong as stated by his religion!
[\devil's advocate]

stephenray:
Even though there was no actual victim in this particular case, he still wasn't framed by the police. There may have been other victims earlier, and there probably would have been later had he not been caught.

4. 'Spiritual' dentist fined $10,000

Comment #180882 by Clintspark on May 16, 2008 at 2:49 am

"In the name of Jesus H. Christ I cast out the demon of toothache!"

Lucky though the patient wasn't assured about the demons in her head. Makes me wonder how many previous, possibly unmedicated, schizophrenic patients have gone off to treat their illness with exorcism or similar crap after the misministrations of this parastomatologist...

5. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #179406 by Clintspark on May 13, 2008 at 8:05 am

Aargh. Wrote a long post with links to several articles, only to notice my connection had timed out and my message got deleted. Maybe I'll just post some links then.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/319/5862/406
Article on brain damage caused by being near explosions. Interestingly, damage is well not immediately apparent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken_baby_syndrome
Damage by whiplash motion of the head.

Also, I calculated that the baby hits the blanket at around 60 km/h, with a force of some 500 newtons. Can't be healthy.

6. Was the new finger a 'natural' miracle?

Comment #174703 by Clintspark on May 3, 2008 at 9:44 am

Pixie dust, eh? Why not invisible runes and unicorn hair...
The part of the report that astonishes me the most though is that apparently god gave this man The Finger, but he still didn't tell god to piss off. Must be a true believer.

7. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #169397 by Clintspark on April 26, 2008 at 1:30 am

Clearmind wrote:
When I write to you i always use my divine feelings and prayings that one day you will believe in God but you don't. My mother passed away and yours too, i guess. I see her sometimes in my dreams. Now my question is that if you see your mother in your dream and says "the truth is that God exists, please reverend believe in God." What would you do? This is another sincere question of mine.
And how do you interpret dreams?

I can't help it, but he DOES sound like something which didn't answer "yes" to the forum registration question "are you human?"
The piece above sounds like some kind of a Markov chain or other chatbot. Perhaps someone really clever is playing a trick on us, posting computer-generated nonsense to see, for how long it passes the turing test... Actually, I hope so.

8. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #168730 by Clintspark on April 25, 2008 at 10:18 am

I would have liked my first post ever to this forum to be something a bit more thoughtful, but I just couldn't resist:

Clearmind; concerning rubik's cube, see the following:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3QOvEG27Gt4

Oh, and greetings to all forum members, I'm a university student from Finland, and an atheist (I prefer to say non-religious, thus avoiding the pseudo-argument "atheism is a religious position of actively denying god").