Thu 25 Aug 2011

Eppur si muove

Posted by anaglyph under Australiana, Religion, Science, Skeptical Thinking
[11] Comments

I snapped this sign in front of St Paul’s Cathedral, in inner city Melbourne last week.

The duplicity of the intent here is only eclipsed by its inanity. Professor Nancey Murphy is the author of ‘Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will’. She is also an ordained minister of The Church of the Brethren, a Christian sect so confused that it has split into numerous splinter groups that are, apparently, able to interpret the Word of God to be whatever suits their personal agenda. ((It should be said that The Brethren are not alone in this pursuit. Christianity itself is really just one big collection of groups that have decided that what God meant is dependent on your point of view.)) If Prof Murphy is a hard core member of The Brethren, though, she believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God (with all that entails).

My brain finds it hard to contain the idea that someone can take that stance and still call themselves a scientist. Her interpretation of what science is, seems, apparently, to be as flexible as the interpretation of God’s Word among members of her belief system.

As for ISCAST, ‘a think tank exploring the interface between science and Christianity’, I have prepared a little diagram illustrating what I see as the principal difficulty in exploring that interface:

You see, when you accept the idea that a magical being created us and everything we see for inscrutable purposes of its own, you have abandoned all notions of science. Now, personally speaking, I don’t care one whit if Professor Murphy or anyone else cares to invent such fanciful stories, but it pisses me off when:

1: They think they have the right to push those ideas down my throat, and,
2: They think their ideas are better than everyone else’s ideas because their magical being told them so, and,
3: They attempt to conflate those ideas with science.

But I said ‘duplicity’ didn’t I?

I was intending to make this post a humorous jab at a daft sign, but in looking up St Paul’s Cathedral I inadvertently stumbled upon one of the most worrying, irrational, fearful and misleading documents I’ve seen in a long time. St Paul’s, it appears, is affiliated with an organization called Transforming Melbourne, a group that defines itself as ‘a Movement of Christians praying and acting together with the vision that God will renew His Church and not only bring new life to the people of our city, but transform its culture and society.’

Praying? Not a lot of science there, that’s for sure.

The document I mentioned is called ‘The Vital Role of the Church and Christian Faith in Our Society’ by Rob Isaachsen, Founder of Transforming Melbourne, and is something of a manifest of the group’s ideals. The preamble to it on the Transforming Melbourne site begins:

MPs, Christians and others have no idea that

OUR SOCIETY DEPENDS ON CHRISTIAN FAITH AND THE CHURCH

It then lists some ‘statistics’ that are supposed to convince us of how terrific the Christian Church is, before concluding:

The highly intentional atheist and secular humanist movements are seeking to influence governments to remove the freedom of the Church and Christian agencies to provide their community support, and Christian education programmes and Chaplaincy in schools which foster Christian values in society.

If they succeed in restricting Christian care and education the result will be the undermining of society itself.

This kind of addled fear-mongering makes my skin crawl and my blood boil. Yes folks, what it comes down to is that the people behind Transforming Melbourne believe that the EVIL ATHEISTS are attempting to get rid of the WONDERFUL CHRISTIANS because, for some reason, the EVIL ATHEIST agenda is to ‘undermine society itself’. Do these people really think like that? Are they really that simple-minded? Because if that’s the case it’s pretty damn clear why I don’t want Christian chaplains giving moral advice to my kids.

So it turns out that the real reason that the Cathedral is having Science Week is nothing at all to do with science (surprise) but is in fact a sleight-of-hand designed to give the appearance of open-mindedness and acceptance. There is no intent to explore an ‘interface’ between science and religion here. Make no mistake: these people do NOT care about science. If it was up to them, they’d as soon see their God wipe this troublesome ‘science’ thing from the planet.

What’s happening here is that they are afraid. Scientific thought represents the biggest real threat that religion will ever face. And now, with atheists and humanists asserting their human rights to create communities that are not built on superstition and fear, but instead on critical thinking, scientific inquiry and rationally considered ethics and morals, the Christian Church is resorting to one of its favourite techniques: instead of facing their challengers bravely, ((For surely, if their God is actually right as they claim, they have NOTHING to fear…)) they are attempting to subsume them. To make them feel at home. To feign charity. To pretend they’re on their side. But all they are really concerned with is promoting their agenda.

It has worked many times in the past when their competition was also fearful and held irrational beliefs, but this time it won’t.

(I’m going to examine some of the Transforming Melbourne document in the next post. It’s full of such egregious and erroneous claims that it simply can’t go unconfronted.)

 

Mon 22 Aug 2011

In The Future…

Posted by anaglyph under Art, Australiana, Gadgets, Science, Sex, Words
[16] Comments

Over the weekend, Violet Towne and I visited the Monash Gallery of Art to see an exhibition of photographs by Anton Bruehl. Bruehl was born in Australia, but made his career in New York where he became a favourite of the advertising world, creating photographs for Vanity Fair, Vogue and other high profile magazines. I always thought Bruehl was quite famous, but am dismayed to find that he doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry. You will almost certainly have seen his iconic photograph of Marlene Dietrich:

I really like Bruehl’s highly contrived and art-directed style and I think it has gone on to inform artists as diverse as David Lynch and Pierre et Gilles. The highlight of this exhibition for me, though, was some work Bruehl did for Vanity Fair, photographing the ‘Fashions of the Future’: clothing visions from designer Gilbert Rhodes. This is Rhodes’ speculation for the Man of the Future:

And here is that very man in the flesh, as realised by Rhodes and capture on film by Bruehl:

Is that awesome or what? The best thing here is, of course, that Rhodes got hardly any of it right. Well, I guess there is still a good part of the century to go, but you know what I’m saying… I suppose there are disposable socks (those ones they give you on planes) and the ‘antenna snatching radio out of the ether’ could charitably be interpreted to be the one in your iPhone, but the curly beard and the baggy onesie tucked into those disposable socks have yet to materialize. As for the utility belt, well, even Batman had trouble making that seem like a good idea.

I quite took to the Man of the Future’s jaunty disregard for anyone’s opinion of his haute couture, but I was rather more enamored of Rhodes’ vision for the Woman of the Future:

Alright! Now we’re talking!

I’m afraid, however, that I was so overcome by the prospect of what we bearded, antenna-sporting, disposable sock-wearing blokes have to look forward to in the next few years that my hand was shaking rather a lot when I tried to snap a shot of Rhodes’ and Bruehl’s vision of said woman.

It seems that, for a year or two at least, chaps, we’ll just have to live in anticipation.


 

Thu 18 Aug 2011

Simple Graphics Monk

Posted by anaglyph under Religion, Simple Graphics Man
[18] Comments

It had to happen sooner or later. SGM was set upon so frequently by life’s insults that taking refuge in the Tao plainly offered the best option. The least you could do is give up your seat for him.

___________________________________________________________________________

Simple Graphics Monk comes to you courtesy of Cissy Strutt and her friend Siro.

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Tue 16 Aug 2011

Fill My Life with COW!

Posted by anaglyph under Cow Matters, CowBlogTech
[5] Comments

Cow Housekeeping: I have installed a plugin that will allow you to subscribe to all NEW Cow posts as they occur. You’ve been able to subscribe to comments for a while, but theoretically you should now be advised when ever the Cow speaks new thoughts. Just click on the Subscribe button over to the right in the side bar and fill in your email details. You can unsubscribe at any time, should you ever crazily decide to do that.

That is all. We now return you to normal service.

 

Tue 16 Aug 2011

Yes, We Have No…

Posted by anaglyph under Australiana, In The News, Laughs, Words
[2] Comments

By way of explanation for the non-Australians: earlier this year the northern parts of the east coast of Australia were devastated by rain and floods, significantly damaging the large banana crops that are grown there. As a consequence, the price of bananas has more than tripled throughout the land, and they have become something of a luxury item in recent months. Pic comes courtesy of Cissy Strutt who snapped this in her ‘hood.

 

Mon 15 Aug 2011

Wined Up?

Posted by anaglyph under Food & Drink, Hokum, Insane People, Skeptical Thinking, True Fiction
[24] Comments

Today I’m going to try something new. I’m going to INVENT some kind of crazy new pseudoscientific idea and try and get people to believe it. First of all, I’m going to pick a field of interest that has some high levels of subjectivity. OK, um… – oh I know, wine tasting! There’s all sorts of hocus pocus goes on with that. Now let’s see… I’ve got it! You know when people swish the wine around in the glass? Could it be that swishing it clockwise makes it taste different to swishing it anticlockwise? You know: clockwise swirling brings out the spicy notes and anti-clockwise makes it taste more of the fruit. Genius! I’ll call it ‘wine swirling’ and…

Sorry? What’s that you say? It already exists? People actually already believe it? Come ON! That’s ridiculous! No-one could seriously come up with such a patently silly notion…!

Yes, my dear Acowlytes, it is true. Faithful Cowpoke JR points me to this article from the owner of a tour company in the Napa Valley in California, that espouses the fine art of wine swirling. This is what Mr Ralph de Amicis, of Amicis Tours has to say:

This idea starting circulating around Napa via Twitter and here it is in a nutshell. When you swirl your wine to the left (counter clockwise) the scent you pick up is from the barrels over the grapes, what we call the spice shelf. When you swirl the wines to the right (clockwise) you pick up more flavors from the fruit.

O-k-a-a-a-y…. The idea started on Twitter, that completely reliable repository of fact and commonsense. That speaks volumes. Mr de Amicis goes on:

I’ve shown this to clients in the tasting room and experimented with it myself and found it to be true, and especially noticeable with wines that have spent significant time in newer oak barrels. The question comes up, why is that?

Well, Mr de Amicis, the answer comes back pretty smartly: you’re deluding yourself. But don’t, for God’s sake, attempt any kind of explanation because you’ll only…

Like all living things wine cells have a magnetic polarity, just like humans and the Earth. The positive pole is more highly charged, just like the North Pole of the Earth, which is why there are Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle, but not Southern Lights in the Antarctic. This polarity tends to keep wine cells generally upright, spinning on their axis when they are being swirled…

Awww…dagnabbit!! I was feeling like cutting you a little slack but then you went and did some pretendy science on me. Sigh.

I guess by now about, oh, every person who lives in the Southern hemisphere has told you that there is, in fact, an Aurora Australis, which is exactly the same as the Aurora Borealis only on the other pole. Your failure to know this, and the cavalier attempt to base a line of reasoning on it, kinda nails your scientific credentials to the mast right there. ((If Mr Amicis had taken a few seconds to make a cursory check on Wikipedia he might have seen this: ‘Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis (or the southern lights), has almost identical features to the aurora borealis and changes simultaneously with changes in the northern auroral zone.’))

When you swirl the wine counter-clockwise you are pushing against the molecules nap, just like stroking the fur of a cat the wrong way, this dislodges anything on the surface. Since the flavor from the barrel is introduced fairly late in the wine’s development it tends to concentrate in the outer layers. When you swirl the wine counter-clockwise it dislodges that flavor, while at the same, pushing liquid into the pores, inhibiting the fruit flavors that are inside the cell from coming out.

Molecules have nap? ‘Flavor’ is on the ‘surface’ of the molecules and can be ‘dislodged? Molecules have pores? ‘Liquid’ goes into the ‘pores’ of the cells? Molecules? What? Ping! Now let’s be honest Mr de Amicis. You just made all that crap up, didn’t you? Like you made up the non-existence of the Southern Lights. You haven’t the foggiest clue how taste and smell work, have you? (You don’t hold shares in Special One Drop Liquid, by any chance? Or study under Dr Werner?)

Evidently I wasn’t the only one who found Mr de Amicis’s ‘science’ risible, as he was quick to post a justification of his views on his site. In this, he makes much of his scientific qualifications:

I’ve written eight books on wine country, three books on natural health, I’m a Master Herbalist with forty years of experience working with plants and people, a Naturopathic Physician, and I’ve lectured extensively on anatomy and physiology.

Right, so no actual science accreditation, then? ((Lecturing on something does not count as academic endorsement. I could ‘lecture’ on brain surgery, but it doesn’t mean I know anything at all about it.)) And nothing there about geomagnetic science, molecular chemistry or physics, which does explain rather a lot. Not content with just riding the faux pas out, though, our knowledgeable tour guide just keeps on digging…

Everything has a polarity right down to the atomic level, and when put into suspension in a liquid it rotates in relation to that pole. Because we are on a planet that has both a polar system and a consistent rotation, everything forms with a pole and a circular patterning. Wind it one way and it tightens and wind it the other and it unwinds.

Uh. That’s what you learnt in herbal school, is it? Or in naturopathy college? Because they sure as hell don’t teach it in any science class I’ve ever been in. ((Mr de Amicis’s view of the planet is, evidently, that it functions like it’s powered by a giant rubber band.))

Honestly this is just basic physics related to molecular science and plant chemistry, something which herbalists and herbal researchers deal with all the time.

Honestly! Basic physics! Like the non-existence of the Aurora Australis due to the polarity of the Earth! ((Anyone with even an ounce of geophysical knowledge knows that the auroras don’t have anything at all to do with the positive or negative polarity of the the planet, but appear at the poles due to the shape of the Earth’s magnetic field and its focussing effect.))

By the way, I’ve done an informal study of this and my hyper-sensitive clients all notice the difference in the swirl directions and the nature of the scents. I would love to hear other people’s theories about this,

And I would love to oblige!

What’s going on here, Mr Amicis, is that your brain is tricking you. Because you have sold yourself on this daft idea, and because wine tasting is full of subjective assessments, you (and your ‘hyper-sensitive clients’) merely think that you’re detecting an effect. In proper science (that is, the kind that they don’t teach in naturopathy school) we have a way of eliminating this problem of self-delusion. It’s called ‘double blinding’ and I’m fairly sure ((When I say ‘fairly sure’ I am just being linguistically coy. I am in fact 100% certain.)) that if you had an unbiased third party set up a double blind testing of your idea you’d find that the ‘swirling factor’ mysteriously vanishes. I’m not going to explain double blinding here on the Cow for the millionth time, but I really do suggest you look it up on Wikipedia and familiarize yourself with the concept before you go making a further fool of yourself. You should probably read up on the auroras and the magnetosphere as well. Just saying.

The moral to this story, if it’s not obvious, is that if you want to promote something as science, make sure you understand what science is. Especially if you decide to write about it on your web site where the whole world can see it.

 

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