Happy Darwin Day

Hello to all. After a seven month absence I have returned. I'd like to explain my absence with a tale of derring-do, of frontiers crossed and mountains scaled and disasters averted, of femmes fatale and gangsters and wild ambulance rides and desperate last stands, but the honest truth is that I've just been busy with ordinary life. Sigh.

Today is the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth. Happy 200th birthday to him! (It's also Abraham Lincoln's 200th.)

It's astounding that, in the year 2009, more than one in two people in the USA don't accept the reality of biological evolution. This is the cause of, and is caused by, the politicisation of biology by religious fundamentalists: evolution has been, for well over half a century, a convenient whipping boy to rally the troops. Opposition to a scientific theory has become a good defining characteristic of a certain type of fundamentalist. It's relatively safe and easy too: it doesn't require you give up your DVD player or plasma TV, like the Amish do, or avoid medical treatment like followers of so-called "Christian Science" do.

While Darwin's contributions to biology are eminently worthy of respect and even celebration, I don't think the plans for Darwin Day are entirely innocent. After all, there's little or no serious movement towards celebrating Sir Isaac Newton's birthday (25th December), or Maxwell's, or Einstein's, or any other noted scientist. I think that there is a little bit of cocking a snook at the Fundamentalists here. They've spent decades demonising Darwin, and I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) wouldn't be too unhappy to see the fundies squirm over Darwin Day. But I think it is important to remember that Darwin never sought controversy, and although he became an atheist himself, he wasn't a militant one. He never begrudged his wife Emma's faith, and he deliberately held off publishing his theory as long as possible because of his concerns that it would upset people.

So, for Darwin Day, some links on why Darwin is important.

From the Guardian:

There can be no such equivocation in the week of a survey which showed that only around half of all Britons accept that Darwin's theory of evolution is either true or probably true. In a democracy, citizens should respect each other's beliefs; and citizens have a right to express their beliefs. But in a democracy, a newspaper has an obligation to what is right. The truth is that Darwin's reasoning has in the last 150 years been supported overwhelmingly by discoveries in biology, geology, medicine and space science. The details will keep scientists arguing for another 200 years, but the big picture has not changed. All life is linked by common ancestry, including human life. The shameful lesson of this 200th anniversary of his birth is that Darwin's contemporaries understood more clearly than many modern Britons.

Jerry Coyne on why Darwin is still important, 150 years after Origin Of Species:

Darwin had far more influence on modern evolutionary research than Newton has on work in modern physics. In fact, in no other area of science has a research program suggested by one person lasted for a century and a half. ...

But some biologists, chafing in their Darwinian straitjacket, periodically announce new worldviews that, they claim, will overturn our view of evolution, or at least force its drastic revision. During my career I have heard this said about punctuated equilibrium, molecular drive, the idea of symbiosis as an evolutionary force, evo-devo, and the notion that evolution is driven by the self-organization of molecules. Some of these ideas are worthwhile, others simply silly; but none do more than add a room or two to the Darwinian manse. Often declared dead, Darwinism still refuses to lie down.

(A small aside: Richard Dawkins has a glowing review of Coyne's book Why Evolution Is True. One for the shopping list, methinks.)

And Darwin fan-grrl Soupytwist has written a short, sweet and kick-arse post about her attitude to Darwin and his theory:

It's about seeing the world for what it is, not for what we might percieve it to be, and seeing the actual underlying processes underneath: processes at once so simple and so far-reaching that they boggle the mind.

I mean, "things that survive are the ones who get to pass on attributes to the next generation" seems pretty obvious, really. But as simple as that idea is, it really wasn't obvious, not in the face of a world where basically everybody thought species were created immutable, and absolutely not before we knew there was definitely such a thing as DNA which might provide the actual mechanics of the whole thing.

On a related note, if anybody tries to tell you that Darwin recanted his theory on his deathbed and returned to Christianity, don't be fooled. It simply isn't true.


UPDATE: thanks to Mrs Impala for her l33t editing and proof-reading skills, and the link to Soupytwist.

Monster parents

The Times describes the rise of a new class of "monster parents" in Japan:

The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.

For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents”.

For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role.

(No link for the Times, as their Terms and Conditions prohibit linking to anything but their home page. However, they don't prohibit telling what the URL is, just linking, so feel free to copy and paste this URL into your browser:

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4083278.ece

Remember kids, with a law degree you too can be paid the big dollars to write stupid, unenforceable documents.)

RIP Joseph Weizenbaum

Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of Eliza, has passed away. That lead to this amusing exchange on the comp.lang.python newsgroup (compiled from various contributors):

How do you feel about creator of Eliza?
What is Eliza?
Does that question interest you?
Well played, sir.
Earlier you said what is Eliza. Do you still feel that way?
I am embarrassed to say that this vaguely disrespectful exchange made me laugh out loud.
Does it bother you that this vaguely disrespectful exchange made you laugh out loud?

Linux users wanting to play with Eliza can run the Emacs text editor and choose "Emacs Psychotherapist" from the Help menu.

Navy wren dead on floor

Accidents will happen. People can die from undiagnosed illnesses due to no fault of anyone. But in the case of Royal Navy Lieutenant Emma Douglas, there's a big question over responsibility for her death.

Douglas was an undiagnosed diabetic. After being ill for a week and vomiting blood, the medical officer on board the HMS Cornwall pronounced her fit for duty and sent her back to her cabin. A day later she collapsed with stomach cramps. But that's not why there's a question mark over her death: Douglas had not previously shown any of the symptoms of diabetes. But four days after being passed as fit for duty, and three days after collapsing with stomach cramps, Douglas was found collapsed on the floor of her cabin half naked. The duty watch sailor who found her described her as having "laboured breathing" to the officer of the day. Despite being known as a light drinker, her shipmates assumed she was drunk, and nobody checked on her for 24 hours -- by which time she was dead from diabetic keto-acidosis.

What I'd like to know is: is it normal for Royal Navy sailors who are vomiting blood to be pronounced fit for duty? Is it common practice for sailors supposed to be on duty to get drunk, and having drunk themselves into unconsciousness, are they normally left for 24 hours sprawled where they lie?

I think it says a lot about the British Navy culture that a sailor found unconscious on the floor is assumed to be drunk rather than sick.

The Onion on opinions

When satire makes more sense than conventional wisdom -- The Onion reports that "38% of people not actually entitled to their opinion":

In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

"On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced," said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz, who based the findings on hundreds of telephone, office, and dinner-party conversations compiled over a three-year period. "While people have long asserted that it takes all kinds, our research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don't have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them."

The difficulty, alas, is distinguishing the 38% from the rest...

(Here's a hint though... if you think that "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" is a good argument against evolution, you're in the 38%.)

The Great London Beer Flood of 1814

This isn't quite as amusing horrific as the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, which killed 21 people, flattened buildings and tore apart 1/2 inch steel plates, but it is close. 1.2 million litres of beer burst out of barrels in a London brewery in 1814, flooding the slum of St Giles and drowning seven people. People rushed to save as much of the free beer as possible, so much so that an eighth victim died of alcohol poisoning.

Lutefisk

All joking aside, the photos and descriptions of lutefisk on Wikipedia make it seem actually appetizing. I'll eat olives prepared in lye, bitter greens and cheese so mouldy it practically bites back (sometimes in one meal!), so how bad could lutefisk be?

Sonya the black widow

I'm not sure whether to be bemused or amused -- this tiny 45kg (100lb) woman is a world-class competitive eater. Not just competitive, but one of the best in the world. Sonya Thomas makes a good case that eating is a matter of skill and training and reaction time, but still... the lady ate more than one tenth of her body weight in cheesecake in nine minutes!

There is something amazing and scary about somebody that small eating forty-four soft-shell lobsters in twelve minutes and sixty-five hard boiled eggs in six minutes forty seconds. That's almost a dozen eggs per minute. And forty six dozen oysters in ten minutes.

I'm torn between thinking Gross! and Cool!

Sonya's home page.

Thumbelina

Meet Thumbelina, officially recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's smallest horse: a mere 4 hands (17 inches or 43cm).



The Daily Mail writes:

'My parents have bred hundreds of miniature horses, but we have never had one as small as Thumbelina,' Mr Goessling said.

'She was just a complete fluke and we call her a mini mini.

'When she was young she found the dog kennels and decided she wanted to bed-in with the dogs, rather than with bigger horses.

'She spends all her time playing with the spaniels, but we have to try and stop her grazing on grass, because she is not allowed to eat too much.'

[...]

The tiny mare has become sometime of a celebrity in her home town in America, but Mr Goessling insists they will never sell her, no matter what price is offered.

'She is too precious to us to sell,' he added. 'I think my parents would sell me before they part with Thumbelina.

'She has that special Wow factor, which you only get when you physically see how small she really is.'

Nothing up her sleeve

This is definitely not safe for work.

Magician Ursula Martinez has a twist on the old disappearing hanky trick. She makes the hanky disappear from her hand and reapper in her jacket, so she takes the jacket off. Then the hanky disappears again, reappearing in her skirt, so off comes the skirt. And so on, until there is nowhere else for the hanky to hide, thus combining magic with another of my favourite things.

Well, no clothing for the hanky to hide in.

The video clip is here, and her website is here. (Thanks to Les the Stupid Evil Bastard for the link.)

It is really simple, basic magic, but that's what virtually all magic is about: misdirection and showmanship -- or in this case, showwomanship. Literally.

Steve Irwin killed by sting-ray

The "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, who has done so much for conservation and the protection of wildlife in Australia and across the world, has been killed today in a tragic accident, aged 44.

According to reports, Irwin was killed by a sting-ray while filming a documentary in far north Queensland. The Queensland Ambulance Service have confirmed that he died of lacerations to the heart from a sting-ray's barbed tail.

Sting-rays are not aggressive, but they are dangerous, and will strike out with their poisonous barbed tail if trod on or startled.

Many Australians have been embarrassed by Steve Irwin's broad Aussie accent, his use of stereotypical slang like "crikey!" and "what a bewty!", and especially his habit of putting himself into "Danger! Danger! Danger!". But for all his joking about, he was a great populariser of nature, an environmentalist and conservationist, a man who brought a welcome sense of fun to a field that is often stuffy and boring. He was a true Aussie larrikin, in the good sense, a man who knew how to treat serious topics with affection, joy and respectful irreverence. He was a real Australian icon. He will be missed.

His producer and good friend John Stainton said:

Today the world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dad's on the planet. He died doing what he loved best, he left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind, he would've said 'crocs rule'.

Source: ABC Far North Queensland News.

More news reports here:

Bloomberg

Cairns Newspapers
(warning: contains Javascript animated banner)

Also of interest may be his "Crocodile Hunter" website, and a collection of Steve Irwin quotes.

The world is just a little bit of a darker place without him.

Poodle disguise for Dobermans

And other "fierce" breeds:



See here for the full details of the kit, including larger pictures.

Is this the sickest piece of tackiness ever?

National Collector’s Mint is releasing a limited edition commemorative coin to celebrate commemorate the destruction of the World Trade Centre. Made of gold and silver, with the silver "miraculously" recovered from the teeth of the victims a bank vault found under the rubble.

As a tribute to the thousands who died, the inset of the Twin Towers on the coin is able to rise up like the world's most tacky erection: "The effect is dazzling - it is literally transformed into a standing sculpture of the Twin Towers!"


(Overheard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: "Look Laura! It's risen again!" "That's nice dear, why don't you go show it to Mister Cheney like a good boy?")

And best of all, the coin has been discounted! The price "was to be set at $49.95. However, during this limited special release, this Gold and Silver clad masterpiece can be yours for just $29.95." And if you call now, you get a free steak knife.

Okay, I made up the bit about the steak knife.

You can see this "truly unique" piece of tat in all its glory here.

Hello Kitty Darth Vader

This "Hello Kitty" Darth Vader


is a photoshop job, but this Darth Vera the Sith yenta


is not.

Links to Boing Boing's coverage here and here.

No jokes please, this is serious

Paris Hilton is giving up sex for a year, so she can concentrate all her energy on herself.

Must ... resist urge ... to crack jokes ...

And 200,000 geeks suddenly cry out...

...on seeing the IT Goddess calendar.

Clowns and pregnancy

"I Can't Believe It's Science" in Seed Magazine reports on research suggesting that clowns cause pregnancy.

Ah, clowns. Who doesn't love 'em?

Evil cat hailed as a hero

The BBC is reporting the story of a cat from Sheffield, England which has been hailed as a hero for reportedly being able to predict that his owner[1] is about to have an epileptic fit:

Tee Cee's owner Michael Edmonds, of Sheffield, has complex epilepsy and can suffer seizures without warning.

But now he is warned of an impending fit when Tee Cee sits close to him and stares at his face.

"When he first did it I thought it was a one-off," Mr Edmonds said. "But ever since then he just seems to know."

Hero cat? Nonsense -- this is an evil cat.

El Reg has worked out the truth. The cat isn't predicting the epileptic fits, he is causing them, using evil cat powers:

Indeed, the cat stares at Edmonds, and subsequently Edmonds suffers a fit.

Indeed indeed. What more needs to be said?




[1] Of course cats don't have owners. They have staff. Back