Evolution, Big Bang Polls Omitted From NSF Report - ScienceInsider

Evolution, Big Bang Polls Omitted From NSF Report - ScienceInsider

In an era of diminishing returns, statisticians can be clever knowing (of course) that the number never lie. Don't like the skewing? Omit the factors that cause the skew et voilà ce sera parfait! In order to avoid the problem of religious objections to science and better yet avoid having to address his, the

National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says it chose to leave the section out of the 2010 edition of the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs.

What an unpleasant taste this precedent leaves. I guess if you omit the horrific rate in which the US incarcerates its citizens, executes them and foreign nationals, dumbs down sexual education programmes, it is indeed the best country in the world. Just set some more comprehensive accountancy at toil and it will be perfect. Perhaps re-write history books whilst we're at it: Let Texas lead the way!

(Thanks to the Barefoot Bum for the tip on the story.)

CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

We like the CBC, we do. We do not, however, like how comments on stories so frequently breakdown as follows:

1. Relevant comment.
2. Tangential comment.
3. Racist screed.
4. Racist screed and with added typos for fibre.
5. Ridiculous leftest counter claims.
6.+ More of the same.

This is an important, significant story for all modern liberal democracies. But there's a snag you see, it is not a simple thing, one minor on/off switch and the problem is solved or dissolved. There are really important issues (plural) here: religious freedom, secularism, women's right, individual choice and autonomy, provincial rights, states/federal rights... Not to mention that the law in question has merely been proposed. Why was this woman expelled? What will come of this?

High Art

Banksy is an artist and provocateur and we love him for it. Not enough perhaps to invite him to mural our Very Special Secret Location, mind, but we love him nonetheless. What is most heretical about Banksy is how he elicits such extremes: those who would decry his work as mere vandalism, low brow, ineffectual, trite, or worst of all insipid. And then there are those who are convinced his is the hand of new art, the most important living artist.

We look forward to this documentary.

Quote of the Week: Sex Geek [on Avatar of all things]

Generally speaking, when it comes to controversy, I don’t believe in the bizarrely prized activist strategies of a) removing yourself from the conversation (symbolic walk-outs, door slamming, etc.) – because then, the only people left having the conversation are the ones who don’t see what the problem is, or b) criticizing (or buying into other people’s criticism) of things without evaluating the evidence for yourself. I’m all for people having strong opinions, but strong uninformed opinions are just not cool, in my books. Plus, I think that as activists, we need to challenge ourselves to see, read, hear and experience things that make us uncomfortable so that we are forced to question and strengthen our opinions and strategies based on our own perceptions rather than those fed to us.

---- Sex Geek, "Keeping an Eye on the Mainstream."

Heretical Outing ce soir / Word of the Week: p, s, e

Mr. The Engineer and I are going to see an art show at Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal this evening.

I've wanted to see it for sometime and this is the last weekend so it is now or never. The artist is John William Waterhouse a favourite of a good friend of mine. I like his work, although not to the level of a gushing fanboy (not to disparage too strongly the aforementioned friend). His favourite piece is Godspeed. Perhaps you are more familiar O Constant Reader, with Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott.

A different friend was here at Our Secret Location for lunch and heated discussion (who would have thought that Christopher Hitchens could possible elicit vitriol?) and mentioned, with high praise, that she had gone to the show on cheap Wednesday.

(Note how the main page has a clock counting down the end of the show. In an otherwise tasteful high end musée, it seems a bit tacky. All that is missing is harsh repetitive voice over SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY the LAST DAY DAY DAY FOR WATERHOUSE WATERHOUSE WATERHOUSE! etc. etc.)

*

The Word for this Week is inspired by the exhibit.

Sortilège

Which is French for magic spell or spellbinding. Obviously derived from sor- roots in Latin. It is also an archaic English word (borrowed directly from French) for magical drawing of lots. Also a Canadian Whiskey. How cool is that?

Peut-être

So I posted the following video elsewhere--You know for the LOLz-- after having been introduced to the English version and feeling Canadian, Québécois enough to warrant posting la version française. Comme ça:



Which elicited the comment from an American poster: La version [sic] Quebecoise [sic], peut-etre? Which seems thematic of my experience with Americans regarding Québec French: there always seems to be the implication that Québec French is somehow inauthentic. Flawed. Less correct. Now language legitimacy, purity and correctness are complex, spiky, issues particularly among the French (there are two formal language academies, which frequently disagree). Which leads me to the following question:

Mes chers amis américains, s'il vous plaît quelqu'un pourrait expliquer le problème que vous avez avec le Québec français? SRSLY. Quel est l'intérêt? What's up with that, yo?

It seems to me, whenever I am in the US or speaking French with my American colleagues, friends and acquaintances, this issue is brought up. Sometimes in jest. Sometimes sincerely. One even argued for the position because "they don't even use the liason phonetique in Québec." I of course objected strenuously because that is demonstrably untrue.

Is this just the vanity of American intellectuals, aping Parisienne arrogance?

With regards to the video itself, it purports to be from "The Republic of Bacon" ("La République du Bacon"), which apparently has two official languages, neither of which makes sense to have a regional designation, other than the already present ambiguity of French and English being both adjectives for ethnicity/nationality and language.

W o t W: Lugubrious (P, S)

The Word for this Week is

Lugubrious

...Is an excellent word because it sounds like it means. It is like emotional onomatopoeia; especially if you draw out the vowels. I came across it in Richard Dawkins' newest book, The Greatest Show on Earth (p190) in the following quote describing a colleague W. D. Hamilton:

"he had a lugubrious manner reminiscent of A. A. Milne's Eeyore (not the deplorable Walt Disney version, of course)." When stung by a wasp "knowing what a great entomologist he was, his companion said, 'Bill, do you know the name of that wasp?' 'Yes,' Bill murmured gloomily in his most Eeyoreish voice. 'As a matter of fact it's named after me.'"

Lugubrious is meaningful and phonetically pleasing. Use it sparingly to avoid sounding pretentious like me, but oh do use it.

DOCTOR WHO

We at HERESY love DOCTOR WHO. Not in a sick way, but definitely in an ALMOST you-are-a-creepy-fanboy way. SRSLY. You should see my scarf: it's 30' long.

So in the honour of the dearly departed 10th and the soon to be reigning 11th, I refer you to the following blogs and links.

Start here with a great retrospective of the series' many, many logos. I spent an hour plus refinding this link so you can bet I'm gunna post it everyfuckingwhere! "Doctor Who logos retrospective" nice analysis too.

Here's a simpler one from The Guardian without the witty commentary.

And this one, in the Wikipedian style box featuring the current incarnation in the centre.

For the record the 1974 variant immediately below, from the 4th Doctor's era, is our favourite and the official favourite of HERESY.



From the commentary: "Making it blue binds it definitively with the TARDIS. That TARDIS won't be part of the design again until the latest effort."

And with sounds, there is of course Youtube wankery. We like the following video homage though it comes short (2009), I like the blending of the various theme music.

Q:"What sort of spending would you like cut?" A:"All of it. ALL of it."

And let's be clear here it is more than just the average stupidity of people, indeed it is the tu quoque fallacy to merely to argue, "Oh well, you'd see stupid liberals/Obama supporters/left-wingers too" yet not address the underlying problem: Sarah Palin is anti-intellectual, anti-science and cultivates the ignorance seen above. Even John McCain countered such blatant xenophobia during his campaign.

Citing from the poster's sidebar on YouTube: "no politician has emerged on the national stage as undefined and unqualified as Sarah Palin, and her public persona--which is anti-intellectual by definition--discourages substance. Instead, we get winking. One could hardly imagine her giving a complex speech about race in America, or speaking eloquently about our country's relations with Islam. Not just because she couldn't write such a speech (Obama has speech-writers, of course) but because she wouldn't--such necessarily academic discussion is antithetical to the persona she's created for herself and that her supporters have come to love."

And to save y'all from having to read the damn thing read Neil Macdonald's review of Going Rogue on CBC instead.

I think it is interesting that the gentleman in the camo/hunting clothes is lamenting the end of American Exceptionalism. Perhaps I am far too left-wing to understand, but when one nation dominates another, or all others, that's a hegemony and tends not to benefit the world but that nation all but exclusively. Why would that ending be a bad thing? Oh yeah. Americans.

(I love how my spell checker finds both "Palin" and "Obama", yet not McCain, to be incorrect.)

Embedding disabled by request: The Fake Scandal of the Copyright

This is wonderful. Even more so since the fake scandal over the "accidental" release of Lily Allen's cover of Britney Spear's "Womanizer", available here: Embedding disabled by request (or not). I do think, however, it is perhaps noteworthy that the original "accidental" copyright-infringingly released version is less produced and thus better. What's the word? It's almost sincere.



How crass and disingenuous.

"Quick! Dilute it again!" "That's strong stuff."

Best. Mr. Deity. Ever.

I love how P Zed Myers gets credited as PZ "Zed" Myers. You know this O Constant ListenerZ, I called him that FIRST! Listen to the back episodes.

The final joke (with the banana) is an allusion to The Atheist's Nightmare "unintentional creationist humour" of Kirk Cameron and the Way of the Master.

Cthulhu on High

Dr. P Zed Myers and Joe.My.God. have both been following the ridiculous mess that is the painting of Jesus delivering the US Constitution. I'm not going to give you the link because I really don't want to have to find it again. It is widely available. Sadly. Instead I'll give you my favourite of the parodies featuring Cthulhu. (Dr. Myers and I both love squidy goodness).

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn... Not anymore. It seems he's up and about. And much shorter than I imagined.



In offer this image in the true spirit of l'Action de Grâce or [Canadian] Thanksgiving.

"Transparency: The Rise of Atheism in America"

Okay there are a heap of issues with the interpretation of the very raw unqualified data, but I like the info graphic and the the atheist as the buxom bartender is actually kinda witty. At least the image is pretty?

(Brought to my attention by the amazing Pharyngula master himself, P Zed Myers. But from here originally.)

Dan Choi should run for something as he is technically unemployed.

A great speaker, a smart man, multilingual, charming, articulate, natural leader and fired for being a gay homosexual, on the tail end of [now Multi-] National Coming Out Day we at Heresy Qubec want to salute a neighbour to the south, Dan Choi. This is a great speech given at the address to the 250,000+ at the LGBT National Equality March in Washington, DC (this afternoon, the 11th of October, 2009). 안녕하십니까? 최 선생님. (Annyonghashimnikka? Choi Sonsaengnim.)

Bitchy Androids, Bitchier Actors who play them

Continuing with source citations from "Episode 8: Linguaphiles attend," here is one of the contextual quotes that lead to a discussion of a certain bitchy gold robot as portrayed by an apparently equally bitchy actor. (The source is here.)

In a recent interview with Kenny Baker (R2-D2)

INTERVIEWER: Did you get on with fellow robot actor Anthony Daniels?

KENNY BAKER: Not really. I thought it was just me he didn't get on with but recently I've found out he doesn't get on with anyone. He's been such an awkward person over the years. If he just calmed down and socialised with everyone, we could make a fortune touring and making personal appearances. I've asked him four times now but, the last tiime, he looked down his nose at me like I was a piece of *beep* He said: 'I don't do many of these conventions - go away little man.' He really degraded me and made me feel small - for want of a better expression. He's rude to everyone though, including the fans.

*Gasp*:(

Has C3PO turned to the dark side?

I also mentioned, as Quote of the Week, the nastier Daniels comment that appeared on Wikipedia and mentioned that it had further been extracted therefrom. I'm too lazy to crawl through the innards of the talk page. But the expurgated version is here.

Okay, I'm a little too obsessive. The edit is after the Revision as of 19:51, 16 September 2009

Arising from Episode 8: Linguaphiles attend

How awesome are these images? Really, The Scream? The Doom Spikes are an instant fail because I love them and totally would want to visit.

(From the article here. A more detailed look at the subject is here complete with more amazing images and thoughtful passages many of which I read on the Podcast.)