1. Beetle drive

Comment #239217 by squinky on August 29, 2008 at 8:55 am

Carto,
That would certainly lend new meaning to the term 'cockfight'.

I'm a little skeptical of the conclusions drawn in this research (admittedly I didn't read the paper). In ducks it's been shown that male penis size and length has been driven by female vaginal evolution. The females cannot prevent being mated with (duck raped essentially) but they've evolved a way to only allow the desired male's sperm to fertilize her. Male ducks are rapidly evolving different penis combos to counter the females' 'cockblocker'.

2. Science Has No Place in Politics

Comment #238406 by squinky on August 28, 2008 at 5:37 am

#30 samratpathania,

I still contend that most politicians don't know shit about science and even if they did, most Americans would hardly have their vote influenced by a scientific debate because (short of global warming and there are many deniers out there) they too don't know much science and don't care. They care about their job, college, education, the Iraq war and foreign policy, Roe vs. Wade and a host of other more important issues than what science brings to the table. I've moved around all of the US political parties: Democrat, Republican, Green, Indepedent. I voted for Ross Perot as a simple political experiment of breaking the duopoly. You mention Ralph Nader. He used to be a great consumer advocate, now he's a raving egotist so left-tilted that he fell off the flat Earth and into space. Kucinich is scientifically smart but unelectable and at the end of the day, that's the most important trait.

Every candidate has merits but ask that they have great leadership, good politics, ARE electable, etc, etc...AND know science whittles the field down to very few indeed.

3. It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud

Comment #238031 by squinky on August 27, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Leave it to a Ph.D. in political science to quote Karl Marx like some authority. Karl Marx! that f'n wingnut of history and political philosophy!

If I ate the Bible, shit it out, and read that log like a palm reader's tea leaves I would find more facts than this article contains.

Guys like Barry really get under my skin. I don't know how Dawkins maintains such gentlemanly composure and refrains from even raising his voice.

4. It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud

Comment #238015 by squinky on August 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm

I'm an atheist and I shout because I'm fucking pissed.

Here's why: Me and my fellow scientists KNOW the real reasons for why shit in the world works the way it does. We shout because the facts are so obvious and there is nothing quite as frustrating and patronizing as a goober like Ted Haggard looking you in the eye and saying "Gawd made the Grand Canyun and he loves yew even tho you haven't accepted Him as yer personal savure"

Fucktards doesn't even begin to capture it (nod to irate_atheist)

5. Science Has No Place in Politics

Comment #238001 by squinky on August 27, 2008 at 1:41 pm

You guys are dreaming. There are a tiny handful of scientific issues that a presidential candidate could possible address. Global warming and alternative energy are safe but beyond that is a minefield so vast that no sane political figure will venture there. Think, what are some scientific burning questions:
1) stem cells, reproductive technology, and early human life--can't ever go there!
2) Condoms, Plan B, abortion, HPV vaccination, pregnancy prevention, family planning--can't ever ever go there!
3) Separation of Church and State, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers--can't really go there because most Americans think this country is a Christian nation.
4) American scientific education and competitiveness--maybe but politicians like to talk about early childhood education (no child left behind). It's so important, see, and college is well--optional. Besides, we import a lot of our scientifically trained people from overseas so where is the urgent need for home grown scientific literacy really?
5) Evolution--Don't alienate the religious right, you'll lose the election.

Presidential candidates (Gore excepted) don't know shit about science and would look dumber than a 5th grader which reflects most Americans scientific literacy.

6. Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

Comment #237247 by squinky on August 26, 2008 at 8:52 am

I think they should saint Liberace. With much fanfare and music playing as well. He's just sooooooo saintly!

And let's move his remains to Rome.

7. Imagine No Religion' signs to go up around town

Comment #236811 by squinky on August 25, 2008 at 11:22 am

Al-rawandi, Practicing atheis

Small world; fancy meeting you here. I went to Pitzer College for a year before transferring to another school. Claremont I liked OK (view of Mt. Baldy) but the smog is a KILLER! It's probably like Beijing right about...now! I knew a classmate that lived his whole life in Redlands and he was 7th Day Aventist. I had no idea there were such religious wingnuts at the time and his goal in life was to attend Loma Linda Medical School. The IE needs more than a few billboards!

8. Pastor Rick's Test

Comment #233793 by squinky on August 20, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Obama would not have to do this venue if his name was different. The Obama-is-a-Muslim or un-Christian labels have some stickiness here in America. He's also courting moderate Republicans that hate the war in Iraq more than they love Jesus for president.

Let's have a parallel scientific invite: The Presidential Scientific Forum hosted by Michael Shermer at CalTech (post your favorite moderator and venue).

On the agenda:
1) global warming and alternative energy
2) stem cells, reproductive technology, and early human life.
3) Condoms, Plan B, abortion, HPV vaccination
3) American scientific competitiveness
4) Separation of Church and State, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers.
and finally, the clincher:
5) EVOLUTION

McCain would wither on the vine after that debate

9. Big-brained Animals Evolve Faster

Comment #230818 by squinky on August 15, 2008 at 7:43 am

Steve Z. Interesting points.

I'm a little sceptical of this. I think one could just as easily argue that long leg size or large wing size could increase the rate of evolution, as they allow animals get to explore new niches.

Isn't the brain completely different than a limb or wing because it correlates (perhaps loosely) with adaptive memes? I realize this is a slippery slope but couldn't a small-brained bird in principle lack the mental capacity for using pine needles to retrieve insects? This would yield access to a niche otherwise uninhabitable and thus force divergent evolution in this cohort of birds occupying the new niche.

I am beginning to dislike the term "Natural Selection", as it seems to put us in a different category. If medicine helps us to survive long term, then we will have been "selected" as much as any other species.

But we are in a different category. We use non-natural selection all the time in dog breeding, crop selection, and humans taking antibiotics or gene therapy or whatever to avoid otherwise certain death. Don't you think there's a distinction here?

10. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230284 by squinky on August 14, 2008 at 2:02 pm

What is the legal marrying age in Britain? At what age does pedophilia or sex with underaged children end?

Fuck Sharia. The law is the law. Send newlywedded, older, creepy Muslim freaks to the slammer. That should send a cultural message to the mullahs and tell the world what civilized society thinks of Mohammed's precedent. What's Arabic for "when in Rome bitches!"?

11. Judge says UC can deny class credit to Christian school students

Comment #229281 by squinky on August 13, 2008 at 10:18 am

Wait, I thought Pythagoras's Theorem was Jesus(squared) plus Holy Ghost(squared) = God (squared).

You mean I can't get into Berkeley?

12. Evolution as Described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Comment #229199 by squinky on August 13, 2008 at 8:11 am

I'm with ATP and others. This article is new age sounding junk. Of course evolution violates no laws of thermodynamics because constant energy is supplied to the system (radioactive decay and the sun). The cheetah analysis makes me groan. While a faster cheetah may be a better hunter and gatherer of energy (let's reduce the whole thing to ATP energy), there's nothing to say that a change in niche won't kill this trait off, e.g. 10 years of cooler than average weather that selects for less 'high-metabolism' individuals and for better energy conservation.

I still don't like physicists doing biology. Evolution as energy flow, brains as quantum computers, etc just glosses over the entire field of evolutionary biology, genetics, and molecular biology with some simple equations that represent very little or nothing.

13. Bill Maher hates your (fill in the blank) religion

Comment #227385 by squinky on August 9, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Someone please get J Mac a tissue, his eyes are misty over a perceived injustice to delusional people with imaginary friends.

To the best of my knowledge all my current views are the truth. But I don't want my children simply to agree with my views, I want them to seek truth. If they find evidence that was not available to me I hope that they will not hesitate to reject my views and follow the truth.

BS. The truth is not temporary. While I respect your 'get out of jail free card' that allows for the discovery of new evidence, your children should be taught the truth by you (it's not your truth). Evolution is the truth, carbon dating is the truth, the age of the Earth is pretty accurate, etc, etc. We don't need to hold out for more data on many examples of scientific truth, just teach it and be done.

14. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #226216 by squinky on August 7, 2008 at 7:39 pm

I realize that I'm taking an extreme position (some would say unscientific because I'm not allowing for the insanely improbable but I'm OK with that just as I'm 100% certain there is no God because of zero evidence).

Decius. Yes there are scientific arguments. First, there are no non-carbon self-replicating, living systems known. The bonding valency of silicon, clay, minerals, etc do not lend themselves to replication that would result in what we would define as a living system. A crystal can grow, copy itself with excellent fidelity, make 'offspring', catalyze reactions, etc but it is NOT alive. Replicators alone do not a living creature make. I can imagine humans designing a self-replicating chemical system (using carbon) but while this new form of 'DNA' can store information, so much more is involved to make it alive. Dead cells have DNA, a skidmark in a petri dish has DNA. Alive goes beyond replication alone to the use of energy, the formation of waste by-products (i.e. metabolism). Also, diatoms are hardly silicon-based life forms. They are organic through and through (DNA chief). Diatom exoskeletons you wouldn't consider alive.

J Mac: the Cairns-Smith work is shit. You write:

Your claim that is it simply not possible for life to be based on anything but carbon and water is a pure falsehood. THAT statement has been conclusively PROVEN to be false.

Excuse me? Cairns has proven absolutely zero in regards to life. Clay could be an inorganic template for the evolution of carbon-based replicators? Wikipedia gives this a reasonable treatment:

There follows a process of natural selection for clay crystals which trap certain forms of molecules to their surfaces (those which enhance their replication potential). Quite complex proto-organic molecules can be catalysed by the surface properties of silicates. The final step occurs when these complex molecules perform a 'Genetic Takeover' from their clay 'vehicle', becoming an independent locus of replication - an evolutionary moment that might be understood as the first exaptation.
Despite its frequent citation as a useful model of the kind of process that might have been involved in the prehistory of DNA, the 'clay theory' of abiogenesis has not been widely accepted. Richard Dawkins uses it as an example in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker -- it was current and fashionable at that time.

This is open speculation. Even if Cairns-Smith showed what the clay structure was and how it templated organic molecules, it would not be "alive" just as the crystalline salt that I mention above is not alive either. So J Mac, there is no PROOF as you contend. There isn't even any evidence--just open-ended speculation. Until I see a shred of evidence of a non-carbon replicator that can occur naturally in nature or even a reasonable model of such a system, I will remain a militant non-carbon-based-life 'atheist'. It seems paradoxical that you guys are 100% disbelieving in celestial teapots and remain quite certain of the probability (despite no evidence) of non-carbon based life because it can be fantasized. I admit that I'm rounding up my 99.999% certainty but I'm comfortable with that.

15. The best way to undermine the jihadists is to trigger a rebellion of Muslim women - and establish energy independence

Comment #225917 by squinky on August 7, 2008 at 1:55 pm

We have all seen the Rumsfeld approach. Fill screens across the Muslim world with the orange jumpsuits of Guantanamo and the Muslims-on-a-leash of Abu Ghraib. Piss on the Koran. Show them who's boss. The Galloway approach is just as dangerous: give them what they want. Meet Osama's immediate demands and hope they'll leave us alone. Both encourage the totalitarian ideology to spread faster, one by beating it with a bloody stick and the other by offering it a carrot.

What a wingnut juxtaposition! Who here thinks that Galloway's approach is 'just as danderous' as Rumsfield's? Resistance is futile? Submit to Allah? Turn the other cheek? I would rather die in World War III defending the principles of a free and democratic society than capitulate. Who is with me? Clarification: I'm against the Iraq war (wrong enemy) but what if Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo happened in Afghanistan? Leave the Taliban alone and hopefully, they'll just go away? These extremists will kill over a cartoon much less an orange-jumpsuited, leashed, pissed on Al-Qaeda member.

16. Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

Comment #225876 by squinky on August 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm

The knockdown argument remains intact:

Let a group of children recreate society and you will find two things: A whole new mythos with new gods and supernatural powers and eventually, steadily...the truth as arrived at by scientific inquiry and careful observation.

Once reality is accurately described and reliable predictions can be made, modern civilization takes off (weather forecasting, acricultural advances, transportation, self-defence, medicine, etc) and has enormous and magnificent selective advantages.

17. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #225728 by squinky on August 7, 2008 at 9:51 am

I despise the philosophical notion popular on this board that contends that 'since the future is unknowable, everything in it is possible.'

Nevermind reality and actual constraints like the speed of light. That may not be relevant inside a black hole forinstance. Sure life could be on Earth right now living as silicates. Actually, I'm a fan of self-replicating boron or maybe even iridium phosphates or whatever the hell I can think up. In fact, I'm no longer an atheist. There are teapots orbiting the Earth--self-replicating ones in fact and they can exceed the speed of light (that's why we can't detect them).

We could build a Dyson's sphere! We could scoop up all of the extra matter in the solar system with a matter-antimatter propulsion system and create our own star when ours starts to burn out. Or we could live inside the sun and have all the solar power we'd ever need. Just think of the possibilities people! They are literally infinite! Don't constrain yourself to the Milky Way or the universe. Think really big.

18. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #225318 by squinky on August 6, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Comment #225286 by Zara

I suspect that R2D2 and C3PO and HAL would disagree with you.

As I said in my post, I'm making a distinction between 'designed' silicon-based life (which could never arise spontaneously) and 'de novo' life that arises from the universe. The silicon-based life argument amounts to intelligent design because it definitely has a designer. Presumably, we carbon-based life forms did not. Your R2D2 analogy is akin to the infinite regress of 'who created the creator' argument. Raiko said

...so many people seemed to take it for granted, that there's only one possible way of life (water-dependent and carbon-based

I was commenting on Raiko's post that implied that different physical constants of other universes could still produce life that is not carbon-based or needing water. I disagree. Life has to start with carbon-based, water loving creatures that evolve intelligence. They may choose to create other 'life-forms' out of other self-replicating systems or silicon or whatever. I stand by my statement: non carbon-based life cannot come from stardust.

19. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #225152 by squinky on August 6, 2008 at 9:36 am

Raiko,

Let's burst one sci-fi bubble right now--all life in the universe, whenever or wherever it exists, is carbon based and lives in (or requires) water.

There are superb scientific reasons for this. Because of the bonding nature (valency) of carbon and its rich redox chemistry, no other element can even come remotely close to having: (1) the massive statistical possibilities to make self-replicating molecules (genes), (2) carbon's ultra-high natural abundance, or (3) the bonding magic of carbon. Why not silicon you ask? Silicon-silicon bonds are weak and unstable (carbon can be strung into chains of 100s) so it's not a contender.
Secondly, water is the solvent for all biotic chemistry. What's the naturally occuring alternative? Liquid methane?(nothing will dissolve in it and its too cold). Liquid CO2?(same here). Methanol? (too rare).

The analysis above is NOT anthropogenic bias but rather chemical facts that constrain what is possible and what is not possible. While I certainly believe that computers might reach a level of sophistication that they become self-aware and able to build themselves (in other words, 'alive'), they would be intelligently designed silicon-based life forms and could never spontaneously arise from the stellar soup. Thus, this description of 'silicon-based' life doesn't count. Life in the universe must occur de novo and carbon is the ONLY way it can happen.

20. Obama Should Re-Think His Faith-Based Agenda

Comment #221045 by squinky on July 29, 2008 at 9:45 am

While US politicians must pander to the religious right and Bush eroded Constitutional separation of church and State it still beats the UK where their taxes FUND religious schools (including the really progressive Muslim schools/maddrassas) and fill otherwise innocent children with guilt,lies, and fear.

In the US, I'm a little optimistic that the tide is changing with the zeitgeist thanks to the Horsemen and other outspoken secular rational people. The Bush years and the religious right are on the decline (and they know it).

21. Losing Sight of Progress

Comment #215779 by squinky on July 22, 2008 at 11:15 am

Evolution is simple Hitch. When animals transition from air land or sea, things change: fins and gills disappear on land. Legs disappear in the sea, wings can disppear on land, wings become flippers in the sea, eyes disappear in the dark, etc. Got it?

Also, Coulter has a gap to fill all right: her mouth. Oh, and the other gap was previously filled by Dinesh D'Souza (a fundy) and Bill Maher (an atheist) so it appears she may be on the fence after all.

22. Losing Sight of Progress

Comment #215575 by squinky on July 22, 2008 at 6:32 am

Hellene: nice argument. I like it a lot.

As much as I love Hitch and devour all of his essays, he is way behind the curve on this one. It's harly a new argument that the evolution of once functioning organs into vestiges isn't an ass-kicking argument against design.

Some snakes drag tiny, unfunctioning hindlegs and others only have a spur where they once were. Flightless birds, caveblind fish and salamanders, blind mole rats, hind limb bones in whales, etc...

This is to say nothing about exaption which is perhaps an even more powerful evolutionary mechanism that is devastating to Creationists' shitspeak.

23. Researchers Discover Remnant of an Ancient 'RNA World'

Comment #213334 by squinky on July 18, 2008 at 11:47 am

Very interesting article. Is the RNA world conceivable? Yes. The problem I have with it is that all the heavy lifting is done now by extremely sophisticated enzymes (proteins) that perform functions nearly impossible to imagine how catalytic RNA could do (metabolism, cell wall synthesis, etc) the most difficult are:
How were nucleotides synthetized in the RNA world (ribose and deoxyribose) which are the building blocks of RNA (and DNA)? How was template-directed nucleotide polymerization done (how was RNA "activated" and most importantly, how was 3' vs 2' RNA correctly formed (they can equilibrate) without a ribosome? While I can buy self-replicating RNA kindof, I can't imagine how:
1) It formed in the first place
2) How it acquired chiral, activated precursors
3) How it found more nucleotides to keep going (there are many dead-end reactions, so what)
4) Morph from a simple self-replicating system(and we can't even get these things to self-assemble in the lab) to the first cell that contains RNA and no proteins. Is it alive? Does it metabolize something or use energy? How does this little cell travel to more nutrients when it has no motor proteins?

The RNA world (while there are glimpses of evidence) to me is a placeholder hypothesis of abiogenesis. I have many problems with it.

24. Fury at funeral songs ban

Comment #211864 by squinky on July 16, 2008 at 10:56 am

When I go, it will manditory that all attendees must eat a Carr's rosemary cracker with a slice of cheddar on it and they must drink a sip of Opus One Cabernet 1994.

If there are any Catholics among them, they will instantly convert to atheism because there is no way the Jesus crackers and Maddog 20/20 that they provide could possibly compete with my spread. Let's face it. Jesus was never a very good vintner nor a baker. Perhaps Peter and Paul should have chipped in and sent him to the Roman Culinary Institute.

25. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208344 by squinky on July 10, 2008 at 9:08 pm

President Bruininks,

In spite of the no doubt numerous letters that you've received from 'outraged' Catholics, I strongly urge you to restrain your disciplinary hand towards PZ Myers. While his essay on the communion story is a satirical jab at the prehistoric practice of communion (which after all relies upon transubstantiation and I doubt if he was to mock a psychic's abilities in a blog that we would need to correspond in this manner), it warrants no disciplinary intervention by you or any other officer of the school because:

1) No person was harmed by the boy's actions or PZ's essay.
2) PZ has a 1st amendment right to express his opinion
3) PZ was in no way connected to the communion heist and thus had nothing to do with it except defending a student
4) PZ can educate any student of any religious stripe without bias
5) He's right to defend a student against personal assault from a nun, priest, imam or whoever and against religious zealots who threaten his life over a communion wafer
6) Mass-produced crackers are not Bibles, they are not a stained glass window or a religious painting. They have no value and they have no rights. The "desecration" of a baked good is not a crime, not a sin, not even in bad taste. Would you punish a faculty member for attending a protest and burning an American flag? Then censure half of your faculty born in the 1950s (where were you in 1968?). His point, while not politically correct, is consciousness-raising and important since it underscores why people should have good reasons for their beliefs.

In the spirit of academic debate, multiculturalism, and American freedom, let PZ defend himself publicly. But do nothing. Punishment of someone for a perceived offense is the first step towards oppression and is antithetical to the academic pursuit and a violation of PZ's civil rights (there are no religious rights nor the right not to be offended).

26. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207695 by squinky on July 10, 2008 at 5:48 am

Mordacious,

Hillary doesn't have a twat, she has a cock of impressive dimensions--just ask Bill.

27. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207429 by squinky on July 9, 2008 at 7:20 pm

TO ALL AMERICANS BEMOANING THE LOUSIANA LAW:

Didn't you read?

representatives from six states have taken up the idea. In Florida, Missouri, South Carolina and Alabama, bills were introduced but failed. An academic freedom bill now in committee in Michigan is expected to stall there.

That's in addition to them having their Xtian asses handed to them in Dover.

Stop being cunty! America sans Lousiana is still a better and more free country than any other place on Earth.

28. IT'S A GODDAMNED CRACKER!

Comment #207079 by squinky on July 9, 2008 at 6:54 am

As a young Catholic, I can remember getting that dry piece of cardboard stuck in my mouth which then sticks to the roof of your mouth and compels you into a vow of silence for several minutes (saliva glands work overtime for the Lord).

I remember mouthing it until I could pull it out and inspect it back in the pew. As I remember, it has a cross insignia on it and it looked nothing like human flesh.

Bottom line: communion was the way to make Catholicism palatable to Romans who sacrificed animals to their gods. The trinity was a means of bridging polytheism to monotheism for them too.

29. Degrees of religion

Comment #206543 by squinky on July 8, 2008 at 1:02 pm

...we need to practice tolerance not only towards others but towards ourselves

Please! Isn't self-intolerance (self-loathing) in the top 3 attributes of a religious person? (They confuse it with humility).

only those without sin may cast the first stone

Now a Muslim is quoting the Bible? Well, this little apostate gets better and better. Doesn't the Koran have a parallel passage something like: 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone unless the apostate speaks a Biblical passage whereby they should be gang-raped, disemboweled, and then stoned.'

religion isn't a vehicle for gathering kudos from dogmatic worshippers; it is there as a personal bond between a human being and God

Then why are there churches and mosques? Why men-of-the-cloth or imams or priests or shamans or any other self-proclaimed experts on faith? Why can't people keep the F-n religion to themselves?

As long as a person's actions do not harm anyone and stay within the range of their moral barometer, I think they deserve respect

Hmmm. Let's see. "The moral barometer today in Tehran is reading a balmy 87. Tel Aviv: 84, Jerusalem a roasting 99 (a firestorm is moving into the area), and London is a pleasant 54 but climbing rapidly.

30. Degrees of religion

Comment #206523 by squinky on July 8, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Carto:

Well said, articulate too!

31. Did newborn Earth harbour life?

Comment #203670 by squinky on July 3, 2008 at 10:46 am

I agree--this article is really evidence of very little. Remember the "fossilized bacteria" on the Martian meteorite ALH 84001 that made it into Science? There were probably hundreds of other non-life explanations but no, they jump straight through the line of hoops to conclude LIFE! Hype.

Steve Zara has done his reading on prebiotic life. Speaking as a chemist, the super-hard problem in prebiotic genesis is going from self-replicating molecules to DNA and RNA (now made by enzymes that presumably did not existent on pre-biotic Earth) to DNA and RNA being read by the ribosome to make proteins which then have function (like creating cell membranes, using chemical energy, etc--everything that defines life). DNA and RNA are essentially ticker tape with little to no function. To take this system and then advance to the simplest extremophile prokaryotic cell is a chasm so deep and wide that we don't even have a hypothesis yet of how it might have happened.

32. Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?

Comment #201961 by squinky on June 30, 2008 at 1:25 pm

We're on to something. Atheists as superheroes. Here is my list of X-men (A-men (atheist men?!)):

Sam Harris: Wolverine
Richard Dawkins: Professor Xavier
Dan Dennett: Beast
Christopher Hitchens: Cyclops

Bad Guys:
Pat Robertson: Magneto
Dinesh D'Souza: Green Goblin
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Schmucko
Ted Haggard: Tailgunner
Jerry Falwell: Earthquake
Joel Osteen: Skidmark

33. Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?

Comment #201723 by squinky on June 30, 2008 at 7:32 am

This is a stupid juxtaposition. Why, because they share a birthday? What a great hook for an article (sarcasm).

34. Stephen Hawking's explosive new theory

Comment #201722 by squinky on June 30, 2008 at 7:31 am

Ah, first!

This theory is intellectually gratifying because it starts with no a priori assumptions--it's natural selection from the start at cosmic scale. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to see measurements to codify such a theory.

35. The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Comment #199813 by squinky on June 26, 2008 at 11:33 am

Pure crap. This sounds like a computer scientist's wet dream. I remember computational types saying that after the human genome was sequenced, we'd be able to cure diseases using a computer. Right! Get out of the darkened office, stop staring at the screen, and go get a beer or get laid or something you stupid neckbeards!

36. Band T-shirt draws charge

Comment #199316 by squinky on June 25, 2008 at 2:04 pm

I ask you, what is more offensive:
Jesus is a c*nt (which really harms no one since Jesus is not alive)
OR
Priests engage in child rape and bishops take pains to cover it up.

I think hate speech should apply only to intrinsic human attributes (such as anti-race or anti-gay epithets) not extrinsic things such as beliefs (I hate fucking Nazis, Jesus is a c*nt, IDers blow horses, etc).

37. The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

Comment #196056 by squinky on June 19, 2008 at 8:56 am

SUE THE SCHOOL BOARD!

Don't blame the psychic, the school board is guilty of defamation or discrimination or SOMETHING that you can trump up charges on for listening to a goddamn psychic!

False accusations can be devastating to someone's reputation and this is about as false as it gets. Start some rumors. Say the educational assistant has child porn on her computer. Say that she is a member of a secret vampire cult that practices sado-masachism (see the scratches on her arms?). Say she rough-handled one of the children. Oh and put some shit in the psychic's mailbox just for good measure.

An eye for an eye, not turn the other cheek, I say.

38. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #195768 by squinky on June 18, 2008 at 7:09 pm

Quetz,

Do you really think we can overcome the limits of interstellar distance, radiation, zero-G, and ultrafast space travel to colonize nearby planets?

Rational-G,

I concur. It is exciting. How cool will it be to discover life in our solar system?

39. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #195481 by squinky on June 18, 2008 at 9:59 am

Meso: let's do one more round my friend.

I have no idea where civilization will be in 1000, 10,000 or 1,000,000,000 years.

This, as you say, is the real nonsense. Even though we are a unique species, it is anthropogenic arrogance to think that we will survive longer than the typical few million years of most species on Earth. How well will we do in the next Ice Age? What about the next meteor impact (think Chixulub that wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed us lowly mammals to crawl out from under a rock) or after the next super-volcano (think Yellowstone with a 200 mile across caldera) that will block out sunlight for decades and cause planet-wide extinction and ecosystem crash due to photosynthetic failure?

My main point is that we will be alone in the universe unless we can get proof (not just evidence) of life elsewhere. Intelligent life that can send us a signal is incontrovertible proof. Non-radio-sending life may be out there but we will never know it. I have no doubt that it may be possible to find life on Mars or Europa or elsewhere in our solar system. Panspermia is a tractable theory but only within the solar system because the organic molecules of life won't survive interstellar travel based on their half-lives. That means that life must be created de novo at each location in the galaxy (an extremely rare event I think). Your discussion above exactly frames the problem. We can't even decide whether the methane on Mars is due to planetary phenomena or methanogenic bacteria living there and Mars is our closest neighbor.

The difference between our solar system and extrasolar planets is that we can directly visit, measure, and observe the planets in our solar system but we can't (and I'm damn sure) won't make it to other solar systems. Here's why: Let's say that our best wobble data and spectroscopic analysis finds a water-bearing, Earth-sized planet in the Goldilocks zone with evidence of oxygen 40 light years away (and it better be less than that!). Let's assume you could create a spacecraft that could travel at 0.1 lightspeed (we're talking matter-antimatter fantasy propulsion here). That would take you 400 years to get there. Nevermind the effect of zero-G on human anatomy or the effects of radiation. We can shield that you say? Well, add that mass to your spacecraft and increase the time/energy for the trip. Also, Google "human longevity" and get back to me while you're at it.

View it another way. Here's the headline: "Scientists have just discovered uric acid on Planet X, 32 light years from Earth, which is thought to come from aerosolized bird droppings in the atmosphere just as we can see on Earth from space". There is NO WAY to verify whether this hypothesis is true or not because you can't go there. You can say with strong conviction that Planet X has uric acid but not birds.

Bottom line. Forget the trillions of Earth-like planets out there, it is exceedingly improbable that life spontaneously formed on the few hundred potential planets within 40 light years of us. All we may say in the future is that we have spectroscopic speculative evidence of life on Planet X.

I think the only way to have proof of life outside our solar system is
(A) intelligent life sends us a signal, or
(B) robots eventually visit Planet X and observe life. The rest is just an unverifiable hypothesis.

40. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #194814 by squinky on June 17, 2008 at 9:55 am

We're in speculative territory here but here it goes:
1) I have no doubt that we'll find many Earth-like planets in our neighborhood. Finding evidence that they have life on board seems like a pretty intractable problem unless they send us a signal.
2) I mean ANY self-replicating system.
3) Bottom line: there may well be life out there but we'll never observe evidence of it unless it's intelligent life. Life could be quietly replicating now 73 light years away in a beautiful swamp bog on an Earth-like planet but we'll never know.

If we can't hear ET, then they don't exist?

Then give me your best thought experiment of how to get evidence of mute ET?

I don't believe that in the future, we'll be able to do anything technologically. There are limits such as the speed of light that pretty much relegates us to our solar system. All we can do is look at light spectra and try to peer through nebulae for chemical signatures.

41. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #194767 by squinky on June 17, 2008 at 8:51 am

Nalfesnee wrote:

I do sometimes think that this constant harping on the question "are we alone?", "is there life out there?" is just a remnant of internalized religious sentiment (i.e. we are the sole creations of a big whatsit in the (singular) sky).

Actually, I'm a proponent of the rare Earth scenario. I think that while some building blocks of nucleosides and proteins are common in the astrochemical milieu, their combination to make a self-replicating system that survives and evolves and masters metabolism and packages itself, etc is exceedingly rare--so rare that it can rival the insanely large number of Earth-like planets in the universe.

I say this based on several speculations:
1) we've been hammering on prebiotic chemistry for 60 years and haven't even come close to figuring out how RNA self-assembles or what the first replicators were. This in the era that we can make organism-sized genomes with DNA and RNA in our sleep.
2) We haven't found a self-replicating chemical system on Earth and we've looked in a lot of niches.
3) The hardest step of evolution is step 1: genesis.

Assuming the rare Earth scenario, I think we will always be alone on the Earth for three reasons:
1) we've only been sending radio waves into space for 60 out of 4,600,000,000 years. Life, while it may exist, doesn't transmit it's existence.
2) Space is so vast, we won't "hear" radio waves from intelligent extra-terrestrials from outside our galaxy. That limits SETI to the Milky Way--not the quadrillions of others solar systems out there.
3) SETI has failed to find any evidence yet.

Given my assumptions, if life is out there, it is not intelligent and if it was, we won't ever see evidence of it. Our only chance is to find life on Mars or Europa (or in our solar system). The rest I'm afraid reeks of science fiction.

42. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #194657 by squinky on June 17, 2008 at 6:24 am

Quetz,

I'm with you. It's almost a first step that for a replicator to bag itself inside a membrane and copy itself it would need a constant and accessible chemical energy source. My own favorite niche is terrestrial volcanic or geothermal pools (or deep in mineral laden rock) while getting energy from methane or hydrogen sulfide or metal redox reactions (all proteins and DNA/RNA have metals associated with them). These boiling pots of rich (and concentrated) chemicals appear to fit the bill.

The problem with origin of life near the sea bottom hydrothermal vents is dilution of replicator components (it's a killer for me) as well as it presumes there was a big ocean or sea to bubble around in and our evidence is that the early Earth had little to no water in the beginning and it arrived via comets after Earth cooled enough. Chemical soup with organic molecules (maybe even from comet impacts in an active volcanic region) seem most logical to me.

43. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #194641 by squinky on June 17, 2008 at 5:59 am

Babrock,

The extraterrestrial extremophile theory is intriguing but not necessarily true. The problem is that since we don't know where the first replicators and ultimately first cells appeared on the Earth, we can't assume they would resemble Earth's hardy extremophiles. Many extremophiles on Earth appeared later in evolutionary time (hot area of research) thus they may have been mild prokaryotic bacteria that evolved to fill the extreme niche and didn't start there (or maybe they did). Clearly giant tube worms and crabs living on boiling hydrothermal vents didn't start there.

44. Astronomers find batch of 'super-Earths'

Comment #194099 by squinky on June 16, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Moderndaythomas,

Your albatross analogy is wishful thinking. This bird doesn't lay eggs on the wind nor incubate them on a zephyr. The little hatchlings don't parachute around in little eggshells until their wings have strengthened to glide and not flap.

Until we understand how self-replicating molecules formed on the early Earth and where (assuming we ever do), the 'Goldilocks Zone' should be amended to the 'Bollocks Zone'. All the GZ means is that liquid water is present. So! Let's talk self-replicating RNA or how to create a working cell before we skip several billion steps to arrive at the impressively adapted Jovean Waterbird that effortlessly glides through hydrogen gas.

45. Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars

Comment #193847 by squinky on June 16, 2008 at 6:11 am

SAVE YOUR MONEY. Don't buy the article.
Here are some clarifications

To Mordacious and Backfriend:
Life on earth (replicating via enzymes) selects for carbon-12 over carbon-13 to make its molecules. This means all biologically derived carbon is much more enriched in C-12 than C-13 than the natural abundance ratio of 99:1. The reason for this is called the 'isotope effect'. Heavier isotopes make chemical reactions slower and nature has managed to use C-12 to maintain uniform rates of reactivity in chemical transformations involving carbon.

Sent2null: The problem of oceanic nucleobase formation is one of dilution. Chemical reactions drop off in an inverse square with volume. That's not to say it can't happen, actually it's quite likely to happen in hydrothermal vents or volcanic cauldrons or deep in rock where organic molecules can concentrate (not dilute) and undergo chemistry. The open ocean notion is a non-starter. Remember that almost all the Earth's water was delivered by comets (dirty snowballs coated with oily organic muck) so early on, there were no oceans.

46. Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars

Comment #193837 by squinky on June 16, 2008 at 5:53 am

American Godless is correct. Nucleobase formation in space is trivial compared to the chemistry to form nucleosides (ribose sugar plus nucleobase) or especially their polymerization (via phosphate backbone) to make strands of RNA (or DNA).

The killer chicken and egg is this: how did nucleobases combine with enantiomerically pure ribose (4 chiral centers) or deoxyribose (3 chiral centers) when all sugars are made by enzymes (also chiral) that are ultimately coded for by DNA/RNA? This is the hard problem and WAY harder still is how did they polymerize? Making strands of DNA and RNA in a soup does NOT happen (scientists have looked for years) and in fact, primordial elements of the "wrong chirality" are known to inhibit the polmerization of life-forming, "right" RNA. The meteoric nucleobase evidence is a QED. It's irrefutable evidence that astrochemistry includes making the simple, non-chiral pieces of our DNA/RNA.

47. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #192486 by squinky on June 13, 2008 at 7:02 am

A very cogent and well-written review.

There is no better way to finish off intelligent design than to gut Demski and other leading IDers' illogic with the razor-sharp blade of hard science.

48. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191028 by squinky on June 10, 2008 at 6:07 am

This just shows you how hard the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have it. Can you imagine shooting a 14 year old that approaches your checkpoint? A little kid?

If I was such a soldier, I would hesitate and I would end up dead. I can't capture with words just how sick and perverted the imams are. Any imam that commands a child to murder others in this way because they don't have the balls to fight themselves should be executed and their mosque dynamited (with no one inside of course).

49. The Great Evangelical Decline

Comment #188776 by squinky on June 4, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Lucas: good point but atheists (perhaps not very recently) are also in decline worldwide. I'm a believer in memetics over genetics. People are born into religion but can change their opinions in less than a generation. Conversion to evolution over creation is generally one-directional (except for the occasional whacko like Francis Collins).

We ARE right and I hope the correct scientific answer begins to sweep America and that religious influence starts to seriously subside. We have catalysts like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris that reignited the fuse. Religious scandals definitely erodes their 'moral high ground' and makes a strong case for humanists.

50. Synthetic Copycat Of Living Cell Underway: Life, But Not As We Know It?

Comment #186593 by squinky on May 30, 2008 at 7:36 pm

Sounds like more hype than science.

The breakthrough could have a number of potential medical uses. Among them could be the development of new targeted drug delivery systems, where the capsules would be used to carry drug molecules to attack specific diseased cells in the body, while leaving healthy cells intact, thereby reducing the number of side affects that can be associated with treatments for life-threatening illnesses such as cancer. The technology could also be used as an anti-microbial agent, allowing doctors to destroy harmful bacteria, without attacking other health-promoting bacteria in the body, which could offer a new weapon in the fight against superbugs.

Sigh! Whatever polymer-fantasy-molecular transfer man