Political Science

Let's say that you wanted to be
on the right's "science" committee.
The first rule of thumb:
learn how to act dumb
and keep your opinions fact-free.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have released the list of members who are on the House Science Committee, and the results would be amusing if it weren't so damned scary. Among those announced are two Representatives who have been covered here before, Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun.

These are the people who will be shaping science legislation for the next two years.

Yikes.

Everything You Know Is Wrong

The war on knowledge has begun.
What we thought we knew now's undone.
I believed a bit,
then realized it's shit
because real science has been shunned.

Attention Time Cube guy: A new challenger has arrived!

The Quest for Right is a series of seven textbooks that purports to

"represent the ultimate marriage between 

in-depth knowledge of biblical phenomena and 

natural and physical sciences"

A glimpse at parts of Volume 1 shows the level of sheer idiocy to which the author has sunk. It truly is an escape from reality, and a triumphant refutation of everything science has learned over the years.

Evidence Is Lies

Idiocy seems to be winning.
The creationists are grinning.
Science is losing.
Let's all keep boozing:
There's new polls about beginnings.


According to a Gallup poll released June 1st, 46% of Americans believe that we were created exactly as we are.

It makes Leakey's prognostication seem a little sillier.

It's All Relative...

Since energy's equal to mass
times light squared, as I learned in class,
does that mean Andy's
mass will be increased
by the speed his head's shoved up his ass?

Andy Schlafly is not your normal, run of the mill idiot. He's a special kind of dumb. Andy is the "mind" behind Conservapedia, which bills itself as "The Trustworthy Enclyopedia". FSTDT brings us a quote of his, which seems to exemplify the neo-conservative mandate of waking each morning vowing "Today, I will learn nothing!".

"The problem is that E=mc2 does not meaning anything that makes sense. Anyone is welcome to try to explain it here. Eating a pound of cake does not cause one's energy to increase by the speed of light squared."

Andy Schlafly

Truly, this is a stupid that is willful, an ignorance to which one must aspire, a blithering idiocy that one must strive to attain. This is not a statement that a thinking person makes. This is the statement of a person who works diligently to remain at the forefront of ludicrous foolishness.

Scopes, Mark 2

Tennessee, known for its hooch,
has given the fundies a smooch.
They've shown that they see
facts are secondary.
Creation will be taught as truth.

The Scopes Monkey Trial was one of the most famous court trials in the history of the USA. In 1925, John Scopes was, ultimately, found guilty of teaching evolution in the classroom in violation of the law.

Here we are in 2012, banging our heads against the same wall. Science has proved, irrefutably, that evolution has occurred. Any other argument is a lie. Any person who says that there is a controversy in the science is a liar. Tennessee has allowed a bill to be passed into law that indulges the liars to let anti-science rhetoric into the classrooms in the state.

I am disappointed in the governor for not vetoing the bill. As a cynic, however, I am not surprised.

She Blinded Me...

If you think the Koran is true,
then do what real scientists do:
Observe and then test.
Don't just make a guess,
don't count on what your "prophet" knew.

PZ tells a story about Islamic "science", in which the words of the Prophet Muhammad are subject to the scientific method. The issue, however, is that if you were to use shoddy science, you could prove anything, from a fly being dipped twice in a drink curing the diseases it carries to the existence of extra-terrestrials building the Egyptian pyramids.

Michael Behe Is A Moron

Behe is causing me pain
Intelligence he often feigns.
Explain to me, please
how he walks and sees
with such a less evolved brain.

Michael Behe is an idiot. It is a tribute to the tolerance, patience and freedoms allotted to him that he is allowed to continue to spew his uninformed lies to the masses and claim it as "science". I'm not the smartest man on the planet. I don't have a college degree. I write limericks. But, and here's the important distinction, I am not a moron. I will not lie about or distort scientific findings to try and prop up an idea about the main deity of a bronze-age, desert dwelling goat herder. If I am shown to be wrong about a statement or a belief I hold, then I am willing to change it. That's what makes me different than a serial liar like Michael Behe.

Nothing is more or less evolved than any other thing. Because we are more complex than an amoeba does not mean we are "more evolved". That's a trap that most people fall into, if they don't really understand what evolution truly is.

Get educated about evolution.

Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking!

His mind always leaves us gawking.
His theories have everyone talking.
The universe does
make more sense because
the brilliance of Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday today. His mind is one of the greatest to ever grace our fair planet, and his contributions to our understanding of it are almost unparalleled.

Beer brings together minds of all sizes.

Dick Perry Is At It Again

Climate Change, again on trial
because Dick is still in denial.
Scientists pull their names
because they have brains.
And Dick's is a steaming pile.

Every scientist associated with an environmental report have asked that their names be taken off that report after every reference to climate change and sea level rise were scrubbed by appointees of Dick Perry. They have gone from sticking their fingers in their ears going "la la la la" to actively lying to people about the science.

Great job, Dick.

The Long, Long, Long, Long Goodbye

When you know that all you see
will be nothing, eventually
It'll make you mad.
You'll think you've been had.
Please die in a fire, entropy.

Entropy has always seemed to me to be the most...insufficient end to such a wonderful, glorious universe.

Could God Create An Alien So Bizarre Even Kirk Wouldn't Have Sex With It?

Whenever your childhood ends
most people set a few trends.
They might find a job
grow up and move on
and give up invisible friends.

This may sound a little bit weird,
but I hope someday it is clear.
We'll find evidence
of intelligence
'cause there's fuck all of it here.

Religious "thinkers" have determined that, if we were to come across intelligent life ion the universe, they would believe in the same gods we have. Because nothing says "moving the goalposts" than cramming deities into what little gaps are left in our scientific knowledge.

Link

Denial Is Still A River In Egypt

How long can they still deny
the climate is going awry?
The world's transforming:
It's clear there is warming
but the liars still spread their lies.

Regardless of what the facts say, or how much evidence is presented, there are still some that say the climate is not changing. I call them liars.

He Knows The Birds In The Fields?

They say a new specie was found
and the meaning of it is profound.
Darwin's theory still weighs
so strong to this day.
Evolution, you see, still abounds.

Scientists have discovered genetic evidence that a new species of sparrow has evolved recently. This really does put the lie to creationism, or the "Intelligent Design" idiocy. Of course, the next lie from that camp will be to say that god or whatever intelligence is in charge put it there, but having genetic evidence kinda nips that in the bud.

Science, Judged.

Can't see the future? You're liable.
This court's missed the point by a mile.
The law gets abused
and then we all lose
Whenever there's science on trial

Scientists in Italy are going on trial for manslaughter, because they didn't predict an earthquake in 2009. A lawyer for one of the scientists is worried that, because the trial will be held in the city most affected, there is a chance that his client might be convicted. Although scientists worldwide have signed statements that support the Italians, people seem to think that science is ruled by laws that don't actually exist.

Hubble Captures Birth Of A Star

Stuck in a midweek malaise?
You might be wasting your days.
Captured from afar:
The birth of a star!
Hubble can really amaze!

Source: NASA

What you are seeing here is a 13 year time lapse animation of outgassing caused by the formation of a star, as captured by Hubble. The scale in the bottom right denotes distance in astronomical units, the mean distance between the Sun and Earth. For a sense of scale, the orbit of Neptune is 30AU.

This is an image of a proto-star near the Orion Nebula. What we see is gas, moving at over 700,000 kph, running into slower moving materiel.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/supersonic-jets.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/08/31/140087297/hubble-captures-time-lapse-videos-of-stars-being-born

The Curative Power of Water Is No Match For My Taunting!

Homeopathy's back in the news
Of fraud, Boiron's been accused
I more than suspect
it has no effect
You don't like it? You can just sue.

Their flu "remedy" is a hoax
it "cures" you by mirrors and smoke
There's nothing that works.
So stop being jerks!
or another taunt you'll provoke.

Mass con-artist and water-manufacturer Boiron is suing an Italian blogger for libel after he said that its product oscillococcinum had "no active ingredient" . I have a response for Boiron:

Sue me.

I have no legal resources. I am easy prey for you to test out your mighty legal machine. Your products are shams of the worst sort, and you make your money by lying to people. You market false hope, and sucker in those people who don't know any better. They don't know any better BECAUSE YOU LIE TO THEM.

So sue me. Prove to the world the veracity of your claims by bringing them into open court. If your product does what is claimed, then you should have no fears about proving that it works as you say, and the mechanisms by which it works. Easy for you to do, no?

Pictured: Water and lies.

Science Works When You Let It

If you have a church alliance
and you want to teach science
and you start to act
like genetics is fact
You'll get released for noncompliance.

A tenured professor at Calvin College has vacated his position because he dared to say that science, in fact, exists. Apparently he published a paper saying that the genetic evidence would preclude humanity growing from only 2 people.

Thanks For Everything, Jenny!

Jenny McCarthy was heeded.
Now vaccinations, though needed
have been eschewed.
Will illness ensue?
Her folly, it seems, has succeeded.

In Miami-Dade county they've got
a quarter, almost, kids un-shot.
The kids aren't to blame,
They're part of this game.
But they'll reap what their parents have bought.

23% That's how many children in Miami-Dade county have not been vaccinated prior to school starting. That number is disgusting, and all anti-vax people should be ashamed of themselves.

On Martian Aquifers and Noachian Submersion

NASA says "Water's on Mars!"
to some that might sound bizarre.
Though no one asked how
a creationist found
a reason how it got so far.

Four-thousand (or so) years ago
God, unto Noah did bestow
a pair of each kind,
a seafaring mind
and escape from the status quo.

Hurlbut has a new theory
Though the math isn't real clear, he
says that the liquid
not maybe but DID
came from the Earth. Now I'm weary.

The water on Mars is because
the Earth once suffered a flood.
Wait! How can that be?
Oh. I think I see...
He's as dense as a big bag of spuds.

NASA has indeed discovered evidence that suggests briny water is flowing on Mars. This is really neat science, and we do not yet understand all of the mechanics of the Martian water cycle. But this...oh this is soooo not the answer.

Terry Hurlbut is described as "a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years", as well as, apparently, an astrophysicist, geologist and a specialist in hydraulics and hydrodynamics. I claim to be none of those things. I am just a reasonably intelligent guy, with at least some grasp on how physics works in the real world. And they don't work that way, Terry.

And if you wish to discuss it here, I won't moderate to keep out any tough questions I can't answer.




Hat tip to FSTDT for the link

Shocking

Storm's coming in, you're outside?
Head into the house - run and hide!
That's what poor Fred did,
he ran and he hid
but found himself electrified

Poor Fred Waters. Standing in his home, enjoying a passing summer storm, then lightning hits him. Is no place safe from the evils of nature?