Grant Rants

Archive for the ‘science’ Category

Scientists are awesome!!

- May 13th, 2013

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

Just a couple videos for your entertainment, highlighting the recent awesome of scientists Commander Chris Hadfield and his music video from the ISS and biologist Richard Dawkins awesome Hitchslapesque comment on the utility of the scientific method.

Canadian Space Oddity

 

Science works…bitches.

The stupid, it burns: Dante’s ghostly criticism edition

- December 6th, 2012

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

One of the unavoidable effects of being a journalist, particularly one who also writes opinion column, particularly one who criticizes religion, is that one gets his fair share of hate mail and critics. Par for the course.

On occasion the criticism is thoughtful. I have had, for example, a long running conversation/debate with a reader by email on the subject of god and religion. We don’t agree with each other much, but our exchanges are lively and interesting. More often, however, the criticism comes from those who take shelter in the anonymity the internet provides, taking pot shots from the dark, never having the courage to voice their opinions in the same light of public consumption as the journalist does.

Case in point is a blogger who calls himself Dante Alighieri after the titan of poetry and theology. (Ironically, the blogger claims to be a non-believer. The real Dante most certainly was.) But since this fellow’s name certainly isn’t Dante, I’ve decided give him a random name. I’ve settled on Sean.

Sean is not a fan of mine and recently devoted a blog entry to what I presume he believes is some manner of rhetorical take down of me and my work.

Normally, I would not bother replying in detail, but Sean’s effort isn’t particularly long and mirrors some common criticism of not only myself, but other writers who publicly take exception to the efforts of the theoretically minded. And since he wanted to bring down the thunder by calling me out on Twitter, here we go:

“In a small local paper belonging to the QMI Corp. there is a regular columnist who exemplifies the worst of the fundamentalists, he rails against those whose ideas differ from his, mocks their ideas and world view, wishes their banishment from public view, wants their views suppressed, by the state if necessary, and calls them all types of names. His views seem to be supported by a large cast of “me too’ers” who join him in his vitriolic campaign.”

While I will often criticize religion, most often when religious activity attempts to shoe horn dogma into science class, attack the rights of other citizens, or claim a special status over others, I have never once called the suppression of anyone’s views – not even fans of Glee – even when they disagree with my own. In fact, the opposite is the case.

I’ve argued against creationism, using public schools as religious soap boxes, faith healing, religious attacks on homosexuals, gay marriage and women, the violence of jihadists ranging from honour killings to terrorism, suppression of free speech by religious groups and Scientology. Never, in any of that, have I once called for the suppression of free speech.

I am fairly certain that I have taken a much more strident view on free speech publicly than Sean has. I’ve done it several times. My opinion is  a long standing matter of public record. I have long argued that free speech is as close to sacrosanct an idea as there is. I have, on many occasions, argued that the state’s ability to limit free speech ought to be extremely limited and, as regular readers of my column will know, I like to drive the point home using an excellent quote from Noam Chomsky:

“Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”

So while I will take up the argument against unwarranted religious intrusion into our public institutions, mock end of the worlders, and insist that dogma does not belong in a science class, I have never called for the state to shut up the religious. In fact, as recently as September, I defended the right to free speech of that Christian zealot who made the idiotic anti-Islam YouTube video that triggered all manner of violence in the middle east. I pointed out an idea that has been well known in secular circles since the 19th century that says  you do not throw away free speech because some people, in this case radical Muslims, start an orgy of violence, even if the speech in question was stupid on the highest order. You combat bad speech with more speech, not censorship and violence.

So, sorry Sean, but you rather missed the boat there.

NEXT!

 I watch with amusement as he rants and raves against their intolerance and bigotry, unaware that he is acting in the same way that he accuses others of being. He is, not a religious bigot of the Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church type, but of the new fundamentalist type, the atheist fundamentalist.

Ah, yes the claim that the atheist is a “fundamentalist” or a “militant.”

This too, fall well short of the mark. Fundamentalism, originally a term used by a brand of American evangelical Christianity, got it’s name because believers wanted to get back to the “fundamentals” of their faith. Because this involved a belief in Biblical inerrancy (including literal belief in a six day creation, the dead rising from the grave, miracles and several, non-textual beliefs regarded as so important they cannot be questioned) the term “fundamentalist” has become a kind of pejorative to describe any religious person who interprets their religious texts this way and then acts accordingly. Today, this mostly refers to some stripes of Christianity and Islam, though that is probably a limited view.

At their best, fundamentalists are intolerant bigots, obsessed with making sure gay people can never marry, women have little or no say over their bodies or that science is replaced by bronze age theology.

At their worst, fundamentalists murder abortion doctors, fly planes into sky scrappers, throw acid into the faces of little girls in Afghanistan for imagined crimes, and generally seek to find new and exciting ways to murder non-believers.

So what exactly is an “atheist fundamentalist?” The term makes no sense. There are no texts that are regarded as so important they cannot be challenged, no idea so invincible that it cannot be questioned, no argument so powerful that it can never be discussed.  Although being compared to Fred Phelps, you don’t see atheists protesting at military funerals, advocating the death of others, or the tearing down of democratic institutions. I certainly have never made any similar arguments.

“Fundamentalists” atheists write books and articles and advance arguments, with which others can agree or disagree. The worst of religious fundamentalists blow up buildings. The difference is not trivial, Sean.

Or it can be put this way:

Fundamentalists: believe 2+2 =5 because It Is Written. Somewhere. They have a lot of trouble on their tax returns.

“Moderate” believers: live their lives on the basis that 2+2=4. but go regularly to church to be told that 2+2 once made 5, or will one day make 5, or in a very real and spiritual sense should make 5.

“Moderate” atheists: know that 2+2 =4 but think it impolite to say so too loudly as people who think 2+2=5 might be offended.

“Militant” atheists: “Oh for pity’s sake. HERE. Two pebbles. Two more pebbles. FOUR pebbles. What is WRONG with you people?”

NEXT!

He seems to be offended by anyone who publicly states a belief in any sort of god-like entity, but really focuses his attention on those of the Christian faith. You never see him slagging or criticizing those of the Islamic faith. Although if you question him on it, he will respond with “well those too, as well”. He dislikes people who pray near him or open meetings with a prayer, place in public places symbols of their faith; mangers at Christmas etc.

I have said, in several columns that no one has a right not to be offended. I cannot recall a single instance where I have ever said I was “offended” by someone who publicly states religious belief. In fact my criticism is almost exclusively focused upon religious groups who attempt to hijack public institutions, such as public schools or elected houses of government or the courts.

Given my views on free speech, it would be odd indeed to get offended by public statements of faith. Nor have I taken exception to prayers in public meetings. In fact, I only once addressed the issue of prayer in government meetings when Premier Dalton McGuinty argued that it was time to dump the Lord’s Prayer from Queen’s Park. I agreed. Our elected houses are not churches and temples. They are secular and, as McGuinty correctly pointed out, should stay that way.  The business of government has nothing to do with appealing to one god or another, saving souls, or whatever else religions are up to. QED. We have lots of temples and churches for that sort of thing.

On the issue of “never” criticizing Islam, it’s pretty clear that Sean hasn’t really being read the Grant Rant. I have devoted considerable ink criticizing Islam on a number of fronts. I wrote extensively about the case of Muslim students in Toronto attempting to suppress free speech by using the human rights courts to silence a McLean’s Magazine writer. I have written several critical columns about the Taliban, the theocratic government in Afghanistan and the deplorable treatment of women and girls in Muslim countries.

NEXT!

He attacks the Christian through Human Rights complaints and court cases complaining that he is made uncomfortable by the actions and beliefs of the religious.

I have never, ever, used the human rights tribunal system in this province. EVER. For any reason. In point of fact, I have been a long standing critic of the human rights tribunals in Canada. For the most part, they have been used by religious groups, principally Muslims who have attempted to use the system to prevent public criticism of their religion. In Canada, atheists are not arriving to the tribunals in droves in order to shut down religious activities. Locally, the only such case was a Grimsby man who doesn’t want the Gideons to use his child’s school as a forum to win converts. And I quite agree.  It had nothing to do with being “uncomfortable” with religious belief, but a Christian group wanting the right to try and convert grade school students.

In point of fact, I have argued against the very thing Sean says I endorse – banning religion. I’ve argued, rather, that we shouldn’t shelter people, including school children, from the religious views of our world.

NEXT!

Now, I haven’t been in a church in over 20 years and that was for a wedding of a in-law. I couldn’t name more that 4 books of the bible, and have no beliefs in a “greater spirit”. Yet I don’t get palpitations when I hear someone professing a belief in a god, nor do I get cold sweats at the sign of a crucifix/cross in a public area, the sight of a manger on a city hall lawn at Christmas does not send me into uncontrollable spasms of rage. But for the Atheist Fundamentalist, all of the above seems to be a daily occurrence.

Oh Sean, this is not the sort of thing one should be proud of, especially for someone who claims wants to channel the memory of Dante! I don’t believe in any of the supernatural claims of the Bible, but I have read it several times. Being ignorant of it isn’t a badge of honour. Believe in the faith or not, there is no denying that the Bible is a key book of western history. Putting religion aside, you cannot hope to understand major works of literature if you don’t understand the Bible. Moby Dick and Hamlet, for example, are replete with Biblical references. Dante’s Divine Comedy makes no sense without knowing the Bible. The writers of these books, and many, many others, assume their audience has a working knowledge of the Bible.

To have not read the Bible is like not having read Homer or Shakespeare. One cannot claim to be culturally and historically literate unless one has an understanding of these stories. Sean, you may want to rethink your handle.

As for this nonsense about arguing against a city hall manager display during Christmas, well, it’s a pure fabrication. In fact, I have more than once argued that people need to get over the burning stupid that is the “war on Christmas.” A manager scene (Christian) a Christmas tree (Pagan) and other religious and quasi religious symbols used during Christmas do not violate the separation of church and state. They are quaint traditions that, frankly, few people give much thought to. It’s a non issue.

NEXT!

“If one is so afflicted that their daily lives are so disrupted, rather than seek to shut everyone down, a far simpler and less disruptive solution would be to seek the counselling needed to be able to co-exist within a community of diverse views and ideas. I do hope that he does seek out that counselling, I really do. Grant, I do feel your pain, although I don’t understand why you are so afflicted.”

I’m not “so afflicted” in my daily life by religion. Most of the time, it rarely crosses my mind. Professionally, I do write  more about it than most of my colleagues. And when the day comes that creationists stop trying to put their theology into science classes, stop trying to use public schools as a captive audience, stop trying to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies, stop trying to undermine free speech, stop selling faith healing to the credulous and the ignorant…then I will happily lay down my pen. There are things worth defending, even in print, important things like democracy and free speech. I make no apologies for having done so.

It is ironic that Sean should get my body of work on the subject so horribly wrong. There might be something actually worth discussing here. As it stands, his blog reminds one of the Shakespeare’s poor player who “struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

PS. Sean asked me on Twitter to  “point out where separation of church & state are mentioned,” and I will indulge him on this last point. I presume Sean means where is it mentioned in the Canadian constitution. Of course, it is not there. The concept was enshrined in the US Constitution (a vastly superior document to ours, in my view.) with the establishment clause, but cannot be found in ours. In fact, our constitution makes a single reference to god in the preamble.

Ironically enough, Canada has rarely had the mix of politics and religion we see south of the 49th. And while our constitution does not have an establishment clause, the logic of the document does indeed support the separation of church and state and a secular government. Moreover, we have been functioning that way since before we even had our own constitution. Canada has always had that wall between church and state, we just basically took it as the way we do business,  much like most of Europe. When it appears that wall will be breached – like John Tory’s plan to fund faith schools a few elections back – Canadian voters take a very dim view of it.

And it is also worth noting that although our constitution makes one, vague reference to a god, it doesn’t reference a particular faith, certainly never mentions Jesus or Christianity or assigns religion any role in the affairs of the state beyond making a clear statement of freedom of religion.

QED.

“Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

-Mark Twain.

 

 

Grant Rants hits television.

- December 3rd, 2012

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

I’ll admit from the start here that I don’t actually watch Vision TV. It’s dedicated to religious programing, and from the ads I saw Friday night, also Irish folk dancing. Not sure exactly how that all fits together, but they sure like their gods and dancing Irish over at Vision TV.

I turned it on because I made a short appearance (if you fill forgive the shameless self promotion) on a program called I Prophecy about Christian rapture theology – basically those who believe Jesus is coming back any day now to open up a can of whup ass on the world.

IMG-20121130-WA000

Hey look, I’m on TV…but WHAT is going on with my hair?

The show was, well, a little heavy on the crazy for my tastes, with a couple of preachers going on about their end of the world ideas, giving no thought the impact that has on the gullible and the ignorant who sell their homes and leave their jobs in anticipation of being sucked up in god’s holy transporter beam.

I was basically there to provide the rational response, I suppose, and my ultimate point (which fortunately made it into the final moments of the program) is how rapture theology and the preachers who push it, are really committing an emotional con job which has ruined the lives of far too many people.

I’ve written about this subject before, particularly last year when an end of the world group actually purchased a billboard in St. Catharines warning us of the specific date we were all going to die. I’ll allow you to judge how accurate their prediction was.

Watch the show and let me know what you think about the subject.

PS. If you missed it and want to watch a show on a subject with more meat that end of world types, check out my appearance on the History Channel’s “Outlaw Bikers.”

Friday Hitchslap for Nov 23, 2012 starring Richard Dawkins

- November 23rd, 2012

HITCHSLAP: The process of utterly obliterating an opponent’s entire (usually religious or political) argument, usually in one or more succinct or terse statements, orally or in writing; employed almost exclusively by Christopher Hitchens.

Biologist Richard Dawkins is an interesting and brilliant guy, but doesn’t posses Christopher Hitchens  rhetorical whit. His arguments are great, but often doesn’t have the kind of rapier to the heart style of speaking that The Hitch perfected. Nonetheless, every once in a while he comes out with a zing. Here are two.

Dawkins on Creationism:

Dawkins vs. Neil Degrasse Tyson:

Some final thoughts on Savita Halappanavar

- November 21st, 2012

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

So this week’s Grant Rant was about Savita Halappanavar, a dentist in Ireland who died because while her pregnancy was killing her and the fetus could not be saved, she was denied a life saving abortion on the grounds that Ireland is a Catholic country and abortion is wrong.

The reaction from some readers, as I have briefly noted, decided to take some shots at me rather than talk about the issue. Which is fine. It comes with the job. But the issue itself is, in fact, what matters. A spectrum of responses  in the comments section to that column are worth taking a look at.

They all share one thing in common: they ignore the fact that a woman is dead and fall into two broad catagories: Abortion is always wrong and religion is never wrong. Here are two key ones worth exploring.

1) Abortions never save a mother’s life:

It seems pretty clear by the facts of the case that have been released thus far that had Halappanavar been granted the abortion, she would have survived. At least the odds of her survival would have risen dramatically. However, the religious pro-lifers make an argument that, medically speaking, no woman ever has been saved by an abortion. This is the argument put forward today in that silly publication, the Holy Post,  by Andrea Mrozek who claims that good medical care saves lives and as medical care improves maternal mortality goes down and therefore no abortion has saved any woman, ever, anyplace.

Yes, thank you, Andrea Mrozek for pointing out that with better medical care few people die. So what? It has less than nothing to do with the case here. It’s a giant smelly red herring. The kind the Knights of Ni will ask you cut down the tallest tree in the forest with. The sad truth is that there are some medical conditions like preeclampsia and tubal pregnancies which, in some circumstances can only be resolved by ending the pregnancy. It’s awful, it’s grim but that is the facts. Fortunately they are not the norm, but they do happen. When they do, you cannot save the fetus. The only option is to save the mother or they both die. QED. At the point, those who want to make the argument that an abortion is NEVER necessary to save a woman have chosen to jump down the rabbit hole of faith thinking rather than deal with reality. And then people die.

2)The non-religious cannot make moral choices, like wanting to save Halappanavar.

This tortured argument goes like this: Saying Halappanavar should have been saved is a moral choice, and since morals cannot be decided by science, the desire to save her is a kind of faith thinking. Therefore, there is no grounds to say she should saved unless one accepts the morals of a religion, in this case, Catholicism.

This is in effect, the old moral argument for god which claims we cannot know right from wrong without divine warrant.

I think the first place to start to answer this one is from Christopher Hitchens, who demolishes the argument better than I can. It’s worth viewing the full interview. But I will say this. We know that our evolved faculties, including our ethical and moral impulses, are innate in us. They are not perfect, but they are there and are powerful. As social creatures we would not be able to even form the smallest groups that function if they didn’t.  Choosing to guide one’s ethics by saying that that reducing or eliminating suffering is a worthy cause neither requires, nor is dependent upon, the guidance of an unseen hand. And science can indeed be a guide by providing us with a clearer view of reality. If morals and ethics can be seen, as they I think they can (and I tend to agree with Sam Harris on this point) about human well being, then science is a powerful tool to help us decide action.

What I have taken away from some of the visceral response to that column is that there is a spectrum of “pro-lifers” who hold human life very cheaply. The death of a woman is vastly less important to them that the often, I dare say, irrational defense of the mixture of theology and politics that lead to her demise. The faith is more important than life. Even though there was no saving the fetus in this case, no exception can be made, even though the consequence was obvious.

When belief in the supernatural trumps the hard facts on the ground, when they contribute the death of an innocent, something has gone very wrong. Those who defend this view, ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Evolution is incredible, but also horrifying

- October 30th, 2012

Greetings ghouls, ghost, zombies and the rest of you!

So staying in the spirit of Halloween, after having trashed some traditional Halloween monsters, I bring you something that is actually terrifying.

I’ve  often been asked why I don’t believe in the divine when I look out at the wonders and splendor of nature, from the beauty of distant nebulae to the miracle of birth.  My usual reply is that while I am awed and humbled by the universe we live and all its mystery and beauty, it’s actually not a very nice place for us to live. If you think about it, most of our own planet – the only one we know of so far that can sustain life as we understand it – is inhabitable by us. We would drown, freeze, starve or just be eaten. To say nothing of earthquakes, monster storms, Glee, and other nasty natural temper tantrums. And that is our HOME. Wander out into space and without advanced tech we die from exposure, get fried by cosmic rays, get spaghettified by a black hole, nuked by gamma ray bursts, or just disintegrated  in a super nova explosion.

Fun place the universe.

cymothoa-exigua-tonge-eating-isopod-louse-insect

Ewww….just….ewww!

But even more to the point are the horrible, awful turns that evolution takes. I mean, for every beautiful deer or majestic polar bear there are awful parasites, viruses, bacteria all out to survive by, well, killing other species in a particularly nasty manner. Evolution is about, after all, survival by adaption, and there is no guarantee those adaptions will be cute. If you want to see nature in all her glory, you need to see her in ALL her glory before you go on about how a pretty rainbow proves the existence of a god.

So I present you to the Cymothoa exigua or tongue eating louse.  A nasty piece of work by all accounts. It gets into the mouth of the fish, destroys its tongue and then takes the place of the tongue!!!! And the weird part is that the fish gets along just fine with this thing from the Alien movies as it’s tongue. Seriously!

Tell me this handsome fellow isn’t more horrifying than a zombie or the wolfman.

 

 

A final thought: why what politicans believe matters

- September 27th, 2012

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

So, just a final thought about my previous post regarding science, religion, schools and evolution.

I’ve been asked by some readers why I care if regional councilor Andy Petrowski is a creationist or not. Why does it matter if he believes the world was created in seven days a few thousand years ago and whole story about the talking snake in the Garden of Eden is true? What has that to do with the kinds of things Petrowski has to make decisions on? What has evolution and creationism to do with taxation, or public works or public transit?

Directly? Nothing. Knowing that, for instance, birds are the direct living descendants of dinosaurs doesn’t inform say, policy on road safety.  On the other hand, it does speak volumes about a particular person’s ability to cope with evidence.

Take Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, by way of a for instance. Recently, his wife was on a plane where there was a fire. Afterwards, Romney lamented that passengers on planes cannot open windows to get some fresh air:

“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem”

So apparently the would-be leader of the free world doesn’t understand a couple of basic things: 1) if you open the windows of a plane in flight, you will depressurize the cabin, which is very, very bad and 2) fire feeds on oxygen. Adding more oxygen to the mix could well make a fire inside a plane worse.plane

What has that to do with, say, national defense? Nothing directly, but it does speak to how well Romney understands the world we live in and his ability to handle facts. It’s NOT a real problem that passengers cannot open the windows. It’s a very good thing they cannot. This is not some arcane fact only a few people know. It’s common knowledge that Romney doesn’t have a grip on.

And so naturally, one asks, if he doesn’t understand one doesn’t depressurize a plane at 37,000 feet, how the heck is he supposed to be trusted with the economy or national defense or any other large, complicated issue?

You see the point: Evolution by natural selection is as well supported a theory as there is in science. Yes, debates about the mechanisms behind it rage all the time in scientific circles, but that is not the same as saying evolution isn’t true because a bronze age religious text says so. (Ironically enough, even if some egghead showed that evolution is totally wrong, that doesn’t make creationism fact. I have no idea why they don’t get that.)

From my point of view, if a politician – any politician – cannot handle the very basic facts about evolution – proven, hard, scientific fact – and chooses instead to reject it in favour of theology, that speaks volumes about that person’s capability of handling evidence. It says that when cold, hard facts run headlong into a predetermined belief system, that belief will win out even when all the facts tell a vastly different story. It suggests that an a priori, hard nosed, commitment to an ideology will trump reality even if that reality punches massive holes in it.

What politicians believe matters because the decisions they make impact all of us. And the phrase “it’s a matter of faith” is no defense at all.

Religion in schools: can open, worms everywhere

- September 24th, 2012

Greetings web denizens, heathens, zealots and the rest of you!

So still following up with the article I wrote about religion in school last week.

I had the opportunity to talk to the parent who is suing the Hamilton school board so he has the right to withdraw his children from lessons he deems are against his religious belief, particularly lessons that involve homosexuality.

Steve Tourloukis and I chatted for a while and he seems a decent and honest guy. I think he is totally wrong on this issue, but the conversation was very civil and, if nothing else, Steve isn’t out to convert the world or try and ruin public education.

He makes a good point, one that isn’t covered much in the press he is getting. The parents of other religions already get to remove their children from classes they find theologically offensive or are given a wide berth to avoid material that offenses their faith. Whether it’s Muslim girls not having to take gym class because shorts and a t-shirt violate their modesty rules, or JVS not having to listen to lessons that talk about Easter or Christmas, he says exceptions for the religious are already being made all over the school board. In fact, it’s in the board’s official documentation about religious accommodation. True, the board is careful to point out in this documentation, which can be found on the Hamilton-Wentworth school board’s website, that there are limits to religious accommodation and that it cannot do anything that violates provincial regulations.

Nonetheless, Steve believes what he is asking for is no different than what is already given to other parents for essentially the same reason.

While I think that he if he is successful in court it will have  deleterious impact on the education system to properly educate students, he does have a point. In many ways, Pandora’s Box has already been opened. The question now is not to further warp public education, but to find a way to close the box.

The stupid, it burns: Facebook vs. my sanity edition

- July 11th, 2011

Greetings heathens, zealots, web denizens and the rest of you!

I’m convinced that Facebook is waging some kind of psychological warfare on me. It’s relentless. Merciless. It stops at nothing to inflict upon me the hottest, fiery burning stupid it can possibly create.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that  Facebook is an epic domain of the burning stupid in a way that can eclipse even Glee.  It’s staggering what you can find on there if you spend a few minutes looking. I mean it’s common place to see a couple having it out in series of posts and the whole time you are thinking “why aren’t you two having this conversation IN PERSON. We’re not cyborgs yet!” (Although the robot apocalypse is surely coming.)

Then there is the guy who took a woman hostage, had the police outside, and posted about the whole thing on Facebook until he finally was arrested. First off, everyone knows that Twitter is really the more effective forum for this sort of thing and two, just how far gone do you have to be? Bad enough you took someone hostage and shot at police, but you are going to document the entire thing in public? Criminals are stupid.thestupiditburns

But the serious assaults launched upon my brain by Facebook comes in a much more subtle fashion, mostly from the ads that frequently vie for your attention on the right hand side of the screen. Facebook must use some kind of algorithm to place “personalized” ads. Like if you were constantly posting stuff about, say, how much you love Glee, you would always see ads about the Heart of Darkness and brain damage. In my case, I get carpet bombed with ads about religion.

This is because, I suppose, I often post links to stuff by Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins and the like. Atheist stuff. You know, cause I’m an atheist. In the warped mind of the Facebook adbots, this means I must want to buy religious stuff. It’s like if you posted a lot of stuff about the Beatles, and then got lots of ads about buying Glee CDs. You’d just want to pull your hair out.

I get ads for the oxymoronically named “Liberty University” – the outfit started by Jerry Falwell that regards evolution as affront to their religion – faith healers, psychic fairs, and Muslim dating websites. (I know, I was surprised those existed too.)

But this latest one takes the cake. I defy anyone to explain what in Odin’s empty eye socket this is supposed to be selling. Take a look:

CrazyasYup. They are selling a “blessed divine mercy quantum pendant” PLUS the science of wellness energy for life! Not to vent about this, but that is that even supposed to be? It’s totally meaningless. You just strung together a bunch of words, you jerks!

It’s like I could sell “Thor’s Mango Singularity Bracelet + Science of Quasar Cooking” I mean, what? How damaged would your brain have to be to think that meant anything?

Also curious is the price point. Apparently this blessed quantum pendant is normally worth $200. I can only surmise that it is initially constructed using the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva and then shipped to the Pope to be blessed. Hence the 200 clams they would usually ask. But NO! For a limited time you can buy this insane junk meant for suckers pendant for the low low price of $29! I guess quantum powered knick knacks just don’t sell like they used to.

I actually decided to check out the website in the ad, mostly because I must be into self abuse. In a completely bizarre video, they claim that these pendants were made using volcanic lava (as opposed to the other kinds of lava one can find on every street corner, I guess.) and will protect your family using something called “scalar energy.” (scalar fields are part of quantum theory in physics, although never observed in nature, contrary what the snake oil pendant sales folks will tell you.) If you Google it, you’ll all manner of loony references to scalar bracelets and pendants and whatever.

It’s really no different than those insipid Q-Ray Bracelets. Remember those? The hideous bracelets with teeny magnets in them that was supposed to cure all that ails you? You can still find infomericals about them from time to time, although they no longer contain specific claims about health and wellness because Health Canada told them stop. Turns out, you just cannot run about making health claims about something that does absolutely nothing. If only Health Canada would crack down on the homeopaths and Feng Shui peddlers too.

Anyway, the point being that if you are ever considering buying a super blessed, quantum scalar amazing health wellness Thor’s mango pendant…don’t. It’s just junk and has nothing to with science, or health, or wellness, or mangos.

Look there is a basic rule I have about people who start talking about quantum mechanics. It’s a very complex and confusing science. There aren’t many people who understand it and those that do tend to be highly educated brainiac types. Your average Joe Slob, like you and me, don’t understand it. We cannot even really come close to understanding it unless we decide to really invest time in serious physics education. So when you hear someone start talking about quantum physics in relations to jewelry, or spirits, or religion or whatever, just throw a pie in their face. It’s like the physicist Richard Feyman once said: “if you think you understand quantum theory, you don’t understand quantum theory.”

I get feedback: End of the world edition

- May 11th, 2011

Greetings heathens, zealots, web denizens and the rest of you!

So my last Grant Rant column has apparently upset a regular reader and commenter who goes by the handle “DayOh”. I don’t know who this person is, although his or her handle always puts a Harry Belafonte tune in my head.

Anyway, the Rant was about how the election of a majority Conservative government doesn’t mean the end of the Canada as we know it because, for simple, practical political reasons, Stephen Harper cannot dismantle Canada and turn it into some kind of fundamentalist loony land, even if that is something he wanted to do.

In the course of the piece, I threw at jab at the end-of-the-world crowd who believe a version of the Christian judgment day is coming on May 21. (I’ve blogged about this in greater detail here.)

Anywhoo, DayOh figures I am generally too hard on religion and specifically too hard on this end of the world stuff because, he says, science makes just as many ridiculous claims about the end of the world. In an exchange with another reader he claims that scientific observations of the asteroid Apophis is just as looney as the god is coming to destroy us crowd:

… NASA has predicted a NEO called Apophis of having a 1 in 250,000 chance of impact with the earth, thus eliminating life as we know it. This is well over 100x more likely to occur than you or I winning the lottery next week. Of course NASA and other scientists have updated this scale repeatedly as their prediction has changed based on new observations….

That doesn`t matter if it`s May 21, 2011 or 2036 (Apophis). In other words, the doomsday folks, whether in the name of God or not, are equally correct…

Grant has habitually picked on one people group (often the religious amongst us) and make no mistake, I’m no fan of the fanatics as outlined in his column. However, he routinely overlooks the equally contentious claims of science…

If we examine this sort of talk for even a moment, it falls like castles made of sand.

First, we can safely dismiss the idea that following NEOs (Near Earth Objects) is the same thing as some religious loon claiming the world is coming to an end.

The end is nigh crowd (which is not limited to Christian fanatics by the way. In Italy and Taiwan this week doomsayers predicting horrible earthquakes set off panics) use, well, nothing to claim we are all about to die. They use a bewilderingly ridiculous interpretations of holy books or other cockamamie “signs”. A lot of the time – as is the case of the May 21sters – they also ask for donations. Cause you know, if the world doesn’t end they need money to keep their scam church going. (In Taiwan, the doomsayer was getting people to buy shelters in a mountain top compound. Fraud charges are likely pending.)

Now is this the same as watching near earth objects, as DayOh suggests?

Not at all.

For those that don’t know, near earth objects are mostly asteroids, large chucks o’ rock  left over from the formation of our solar system. Mostly this space debris is found safely orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt past Mars or the Kuiper belt out on the fringes of the solar system.

However, some of them wander around and drift near earth. Now, collisions in space are very common. It’s even common in our solar system. where we are lucky enough to have Jupiter acting like a blocker in football pushing away stuff that might otherwise come to close to Earth. Still,  Earth has been pounded by stuff in the past and odds are it will happen again.

I’m not kidding when I say “pounded” either. The reason NASA keeps an eye on near earth objects is because if one hits us…well, lets just say it would totally harsh your day. A large asteroid impact in the Yucatan peninsula some 65 million years ago is the prime suspect in the global extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. In fact, there have been at least five global extinction events in our planet’s history, perhaps all of them caused by impacts from asteroids or comets. (I’d blame Glee for it too, but I don’t think dinosaurs watched TV.)

So keeping an eye on asteroids that float in near Earth is just prudent if you think our extinction is, you know, bad.  An asteroid impact would make the recent quake in Japan look like a charming day at the beach.

So what scientists do is track these asteroids to see if any have a chance at intersecting our orbit and if one does, determine the chances of it actually hitting the planet. Should we find one that has a very good chance of hitting us, the idea is we’ll have enough time to try to deflect it.

apophis_asteroid

Apophis, the killer potato from space

This is, you’ll note, pretty much the exact opposite of what a religious doomsayer does. You don’t see astronomers putting up billboards claiming the end is nigh (while asking for money) do you? They are observing actual real things, using real calculations. So the doomsayers and the astronomers are not “equally correct” as this DayOh fellow contends.  The doomsayers are always, 100 per cent wrong. The astronomers, using real evidence, are right. Funny how that works.

So why is this DayOh making bones about Apophis? It’s a pretty big rock that  has a chance of hitting the earth. But keep in mind that  a “good chance” is still less than 3%. Not great odds, but from an astronomical point of view, worth watching. It is scheduled to pass near Earth in 2036 and current calculations give it a one in 250,000 chance of hitting the planet, depending on if the rock passes through a “gravitational keyhole” when it passed by Earth in 2029. (See the video below.) Again, not exactly something to freak out over, just something to keep an eye on.  Certainly, while astronomers will tell us it is prudent to track Apophis, no one is having an irrational melt down over it.

In short the difference is this:

Doomsayer: “We are all going to die! The end is nigh! Repent! And give me money!”

Scientist: “We are watching a potential threat in the form of an asteroid and in the event it is likely to hit us, we are developing plans to prevent that from happening.”

Consider the following discussion of Apophis by the very awesome Neil Degrasse Tyson in comparison some doomsday lunatic: