Two Random Thoughts

Here are two random thoughts I've had in the past 24 hours that I thought I'd share with you.

1. How amazing is the human brain and its processing power? I was at the grocery store yesterday and had to decide on a body wash for myself. So I stood there smelling each one. It seemed pretty straightforward, right? But in the background, I was also calculating overall price, looking at price per ounce, comparing moisturizing vs every other thing body washes are supposed to do, and then filtering them all through my bullshit meter to get rid of what seemed like marketing (which is most of it).

Of course, scent was the main factor, but all the rest of that was happening as well. Not to mention all the other things that were happening. I was aware of the woman behind me stocking the shelves and self-conscious of my behavior around her, I was paying attention to everyone else shopping nearby, I was following the unwritten rules for society, etc. AND, I was doing a whole bunch of autonomic functions, everything from keeping my heart beating and my lungs moving in and out, to balancing on two feet (which needs constant micro corrections).

Amazing, huh? And we do this effortlessly, really. It's mostly automatic. The only part that's noticeable is smelling each soap and deciding if I like it or not, then calculating the rank in which I like them.

And then, I handle the transaction and interaction with the cashier and drive home! Truly astonishing, isn't it? And we take it all for granted. Which is how it should be.

I was listening to the Skeptic's Guide awhile ago and they had a Science or Fiction item (if I recall correctly) that people are actually remembering less now that we have Google (and other search engines, etc). And it's true, we don't have to remember things like we used to. I for one don't remember anyone's phone numbers anymore. But I do remember my mom's because I learned it before I had a phone that remembered for me. I remember some numbers from when I was a kid, like my grandmother's old number, but nothing current.

The thing is, we're not stupider. In fact, IQ has been rising each decade by a small amount, overall. We just use our minds differently. Now we are masters at finding information, and making sure we can find it again when we need it. So we are better Googlers, basically.

I've also noticed that we all seem to still hold vast amounts of data on what we are passionate about. My husband Butch can rattle off huge amounts of stats on cars, for example. He knows so much about them. He remembers it all effortlessly. But there are other things that don't interest him at all and it won't get saved in his memory. We're all like that. My eyes cross when he starts talking about engine size and horsepower - and I don't remember hardly any of it later, but if I'm walking outside, I somehow know different plants and insects that I didn't even realize I had saved in my mind.

It's just fantastic. Imagine what things will be like in 20 years, or 100, or 1,000!

2. I was reading a book last night and it sparked a thought that I had to write down. Do we need language to think deeply? I think we do. For instance, does increased language help people express themselves more? It would seem so. But does it also help you express yourself to yourself? If you don't have words to describe a feeling or a thought, how can you process that thought? Don't you need some form of language?

I guess it matters on what the thoughts are. If they are about physics, I think you need a way to process your thoughts concretely, through math and language. But if it's a feeling, of course we feel it even if we can't explain it. But are we better served by being able to have words to express it? So if you have a simple language with only a few words to express happiness, for example, you'd still feel deeply, but you wouldn't be able to articulate to yourself or others the depth of your happiness.

But you can express yourself with art (is that also a form of language and communication though?)

And if you grow up in a culture with no math, like some cultures in the Amazon, you would never contemplate physics, at least not like Stephen Hawking does. Right? Or if you did, you wouldn't have any way to share it.

So language is extremely important. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that, I guess. But what about how we express ourselves over time, and how language evolves. It seems that some people use more of it and are growing and expanding, like Stephen Hawking or Neil deGrasse Tyson, for example. While other people seem to want to use less language, shorten words, add new words that are lazier, write in shorthand and text speak.

Does it matter? I don't know. These are just thoughts I wanted to share with you. What do you think?

Thoughts About Memory Recall

Yesterday I had my upper wisdom teeth pulled out and last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I kept going over the experience even though I really didn't want to think about it.

Earlier in the afternoon and evening, I posted on Facebook that it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I was expecting, the noise wasn't as bad as they made it sound like it was going to be, and overall I felt less uncomfortable than I had anticipated. The anticipation was definitely more stressful than the extractions.

It certainly helped that the oral surgeon that did it was patient, friendly, and explained each step before he did anything. There was a study recently that showed that when people are told what to expect they recover faster and have a much better experience.

But last night when I was trying to get to sleep the different moments kept flashing back to me. And here's what I found really interesting, they were getting worse. They were bothering me more as I thought about them. Then my mouth started bothering me more. I could feel it. I was getting creeped out.

This didn't come as a shock to me. I have been thinking about recall and have been wondering if that is often worse than the actual event. Sure, sometimes the event is really horrible. But usually if someone is in a car accident, for example, and it's really bad, they will never recover the memory of the worst of it.

This happened to me when I was 18. I was in a really bad car accident and while there are a few moments here and there that I have a flash of, I can't remember most of it and there's no pain associated with the memory either.

But this dentist experience is the opposite. The surgeon asked me afterwards how the experience was and I honestly said, while I wouldn't choose to do it, it really wasn't bad at all.

Now, I should tell you, I have a real problem with going to the dentist. I don't like any of it. This is what made me start to come to the realization of this recall phenomenon. I was so afraid of dentists that I didn't go to one for 18 years. When I did last year, I remember saying after the cleaning that it really wasn't that bad.

But some time later, my anxiety and dread returned. My memories seemed the same but they became emotionally charged and it seemed like I was distorting them. When I realized what I was doing, I stopped myself, but it was a huge effort to remind myself over and over what I had originally said after the experience. Which is interesting in itself, that I had to remind myself of what I said afterwards to stop the process.

But my mind seemed to want to make it worse than it really had been!

I had another cleaning and some cavities filled and each time I watched myself do the same thing: honestly say it wasn't that bad, then on recall each time it seemed worse. And that's the thing, I wasn't trying to make it worse to get attention or anything. It just seemed worse.

Fascinating, huh? Why would my mind do this? Have you ever done it (if it's possible to recall accurately now)? What are your thoughts on the matter?

 

Two Cool Creatures and Their Evolution

As Michael Shermer says, "Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works." It's still done by humans so there will be problems, but it's self-correcting. And really, we have nothing better to help us make sense out of our world. In that vein, I wanted to share two creatures that scientists have found to be very interesting, especially regarding evolution. These are both examples of how amazing our world is.

First is the Cottony Cushion Scale - Icerya purchasi - which likes to eat citrus and pittosporum sap. It's now found around the world wherever citrus is grown and is quite a pest. But look how neat it is!

So here is what's so interesting. Most CCSs (Cottony Cushion Scales) are hermaphrodites. There are a few true males but they are very rare. So they are both male and female. But, the CCS fertilizes its eggs with sperm that live inside it as a separate infectious tissue!

So when the CCS fertilizes its own egg with its own sperm, which is considered an infectious tissue, it then invades the embryo with more sperm to create sperm-producing organs in the daughter. (They are called daughters because they look female. The pure male is very different looking)

There is new research into how this insect evolved this way, which is really interesting. It sort of comes down to the male is now just parasitic tissue living inside the female. The research is a mathematical model of how this evolved early on.

There is a final twist to this tale: Gardner and Ross [the authors of the new paper] think that the scale insects carry a passenger that could have quickened the demise of the males – a bacterium. Many insects carry helpful bacteria that provide them with important nutrients, and the cottony cushion scale is no different. These bacteria can often be found in tight clusters around the infectious tissue, and if they are killed with antibiotics, females are more likely to produce sons.

To Gardner and Ross, this suggests that the bacteria could help to protect the infectious tissue from being destroyed. Why? Because the bacteria are passed down from mother to daughter. Males are a dead-end to them. In this regard, their “interests” are the same as those of the infectious tissue. Sons are a dead-end; daughters provide vessels that sail into the next generation.

Evolution is amazing, isn't it!

Next is a large protozoan! Gromia Sphaerica is about the size of a grape and is a single-celled organism! They are up to 1.5" long. That's pretty huge! They were discovered in 2000 and have recently been found off the coast of the Bahamas. It gets better. This little thing appears to make trails in the mud of the sea floor about 20 inches long. How do they do it?

First, they are single-celled, a giant amoeba. The outer shell of their bodies are called a test and seem to be mostly made of waste. There are pores in the test, and filaments on the bottom of the organism that it uses to move along and make the tracks in the mud, some even going uphill. In this area of the sea, the water is very still.

Here's where it gets really interesting! The tracks made by these Gromia today appear to match mud trail fossils from 1.8 Billion years ago in the Precambrian era. Even the low ridge which runs up the middle of the track appears to be the same.  This is evidence that there might have been some early version of the Gromia that existed before the Cambrian explosion (530 million years ago), which says that a simple organism could have made those earlier tracks. And those simple organisms could have had complex body plans (relatively speaking).



So the scientists who found them in the Bahamas aren't sure how they eat or reproduce yet. They are too fragile to study in captivity. The area they were found is relatively sterile. They probably rely on resident bacteria to ferment their food for them, and they just live off the byproducts. There don't appear to be any smaller or young Gromia, but there are a lot of them.

~

Resources for the Cottony Cushion Scale:

• Not Exactly Rocket Science


• Science Daily


• Skeptic's Guide to the Universe

Resources for Gromia Sphaerica:

• Skeptic's Guide to the Universe


• Wikipedia


• Science Daily

Dolphins are Amazing!

Recently, I asked you, my Awesome Readers, to ask for more information on a subject that interests you, for me to research. The question was posed in regards to history (mainly of everyday things) but it was vague enough to be open-ended. Mike Hensel gets a cookie for asking, ""Here is one for ya. Are dolphins aware of us? Do they come to the beach and say to themselves “There they are, facinating.”"

The short answer, from what I've found is "yes!"

The dolphin brain is large. Relative to body size, it's the second largest only to humans. This is measured by EQ (encephalization quotient). Here are some EQs of different species:

• Teabaggers and fundamentalists:  1.2 (just kidding, sorta)


• River dolphins: 1.5


• Gorillas:  1.76


• Chimpanzees:   2.48


• Australopithecines (hominids who lived 4 million years ago):  3.25-4.72


• Bottlenose dolphins:  5.6


• Humans:  7.4

So, let's run through some of their amazing abilities:

• Complex play


• Problem solving


• Communicating with each other through whistles, clicks, touch and body postures. But we don't know if it's a language by human definition.


• Reading: they can read a symbol printed on a card and then do what it says.


• Self Awareness: they can recognize themselves in a mirror. If a mark is placed on their skin (with a nontoxic marker), they will go to the mirror to look at it and spend more time than if they have no marks. (elephants will do the same. They will touch the mark on their head, while they look in the mirror. Great apes as well)


• They can think through and plan ahead.  see video below and Guardian article for examples)

The Haneford Question

As you know, I love geeky podcasts. One I really like is Science Weekly from the Guardian. It's witty, smart and educational. They started something recently from a listener named Haneford. He asked them to ask the physicist Brian Cox a question. The question was so good they now ask the question on a regular basis.

Here it is:

If you could have one question in the world answered, what would it be?

So? What would it be? I am still mulling it over. But I would love to know what matters to you and what you'd ask. Assume the answer would be accurate and honest, of course.

Imagination and Creativity

People generally feel they are creative or uncreative. But all of us use our imaginations all the time. So what are these things and can science explain them? Recently I've come to realize that there are things that I take for granted that religious people find completely mysterious, and therefore only God could make them happen. A lot of these mysteries are about the mind. Some examples are morality, love, compassion and imagination, among many others.

(as an aside, and if you're interested, a topic for later could be justice and fairness. I have found a huge difference between how I see them and how religious people see them.)

As a naturalist/atheist/skeptic/science lover, while I don't understand the physics, mechanics, biochemistry and biology of the workings of the brain, I understand that the mind is what is active in the brain. That's not the best wording, but basically the mind is just  the brain, but I think of it as RAM whereas the physical structure of the brain is more like the Hard Drive. If you have a better analogy, please share it. They are one and the same, essentially. Your mind is not separate from your brain.

Imagination: the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination is the work of the mind that helps create. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world, and it also plays a key role in the learning process.

Creativity: 1. having the ability to create. 2. characterized by originality of thought; having or showing imagination. 3. designed to or tending to stimulate the imagination.

So we all use our imaginations every time we have a thought that creates something in our minds that is not perceived through our senses. Like pink elephants with emerald green polka dots. If you can see them standing on top of each other in your head right now, you are using your imagination.

The Amazing Power of the Placebo

Science can sometimes be very counterintuitive. Sometimes more questions are brought up than are answered. And this is exciting because in those instances when we didn't expect the results, it leads to asking more questions and opens the door for new avenues of exploration. It furthers our understanding of the universe which is always a good thing.

Here is a study on placebos on Scientific American that is just fascinating. It has been well established that placebos can be used to help people feel better and improve their symptoms. But there is always trickery involved. The patient is told the placebo is a real medication.

In this study, eighty patients suffering from IBS were randomized to either open-label placebo pills presented as “placebo pills made of an inert substance, like sugar pills, that have been shown in clinical studies to produce significant improvement in IBS symptoms through mind-body self-healing processes” or no-treatment controls with the same quality of interaction with providers.

The bottles even had "placebo" written on them! After three weeks, 60 percent of the placebo group reported relief from symptoms, compared to 35 percent who’d received no treatment at all. That's pretty significant.

Other studies have found that the very act of spending time with a patient, paying attention to them, is very powerful. This is evident in research such as a double blinded acupuncture study that was done (I think it was a couple years ago). But this is a fascinating result. Hopefully other scientists will follow up with more investigation into this phenomenon.

I guess a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down, or can be the medicine itself.

Starting To See Moral Relativism As Clearly Flawed

Most people don't think much about morality, in my observation. They are given their morals from their parents, pastors, teachers, and peers, etc. They don't need to know terms like "moral relativism". I have done just fine for 41 years without ever thinking about the definition of the term.

I think even once you eschew God and the bible, unless someone challenges you, you'll still rely on your basic moral code which you got when you were younger (and probably indoctrinated). A lot of that might evolve into what "feels" like the right thing to do, more than what the bible said.

Then there are those who think about this sort of thing all the time. I'm not one of those people, normally. I don't like philosophy very much. I prefer science and testable claims to pontificating about things that can't really ever be known. But as I venture on my Quest for Knowledge, lately I've run into philosophy more often.

I've even subjected you to it, such as the whole Free Will vs Determinism argument (which I still have plans to continue).

I think we are best served with examining our ethical code and reevaluating what's in there and why. I did that some time ago with my personal Principles. It was a challenging but rewarding exercise.

Side Note: The Rationally Speaking podcast recently interviewed Joshua Knobe about his new field of Experimental Philosophy (x-phi), which was fascinating. Joshua even made them (and me) gasp with the results of one study that was very surprising! Here's a link to the episode.

The book club I'm in, as I've mentioned, is going to be reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I lost interest in our current book, so I've started in on this one and so far Sam Harris is speaking my language, that science can determine values for conscious beings.

The following excerpt from the book shows what moral relativism basically is (the woman in it is definitely a moral relativist), and why it's clearly flawed. This is an anecdotal story from Sam. But I think it's quite important to share:

Excerpt from The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris. - Highlight Location 765-83 (chapter 1)

We already have good reason to believe that certain cultures are less suited to maximizing well-being than others. I cited the ruthless misogyny and religious bamboozlement of the Taliban as an example of a worldview that seems less than perfectly conducive to human flourishing.

Happy Carl Sagan Day!

Today is Carl Sagan's birthday! He was born November 9, 1934. Over the past several months, my wonderful husband Butch and I watched the Cosmos series on Netflix instant view. I never saw them when I was a kid, and I never even knew about Carl Sagan until I was an adult. When I was in school I loved science but didn't think it was anything I could pursue.

In the last couple of years I've discovered the world of citizen science. And I've also discovered skepticism and, as you know, many wonderful podcasts that have inspired me with talk of great men like Carl Sagan. If I had to choose, astronomy is not the most interesting subject to me, but the Cosmos is wonderful. And Carl Sagan made everything fascinating. Watching Cosmos recently, I was filled with so much inspiration and wonder about the universe and our humble, small place in it. Cosmos has been seen by a billion people in sixty countries, according to the Carl Sagan Portal. What a legacy!

The 11th episode of Cosmos, The Persistence of Memory, is probably my favorite, even though I found them all to be excellent and still relevant today.  Here is the episode in 6 parts. If you can, watch the whole series. You'll be glad you did! See below for some quotes from this awesome man that is such a wonderful inspiration.

Part 1


Part 2

The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Here is a very special video treat. Over an hour of Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson talking to each other about their fields of science. They are two of my favorite living scientists. Enjoy!



Two of science's luminaries converse on the beauty of science. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and host of NOVA and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explore the wonders of the Cosmos and of Life, its origins, its inspirations, and why science is not just an option, it is the only reality we possess.

I Believe In Miracles

Damn, now that song is going through my head. Who was that? Butch says it was Wild Cherry, but don't hold me to it. Anyway, my friend Eric sent me a link to Michael Shermer's site, to a page titled Miracle on Probability Street. He wrote it in 2004 but I thought I'd share it with you because it's very good information.

We've all experienced a highly improbable event in our lives. Probably many, in fact. Some of us more than others, some more seemingly improbable than others. There is such a thing as the Law of Large Numbers that explains these coincidences and "miracles".

The Law of Large Numbers simply stated (sans math): with a large enough sample many odd coincidences are likely to happen.

Coincidence: an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising.

Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by a god, or any very surprising and unexpected event.

~

On a side note, I was disappointed with Dictionary.com's listing on these words so I thought I'd go to the Cambridge Dictionary. The definition above is from the Dictionary of British English. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word miracle in the Cambridge Dictionary of American English:

Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by God, or any surprising and unexpected event.

A very subtle but telling difference! I think I'll be using the British version from now on.

The Immortal Jelly

Here is an amazing creature! Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan, a jelly. They aren't called jellyfish anymore, by the way. Now they are called jellies. Nom! Only I don't want to eat this one on toast, I want scientists to study it. Why? Well, it's basically immortal.

After it reaches sexual maturity, it can go through a process of transdifferentiation and transform mature cells back to young cells (polyps). Here's one way to explain it:

Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell. In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on infinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal. (Wikipedia)

This little creature is about 4.5 mm in diameter (.18 inches). The red in the center is its large stomach. Young jellies have about 8 tentacles while adults have 80-90 tentacles. The picture shown below is actually a Turritopsis rubra from New Zealand which is closely related. They are very similar, but it's not known if  T. rubra can transform back into polyps.

The jelly originated in the Carribbean but now it's found all over the world in temperate to tropical oceans. Because it's basically immortal (if it doesn't succumb to predation, etc), the numbers are spiking.  They think it's spreading by ships discharging ballast water in ports.

A bit more about their immortality:

A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky

My friend Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It's a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford's School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:

• Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals


• Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers


• A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons


• The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predicament

The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me because our book club is reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant women need to worry about, and why they avoid cats and cat feces. It can wreak havoc on their unborn baby's nervous system.

If you read The God Virus, which talks about parasites and viruses as an analogy for religion, I highly recommend watching this video. If you aren't going to read the book I still recommend the video. The transcript is underneath it too, which will make it even more accessible for you. But the video is longer than the transcript. So take 25 minutes and enjoy it. Here's another link to the video. I'm telling you, it's fascinating. As I mentioned, the video is longer than the transcript. He goes into telemeres and molecular age, which I heard a study about recently confirming what he is explaining.

What he's talking about touches on evolution, common ancestors, parasites and how they go about getting where they need to be, motorcyclists and speed freaks, and schizophrenics, as well as the government's interest in this parasite. A wild ride indeed!

What Makes Us Uniquely Human?

The other day, I watched a 3 part special about what makes us uniquely human from the rest of the animals on the planet, namely chimps. It was very interesting and I wanted to share it with you. I'm linking to each full length video and then below I will link to Science Talk's interviews with Alda about the show and other interesting things.

Here's some information from PBS:

After some three and a half billion years of life’s evolution on this planet – and after almost two million years since people recognizable as human first walked its surface – a new human burst upon the scene, apparently unannounced.

It was us.

Until then our ancestors had shared the planet with other human species. But soon there was only us, possessors of something that gave us unprecedented power over our environment and everything else alive. That something was – is – the Human Spark.

What is the nature of human uniqueness? Where did the Human Spark ignite, and when? And perhaps most tantalizingly, why?

In a three-part series broadcast on PBS in January 2010, Alan Alda takes these questions personally, visiting with dozens of scientists on three continents, and participating directly in many experiments – including the detailed examination of his own brain.

The Greatest Destruction of Knowledge

Cyril of Alexandria was born around 376CE and rose to power as the Pope of Alexandria during the peak of the Roman Empire's rule there. He is credited with leading the charge against Nestorius in the First Council of Ephesus, where the divinity and caricature of Jesus Christ were debated. The Roman Catholic church eventually bestowed sainthood upon him, counting him among the 'Church Fathers' and 'Doctors of the Church', and also titling him as a Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers.

History might credit him with a much darker deed though, not surprisingly one the church usually fails to mention or attempts to brush under the rug. Although not official of course, some have referred to him as the patron saint of arsonists. His leadership possibly brought about what is probably the single most destructive annihilation of knowledge in human history.

FREE Scanning Electron Micrographs of Just About Anything

An interesting offer from ASPEX
November 10, 2009 2:54 PM - by PZ Myers

I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph), and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they'll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I'm thinking this could be really fun for any school teachers out there — you could have the whole class looking for interesting specimens to zoom in on. You can see their current galleries for ideas.

Follow the instructions here to get your dead bugs and rotten food scanned for free.

If you do send something in to get scanned be sure to note that you found them via PZ; and be sure to come back here and share your scan with the rest of us!

Random Thoughts On The Nature Of Things

Hello everyone,

First, I am now a Google Waver! Find me at zeneece@googlewave.com. I started my first public wave for atheists: Atheists Unite!

Secondly, I must confess my ignorance on a certain matter that has been bouncing around my brain for some time. I have asked my genius husband Butch and he didn't have an answer, which made me feel better.

I'll start with an example:

I always thought aspirin was found in the bark of white willows, and then was made in the lab. But the history seems to be entirely in the laboratory, according to Wikipedia. Also there does seem to be a connection between white willow bark and eventually aspirin.

Needless to say these days, aspirin is made strictly in the lab/factory. My question is, if things are made strictly from chemicals, where do the chemicals themselves come from? And a followup question would be, wouldn't that make everything natural, at some point? Doesn't everything eventually lead back to nature?

Another example:

Black Gold, petroleum, crude oil. It's considered this unnatural thing. But didn't it come from rotting vegetation and other natural organic matter?

When does something natural become something synthetic?

Why are natural things considered superior to synthetic things nowadays? Is there some proof that it's true? Or is it marketing/propaganda?

I'm not trying to start anything, or as the Brits would say, I'm not trying to have a go at synthetics. I really just want to understand. If the red food dye and flavoring in my drink stick mix is synthetic, where did the chemicals that make it up come from?

I would love your feedback and thoughts on this. But please, I took chemistry in high school which was over 20 years ago (egads, that made me feel old), so keep it simple.

Thanks friends! :)

Scientific Explanation For Supernatural Events

Most people look back on history, and see supernatural explanation attached to events that we can now explain scientifically. The sun setting and rising, the weather, crops growing and dieing, lightning, tides, etc. One of the things that still amazes me though is how so many religious people cling to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Thus clinging to a belief that the supernatural explanations in the Bible really are supernatural events; even though there are scientific explanations for most.

Most of us (skeptics, non-believers, etc) know there is no historical, archeological, or other scientific evidence for the Israelites residing in and exodus from Egypt. But if we suspend our skepticism for a moment, could there be some scientific explanation for some of the supernatural events?

Ten plagues. Ten scientific explanations.

Amusing Ourselves To Death

I saw this comparison of Aldous Huxley to George Orwell the other day. I thought it was extremely well done and thought you might find it insightful:

Amusing ourselves to death by Stuart McMillen - Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World vs. George Orwell, author of "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

Gallup: Most Religious States and Least Religious States

Religious Identity: States Differ Widely
August 7, 2009 - by Frank Newport

Click any picture to see it in its native size.

The states of the union differ remarkably from one another in terms of their residents' religions. Non-Catholic Christians -- the largest religious group in the country today -- are heavily concentrated in the South and nearby states, while constituting only a minority of residents of Northeastern states, and of many Middle Atlantic and Western states.