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

Reasons Given For Believing in God

I was reading The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer the other evening and came across a study that Shermer did that pretty much sums up belief in God. But it's really even more telling than that. I'll let him explain in his own words:

Page 264, kindle location ~5280)

My colleague Frank Sulloway and I discovered another form of attribution bias ¹ in a research project that we conducted several years ago. Frank and I wanted to know why people believe in God, so we polled ten thousand random Americans. In addition to exploring various demographic and sociological variables, we also directly asked subjects in an essay question why they believed in God.

The top two reasons that people gave for why they believed in God were "the good design of the universe" and "the experience of God in everyday life." Interestingly and tellingly, when subjects were asked why they thought other people believed in God, these two answers dropped to sixth and third place, respectively, and the two most common reasons given were that belief is "comforting" and "fear of death".

These answers revealed a sharp distinction between an intellectual attribution bias, in which people consider their own beliefs as being rationally motivated, and an emotional attribution bias, in which people see the beliefs of others as being emotionally driven.

... The attribution bias of perceiving intellectual reasons for belief as superior to emotional reasons appears to be a manifestation of a broader form of self-serving bias through which people slant their perceptions of the world, especially the social world, in their favor.

That is very telling, isn't it? What does it mean? Do people overestimate their own reasons, by making them out to be rational? Or do they accurately portray their reasons and view others less favorably as having beliefs for less practical reasons?

How would you even tease that out? I can't think of how you would, since you can only find out why people believe anything by asking them. So we just have to go on their word.

In my experience talking with religious people, I've heard quite a few say they just can't imagine or bear to think that we just end when we die. That's the one I've heard the most, personally. I've also heard the one along the lines of that they can't believe everything just evolved and came from nothing, etc.

But now I want to ask people why they think others believe in God.

1. attribution bias: the tendency to attribute different causes for our own beliefs and actions than that of others.

An Evening With Heathens

Sunday evening my group, Morgantown Atheists, had an evening at the local UU church to talk about heaven and hell around the world throughout time. We had a good turnout, including a Christian and a WVU professor of history, both of whom had never been there before. We all thought it was rather funny that the heater had been turned on in the church sometime before, so it was 99°. At least it was a dry heat. So we were sort of practicing in case we were wrong.

One of our regular members, Jason, brought his wife, Alise, who is a Christian. I actually met Alise in the blogosphere when she wrote that excellent article awhile ago called Surviving a Conversation With An Atheist, about what stereotypical assumptions not to make when you talk to one of us. So it was really neat to meet her in person then go out to dinner afterward with everyone and talk a bit more.

Unfortunately we didn't do much more than scratch the surface of what Alise believes, but my main goal was to make sure she was welcome and that she had an opportunity to at least share what her church teaches. (I should also note, Alise is extremely well spoken and seemed perfectly capable of handling her own!) But sometime over coffee I'd love to know more about what Alise believes herself, which she says is "complicated".

Anyway, she sent me a message this morning saying that she had blogged about her evening out with us heathens and it was so well-written I wanted to share it with you. Here it is, in its entirety:

Heaven and Hell with Atheists
by Alise Write

I've been meaning to attend a meeting of the local atheist group with Jason for a while now, but I've been unable to make it work due to conflicting schedules. When he told me that the group was going to be discussing heaven and hell this week and in light of some of the reading I've been doing recently, I thought it would be interesting to go and see what these folks had to say (the 99 degree temperature in the church where we met was cause for much mirth throughout the evening!).

Interesting Thought Provoking Blasphemous Pictures

Hey everyone, I'm sorry I've been so busy with personal stuff I haven't had much of a chance to blog for you guys. My family is arriving today for a long weekend so here are a few pictures to amuse you until I can get back to "normal".

Science vs. Religion - It's simple, really.

 

WTF Fail - LOL!

 

See More with Atheism

 

Sir David Attenborough (from Life on Air, BBC)

"I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. To which I reply and say, "Well, it's funny that the people, when they say that this evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things. They always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses." But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old. And I replay and say, "Well, presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well," and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful god with that action. And therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know about the truth, truthful and factual, and allow people to make up their own minds about the moralities of this thing, or indeed the theology of this thing."

 

Calamities of Nature: "It makes one wonder what other amazing discoveries were missed during [the Dark Ages]."

 

Fundamentalist, Cafeterian, Deist, Atheist

Kleptocracies and How They Gain Public Support

I'm reading a very interesting book right now called Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. In it he talks about kleptocracies and how they maintain their power even though they basically take from the common people.

Kleptocracy: a government or state in which those in power exploit national resources and steal; rule by a thief or thieves; a government where officials are politically corrupt and financially self-interested; A government characterized by rampant greed and corruption.

I'm reading the Kindle version, so this is from location 4794 of 8299:

What should an elite do  to gain popular support while still maintaining a more comfortable lifestyle than commoners? Kleptocrats throughout the ages have resorted to a mixture of four solutions:

1. Disarm the populace, and arm the elite.


2. Make the masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute received, in popular ways.


3. Use the monopoly of force to promote happiness, by maintaining public order and curbing violence.


4. Construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy.

Sound familiar? Here's the rest of what Diamond says about number 4:

Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs, just as do modern established religions. But the supernatural beliefs of bands and tribes did not serve to justify central authority, justify transfer of wealth, or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions and became institutionalized, they were thereby transformed into what we term a religion.

Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods. The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual formulas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing.

Chiefdoms characteristically have an ideology, precursor to an institutionalized religion, that buttresses the chief's authority. The chief may either combine the offices of political leader and priest in a single person, or may support a separate group of kleptocrats (that is, priests) whose function is to provide ideological justification for the chiefs. That is why chiefdoms devote so much collected tribute to constructing temples and other public works, which serve as centers of the official religion and visible signs of the chief's power.

Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other - by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others. At the cost of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes much more effective at conquering other societies or resisting attacks.

Very interesting! As I read this, I noticed some elements in how the U.S. is run or how certain parties are trying to steer the country. Of course, there are elements in other countries as well, but I know the U.S. better so I won't comment on them. What are your thoughts on how governments today use these methods to maintain their comfortable lifestyle at a higher rate than what the common people have?

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.

Science Is The Best Tool We Have: Updated

As you may have guessed, I love science. While it's not perfect since it's done with technology that has limitations, and more importantly is done by humans, it's the best tool we have to understand our universe.

I've wanted to write about the scientific method for quite awhile but could never feel like I would do it justice. Then, yesterday, I actually did science and thought I'd start there. See, we all use the scientific method in our daily lives, without even thinking about it. It's not some foreign thing that only people in white lab coats are allowed to do.

I'm trying to lose weight and get fit. I've become a bit roly poly over the years, eating too many calories, spending too many hours in front of my monitors, and no time exercising. So on January 7, my mom and I decided to start a friendly competition. That's not really the right word. It's more like we're encouraging each other and spurring each other on. My husband Butch joined in too. So it makes it much better for all of us to work together.

Anyway, since Jan 7 till last week, I had lost 15 pounds. The weight is getting harder to lose now, but I was still making slow progress until last week. Then, alarmingly I put 1.5 lbs on in one day!

I am not on a "diet". I've tried fad diets before, denial diets, etc. They don't work. They are gimmicks. Usually you lose in the beginning but after a short time it no longer works, then as soon as you go off of these fad diets, the weight comes back on with a vengeance. 

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.

Why Do Some People Resist Science?

My friend Gerald shared this article with my group yesterday and I thought you'd find it interesting. For those of us who love science and see it as an invaluable tool to help us understand the universe, people who reject science (usually selectively since they still drive cars, take medication and talk on their cell phones, of course) are baffling. It's easy to dismiss them as stupid, but Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg at Yale University have a different hypothesis.

The paper was originally published in Science in 2007, but there is a great version on the Edge.

Here are several excerpts of the Edge article:

It is no secret that many American adults reject some scientific ideas. In a 2005 Pew Trust poll, for instance, 42% of respondents said that they believed that humans and other animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. A substantial minority of Americans, then, deny that evolution has even taken place, making them more radical than "Intelligent Design" theorists, who deny only that natural selection can explain complex design. But evolution is not the only domain in which people reject science: Many believe in the efficacy of unproven medical interventions, the mystical nature of out-of-body experiences, the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts and fairies, and the legitimacy of astrology, ESP, and divination. ...

... While cultural factors are plainly relevant, American adults' resistance to scientific ideas reflects universal facts about what children know and how children learn. If this is right, then resistance to science cannot be simply addressed through more education; something different is needed.

... The main source of resistance to scientific ideas concerns what children know prior to their exposure to science. The last several decades of developmental psychology has made it abundantly clear that humans do not start off as "blank slates." Rather, even one year-olds possess a rich understanding of both the physical world (a "naïve physics") and the social world (a "naïve psychology"). ...

... These intuitions give children a head start when it comes to understanding and learning about objects and people. But these intuitions also sometimes clash with scientific discoveries about the nature of the world, making certain scientific facts difficult to learn. As Susan Carey once put it, the problem with teaching science to children is "not what the student lacks, but what the student has, namely alternative conceptual frameworks for understanding the phenomena covered by the theories we are trying to teach."

... In some cases, there is such resistance to science education that it never entirely sticks, and foundational biases persist into adulthood. ...

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.

Comparing Bibles: A Resource

Last night at my book club, one member who we'll call Elizabeth, talked about a website called BibleGateway.com where you can look up different verses and then pick from a list to see the verse in different bibles. I was just on their site the other day looking to see if they offered the New American Standard Bible (NASB) as a pdf, but alas they do not. But I never noticed this cool resource for what it is!

The reason I was interested in that version was because a biblical scholar, Loring Prest, who came to talk to our group told us that it was a very good translation. Since he's read the original texts, I felt that was a good recommendation.

Anyway, back to Bible Gateway. They have 23 English versions of the bible available, not to mention a bunch of other languages.

This is a great way to read the bible and see how the different translations treat the same verse.

Let's take a few examples. The first comes from Elizabeth who said to try the following verse if I was feeling immature. So of course, I had to read it:

Ezekiel 23:20

• New American Standard: 18-21 She uncovered her harlotries and uncovered her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her, as I had become disgusted with her sister. Yet she multiplied her harlotries, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth.


• King James: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.


• God's Word: She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose semen was like that of horses.

Thoughts on Arguing

I have been wondering about arguing lately. How we argue, how we get set in our world view and dig in like a donkey sits back on its hind legs and won't budge. The reason this has been in my mind is because I've been trying to learn about determinism. When I first heard about it in a podcast by the Reasonable Doubts guys, I resisted and thought, this is ridiculous! Of course I have free will! I feel like I do!

But after 4 hours of them explaining it, I felt like I was getting it. Then we had our Morgantown Atheists group have a meeting on determinism and free will. A professor from WVU came and talked about it and I got it even more. Now I've tried to explain it to my husband Butch and my friend Jeff, who are both extremely resistant and argue against it. Part of that is probably because I don't understand it enough to explain it well. But part of it is because the idea of determinism is huge. It rocks your world when you hear about it.

What I'm really trying to get at, though, is how we, as humans, seem to always fight for what is most comfortable and familiar to us. We always seem to resist new ideas. And something else, we always seem to pick the other side of an argument if we're up in the air. For instance, when I was explaining determinism to my friend Jeff, he objected heartily.

But then we were talking about this topic, about how people stick to their comfort zones, and he told me that he ended up explaining determinism to his son, and found himself defending it, while his son objected.

Isn't that interesting? Why do we do this? I'd love to see some research on this. I've heard of a few studies that might apply to this, but I can't recall them clearly enough to find them for you. If I can think of how to search for them, I'll add them here. If you know of any studies please let me know!

Also, do you find this is true for you and your friends and family? Or do you see it differently?

More Groovy Science 6

Big Bear Solar Observatory have the New Solar Telescope (NST) which took the picture you see of our sun. This is the most detailed picture of a sunspot ever taken in visible light. The resolution of the telescope is just 50 miles of the sun's surface. Science and technology are amazingly cool. The NST should help researchers better understand the complexities of solar weather and its impact on the space climate in our neighborhood of the solar system. Found Here.

• Generation X More Loyal to Religion


• Drink Water to Curb Weight Gain? Clinical Trial Confirms Effectiveness of Simple Appetite Control Method


• Capacity for Exercise Can Be Inherited: Finding Suggests Pharmaceutical Drugs  Can Be Used to Alter Activity Levels in Humans


• Do-Gooders Get Voted Off Island First: People Don't Really Like Unselfish Colleagues


• 'Charitable' Behavior Found in Bacteria


• Attention, Couch Potatoes! Walking Boosts Brain Connectivity, Function


• Starvation Keeps Sleep-Deprived Fly Brain Sharp


• Eating Berries May Activate the Brain's Natural Housekeeper for Healthy Aging


• Roots of Gamblers' Fallacies and Other Superstitions: Causes of Seemingly Irrational Human Decision-Making

Atheists: Have You Ever Had A Mystical Experience?

I'm reading a book called The God Part of the Brain by Matthew Alper. Mostly, I think it's a pretty interesting book. (there's one thing that really bugs me about it, but otherwise it's a good read). Anyway, he talks about how mystical experiences are found across cultures, which implies that there is a genetic component to them. In other words, every culture in recorded history talks about having mystical experiences so it must be something happening in the brain that is genetic. There must be genes associated with the way the brain works in certain circumstances that cause that phenomenon in people around the world.

Let's define a mystical experience first. Dan Merkur, author of Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions, lists the five most common symptoms of a mystical experience (from The God Part of the Brain, pg 134)

• a sense of unity or totality


• a sense of timelessness


• a sense of having encountered ultimate reality


• a sense of sacredness


• a sense that one can not adequately describe the richness of their experience

I was deeply religious as a child, from about age 4 to 12. I was so terrified of burning in hell that I was baptized 3 times in 3 different churches. I went to Sunday school, church, bible camp, I sang hymns, I prayed, I studied and read my bible, and had bible lessons for a short while. But in all those years, I never once had a mystical experience. I never felt god. I never felt the touch of the divine.

More Groovy Science 5

More interesting science! Let's see what's going on in the science world recently. My thoughts on a couple of the studies are in italics.

• People Reject Popular Opinions If They Already Hold Opposing Views


• To Make One Happy, Make One Busy


• What You Say About Others Says a Lot About You


• Breeding Is Changing Dog Brains


• Synthetic Bone Graft Recruits Stem Cells for Faster Bone Healing


• Latest 'Green' Packing Material? Mushrooms; Packing Foam Engineered from Mushrooms and Agricultural Waste


• Mining Bacterial Genomes Reveals Valuable 'Hidden' Drugs


• One High-Fat Diet, Two Different Outcomes: The Path to Obesity Becomes Clearer


• Obesity Prevention Begins Before Birth: Excess Maternal Weight Gain Increases Birth Weight After Controlling for Genetic Factors


• Gum Inflammation Linked to Alzheimer's Disease


• Brain Study Shows That Thinking About God Reduces Distress, But Only for Believers

People Reject Popular Opinions If They Already Hold Opposing Views: A new study suggests people often grow more confident in some beliefs when they find out later that a majority of people disagree with them. "It may be that you feel proud because you were able to disprove, in your own mind, an opinion that most people have accepted. You actually become doubly sure you were right."
Previous research has shown that majority opinion has the greatest influence on people when they consider issues that aren't that important to them or issues they don't want to spend much effort thinking about. Minority opinion does have influence sometimes, but mostly on issues which people are motivated to consider carefully. However, previous work had focused on situations in which people found out the majority opinion before they had given the issue much thought. "People may be thinking that 'if I can find the flaws in a position that the majority of people believe, then my thoughts must really be good ones.'"
One key to this finding is that people have to think about the issue first, and develop their own ideas. Learning later that a majority of people hold a certain view, after you have already made up your mind, functions to help you validate what you already think about that issue.

To Make One Happy, Make One Busy: A new study found that people who have something to do, even something pointless, are happier than people who sit idly. ...people like being busy, and they like being able to justify being busy -- to benefit society.

~If you read the write-up, I'd love your opinion on how this conclusion was made. I basically agree with the conclusion that keeping busy leads to feeling happier than just being idle, but I question how the conclusion was made, at least from the write-up.

What You Say About Others Says a Lot About You: How positively you see others is linked to how happy, kind-hearted and emotionally stable you are. The researchers found a person's tendency to describe others in positive terms is an important indicator of the positivity of the person's own personality traits. They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others. The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior. "The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders. Given that negative perceptions of others may underlie several personality disorders, finding techniques to get people to see others more positively could promote the cessation of behavior patterns associated with several different personality disorders simultaneously." This research suggests that when you ask someone to rate the personality of a particular coworker or acquaintance, you may learn as much about the rater providing the personality description as the person they are describing. The level of negativity the rater uses in describing the other person may indeed indicate that the other person has negative characteristics, but may also be a tip off that the rater is unhappy, disagreeable, neurotic -- or has other negative personality traits. ...By evaluating the raters and how they evaluated their peers again one year later, Wood found compelling evidence that how positively we tend to perceive others in our social environment is a highly stable trait that does not change substantially over time.

Breeding Is Changing Dog Brains: Scientists have shown that selective breeding of domestic dogs is not only dramatically changing the way animals look but is also driving major changes in the canine brain. The brains of many short-snouted dog breeds have rotated forward as much as 15 degrees, while the brain region controlling smell has fundamentally relocated. No other animal has enjoyed the level of human affection and companionship like the dog, nor undergone such a systemic and deliberate intervention in its biology through breeding, the authors note. The diversity suggests a unique level of plasticity in the canine genome. "Canines seem to be incredibly responsive to human intervention through breeding. It's amazing that a dog's brain can accommodate such large differences in skull shape through these kinds of changes -- it's something that hasn't been documented in other species." ..."The next obvious step is to try to find out if these changes in brain organisation are also linked to systematic differences in dogs' brain function."

Synthetic Bone Graft Recruits Stem Cells for Faster Bone Healing: A new study shows how particles of a ceramic called calcium phosphate have the ability to stimulate promising bone regrowth by attracting stem cells and 'growth factors' to promote healing and the integration of the grafted tissue. "The rate of bone repair we see with these materials rivals that of traditional grafts using a patients' own bone. And what sets it apart from other synthetic graft substitutes is its ability to attract stem cells and the body's natural growth factors, which coincide to form new, strong, natural bone around an artificial graft." ...The study suggests that biomaterials-based bone grafts can manipulate cell behaviour in order to repair injury, and one day may be used to repair bone injuries in humans.

Latest 'Green' Packing Material? Mushrooms; Packing Foam Engineered from Mushrooms and Agricultural Waste: A new packing material that grows itself is now appearing in shipped products across the country. The composite of inedible agricultural waste and mushroom roots is called Mycobond™, and its manufacture requires just one eighth the energy and one tenth the carbon dioxide of traditional foam packing material. And unlike most foam substitutes, when no longer useful, it makes great compost in the garden.

Mining Bacterial Genomes Reveals Valuable 'Hidden' Drugs: Scientists successfully used a 'genome mining' approach to find and activate a group of genes in the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. This resulted in the production of a new antibacterial compound that was effective against several bacterial strains, including Escherichia coli. Streptomyces is a common soil bacterium that is well-known for its antibiotic-producing capabilities. In 2002, genomic sequencing of one Streptomyces species, S. coelicolor, revealed several groups of genes whose function was unknown. By digging deeper and removing a molecule that specifically inactivates one of the mystery gene groups, known as cpk, the researchers in this study were able to 'awaken' the genes, to find that they produced the new antibiotic, in addition to a bright yellow pigment. This is the first time a genome mining approach to drug discovery has been successfully used in Streptomyces. The same approach for 'awakening' new antibiotic production pathways could also be used to tap other micro-organisms, such as filamentous fungi, for sources of biologically active compounds. Aside from antibiotics, these compounds may include other antimicrobials or antitumour agents. "There are several thousand other uncharacterized groups of genes that have been found recently in microbial genome sequences. This opens up a rich treasure trove of new potential drugs for clinical use."

One High-Fat Diet, Two Different Outcomes: The Path to Obesity Becomes Clearer: Why is it that two people can consume the same high fat, high-calorie Western diet and one becomes obese and prone to diabetes while the other maintains a slim frame? A study provides a simple explanation: weight is set before birth in the developing brain. The research team analyzed the question in specific groups of rats. ...animals that become obese already had a significant difference in the feeding center of the brain. Neurons that are supposed to signal when you've eaten enough and when to burn calories, are much more sluggish in these animals because they are inhibited by other cells. In animals resistant to obesity, these satiety signaling neurons are much more active and ready to signal to the rest of the brain and peripheral tissues when enough food has been consumed. "These observations add to the argument that it is less about personal will that makes a difference in becoming obese, and, it is more related to the connections that emerge in our brain during development."

Obesity Prevention Begins Before Birth: Excess Maternal Weight Gain Increases Birth Weight After Controlling for Genetic Factors: Expectant mothers who gain large amounts of weight tend to give birth to heavier infants who are at higher risk for obesity later in life. But it's never been proven that this tendency results from the weight gain itself, rather than genetic or other factors that mother and baby share. "Since high birth weight, in turn, increases risk for obesity and diseases such as cancer and asthma later in life, these findings have important implications to general public health."
...Animal studies suggest that excess maternal weight or excess weight gain during pregnancy affects the uterine environment, producing changes in the hypothalamus, pancreatic islet cells, fat tissue and other systems that regulate body weight. "Hormones and metabolic pathways, and even the structure of tissues and organs that play a role in body weight maintenance are affected."

Gum Inflammation Linked to Alzheimer's Disease: The study offers fresh evidence that gum inflammation may contribute to brain inflammation, neurodegeneration, and Alzheimer's disease.

Brain Study Shows That Thinking About God Reduces Distress, But Only for Believers: Thinking about God may make you less upset about making errors, according to a new study. The researchers measured brain waves for a particular kind of distress-response while participants made mistakes on a test. Those who had been prepared with religious thoughts had a less prominent response to mistakes than those who hadn't. The researchers showed that when people think about religion and God, their brains respond differently, in a way that lets them take setbacks in stride and react with less distress to anxiety-provoking mistakes. The results showed that when people were primed to think about religion and God, either consciously or unconsciously, brain activity decreases in areas consistent with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area associated with a number of things, including regulating bodily states of arousal and serving an alerting function when things are going wrong, including when we make mistakes.
Interestingly, atheists reacted differently; when they were unconsciously primed with God-related ideas, their ACC increased its activity. The researchers suggest that for religious people, thinking about God may provide a way of ordering the world and explaining apparently random events and thus reduce their feelings of distress. In contrast, for atheists, thoughts of God may contradict the meaning systems they embrace and thus cause them more distress.
"Thinking about religion makes you calm under fire. It makes you less distressed when you've made an error. We think this can help us understand some of the really interesting findings about people who are religious. Although not unequivocal, there is some evidence that religious people live longer and they tend to be happier and healthier." Atheists shouldn't despair, though. "We think this can occur with any meaning system that provides structure and helps people understand their world." Maybe atheists would do better if they were primed to think about their own beliefs, he says.

~My initial thoughts on this: Of course atheists were more agitated after reading the god related ideas! What did they expect? That the atheists would suddenly find comfort in that insanity? I think the conclusions for atheists is offensively patronizing. Maybe I'm just irritated by how the study was conducted. It would suggest to me that religious people can easily make mistakes and their religious thoughts make them more accepting of their mistakes. This doesn't seem like a positive reaction. When you screw up you should have a reaction, in my opinion.

Also, is it true that religious people live longer and are happier? Is there evidence for that? Most atheists I know are quite happy, and more importantly, not delusional. Then again, in support of the study's conclusions, the atheists I know who are relatively happy all have very strong value systems that give their lives meaning. I can also speak for myself that this is the case. Atheism only starts with a lack of belief in god. It doesn't mean we don't have strong values in the real world that give our lives meaning in other areas away from anything supernatural.

More Groovy Science 4

Hello everyone! Here is more science to tantalize your synapses and neurons!

• Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance


• More Than Half the World's Population Gets Insufficient Vitamin D, Says Biochemist


• Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Cognitive Decline


• Team Develops Non-Toxic Oil Recovery Agent


• Smoking Mind Over Smoking Matter: Surprising New Study Shows Cigarette Cravings Result from Habit, Not Addiction


• Light and Moderate Physical Activity Reduces the Risk of Early Death


• New Antibacterial Material for Bandages, Food Packaging, Shoes


• A Blood Test for Depression?


• 3-D Gesture-Based Interaction System Unveiled

Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance: New research shows that having some kind of lucky token can actually improve your performance -- by increasing your self-confidence. ...Volunteers who had their lucky charm did better at a memory game on the computer, and other tests showed that this difference was because they felt more confident. They also set higher goals for themselves. Just wishing someone good luck -- with "I press the thumbs for you," the German version of crossing your fingers -- improved volunteers' success at a task that required manual dexterity.

~Of course, this is still a form of delusion. Everyone tested in the study was superstitious and had a lucky charm. I'd like to see a study or two that involved people who don't rely on superstition as well. I think if a person understands the delusion of superstition, they will therefore not need the "lucky" feather in their cap. They will have appropriate self-confidence based on their actual abilities. Still, it's an interesting study.

Unexpected Friendship With A Palin Lover

Sometimes you can learn something when you least expect it.

My sister-in-law (we'll call her Martha) has been dating this guy who we'll call Steve. I met him the night that she and Steve were reacquainted at the high school reunion last year. It was one of those big affairs where 10 years of classes were invited. Anyway she and Steve have basically been dating ever since. She hasn't had the best luck with guys in the past but she's head over heels in love with him and is very happy, which is good.

The night I met Steve, I mentioned to him that I was reading a great book called Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life. It's a fantastic book that I highly recommend. Butch was there and chimed in that it's all about evolution, which it is, in a very cool, observable way. Steve rolled his eyes and scoffed. Scoffed! I didn't want to get into it since we were heading home but I immediately found myself feeling cold toward him.

So, when Martha brought Steve to a family BBQ the next day I was polite but really didn't have anything to say to him. He seemed nice enough though.

Time went on and I learned from him that he likes Sarah Palin. He thinks she's got some good ideas. (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth there) Martha told me he's a full on conservative republican but that they don't talk about politics. As I do with most people, I was also refraining from political  - or religious - talk with him as well.

To this day we've stayed clear of those two topics. But we've gone out to dinner quite a few times, hung out at family gatherings, and he even invited us over to watch some MMA on a channel we don't get next month (Woot!) He's a genuinely nice guy. He's not stupid by any means, can hold a conversation, has a good sense of humor, and seems to be making Martha extremely happy.

Why am I talking about this? Well, to me, Sarah Palin is a stupid, vapid pentecostal nutcase with only enough brain cells to rub together to help her wink and flap her mouth when someone pulls her puppet strings. The fact that people give her 2 seconds of their time, combined with her views on Armageddon and the end times, makes her extremely dangerous. Usually when confronted with someone who likes Palin, I run the other way.