Well, it is a new month so as you would expect the latest .net magazine appeared. It is still early days but so far there is little sign of improvement (traditionally the writers seem to get a lease of life at the start of the year, but by Oct – Dec are producing mostly garbage), which could bode ill for the rest of the year.

I will write more on it another day, but I am still intrigued that instead of printing more letters they have brought back the “penny forum” nonsense – if you want to read the forum, go to the forum – and they waste pages at the back with pure drivel.

One thing which made me laugh was a quote which read:

There aren’t many digital cameras or DVD players out there without the DivX logo slapped on them…

Wow. Can I suggest the journalist who wrote that needs to actually leave the building every now and then? Ideally (s)he should also visit some shops before making such a broad sweeping remark.

Last time I looked in Currys, Comet, Dixons and PC World – I found two out of a total of about 50 different types of DVD player which would play DivX. I have yet to see a digital camera which has DivX “Slapped on it,” so I can only assume the writer was completely making things up.

If they are going to lie about something like this, where do they draw the line? Can you ever be sure what they say is true?

More on .net will follow if the magazine seems worth it.

Tags: .net Magazine, DivX, Web Design, Technology

Today’s news papers (for example the Guardian) have been talking about the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which says that, for those really slow on the uptake, climate change is influenced by human behaviour. How this is news is beyond me, but there are some unreported aspects which I thought people should be aware of.

Today is 3 Feb 07. It is winter. February is traditionally the coldest, snowiest, month of the year in the UK. When I was younger, there would be so much snow schools would close. Dont even get me started on the rain.

However, this is today (Photos taken at Old Sarum, an English Heritage Site in Wiltshire):

Today it was clear, very sunny and really warm. No wind. Not a cloud in the (perfect blue) sky. Fantastic. On Flickr there are a few more pictures which are worth checking out:

(before anyone gets all hyper, the title was a joke – it is not trying to imply there are any “good things” about Global Warming. If you were offended – get over yourself.)

Old Sarum 26 Jul 06,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

It is one of those strange things about life, but there really is no accounting for taste. This picture has, for some reason, been consistently the most popular image on my Flickr collection – pretty much since the point it was uploaded.

At the moment it has been viewed over 600 times, which is nearly a hundred views each month, and I have no idea why.

Of course, I think it is a great photo. I took it. I photoshopped it.

Personally though, I think there are others which I would rather look at. One other oddity is that despite its mountains of views, no one has added this picture as a “favorite” – that honour tends to go to ones of Stonehenge or Romans in armour.

Tags: Photos, Lomo, Lomography, Photoshop, Photoshop Effects, Picture Editing, English Heritage, Old Sarum, Wiltshire

Excellent video on YouTube, with a title like “Fundamentalism is a Mental Disease” you know it will be entertaining:

Tags: Evolution, Fundamentalism, Creationism, Mental Disease, Intelligent Design, Science,Philosophy

Well, even a new month does little to stem the reams of anti-evolutionary nonsense that some websites produce. This current example (which was, as is often the case, found from Pharyngula) ticks lots of the boxes for the nonsense woo-worshippers who want to disprove evolution by any means possible. Sadly they rarely seem to care how idiotic their attempts are, and I suspect they work on the principle of if each attempt convinces one person, as long as they do lots of attempts it will work. (Bit like spam mail really)

Anyway, via the wonders of modern technology (what looks like a server side PHP script) the “Random Mutation Generator” website claims to demonstrate what it views as a flaw in the theory. When you visit the site (and really, css was common place on the internet years ago, there is NO excuse for that web design), you get a text box in which you can write words then press the “mutate” button and see what happens.

Now, as an example of server side scripting this is fine (although it could just have easily been done with JS on the client – then it would at least have been AJAX-Cool). It is certainly not an example of how evolution takes place, nor is it an example of how random mutations in DNA occur. This is a script. It is arbitrary and constrained by the code used, the concepts behind that code and the skills of the programmer. Calling the “submit” button “Mutate!” does not make it evolutionary.

I am not sure if the person behind this site is a creationist / ID proponent but it seems that their attempt to disprove evolution by actually disproving intelligent design. Now, laying all the woo and sheer nonsense to one side, if we can for one minute accept the generator as an example of evolution (urgh, but stick with me), it shows that the oft used ploy of “directed evolution” is false. The generator takes a recognisable English word (the “creators” start point) and through random mutation (which certainly happens, even IDers agree to that) tries to show it can not become a different recognisable English word.

Now, correct me if I am wrong but I dont recall anything in Evolution which that applies to. There is plenty in ID which it does though.

Well, here is one which intrigues me sometimes: Is Atheism a religion? Personally, it is an easy one. “No” is the only answer I would ever come up with.

Things get a bit more complicated when Theist X says things like “the dictionary defines Atheist as some one who does not believe in God, this is in itself a belief, therefore Atheism is a religion.” On lots of questionnaires which ask for religion “Atheist” is included as an option, some don’t even have “none” as a choice.

Now, to me this is nonsense but I can (grudgingly) see some reasoning in the chain of logic and wondered what others think. Personally, I like the variations on the quote “Saying Atheism is a religion is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

Fortune has smiled upon us… we have another chance to take a swipe at both Islam and Christian crackpots. This time the Christian ones are fairly minority (hopefully) but the Islamic one is fairly influential. Both are the same theme – vaccination.

Apparently Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the UK’s Islamic Medical Association (and a member of the Muslim Council of Britain) that good Muslims should not vaccinate their children. In a nutshell Dr Katme’s arguments are that the vaccines are not halal and may contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine. well, that is a good reason to encourage your followers to let their children suffer. The Time article has the following quote:

He claimed that Muslims must allow their children to develop their own immune system naturally rather than rely on vaccines.

He argued that leading “Islamically healthy lives” would be enough to ward off illnesses and diseases.

“You see, God created us perfect and with a very strong defence system. If you breast-feed your child for two years — as the Koran says — and you eat Koranic food like olives and black seed, and you do ablution each time you pray, then you will have a strong defence system,” he said.

Amazing, isn’t it. Predictably MMR comes in for a bad rap but that has become par for the course in today’s (un)enlightened age. As mentioned on Orac’s blog this whole line of thinking is not only insane for him, but threatens to undermine the herd immunity vaccine programs strive for. I think this quote from Orac sums it up brilliantly though:

“Islamically healthy lives”? Oh, yes, because Muslims were so much more healthy and resistant to disease hundreds of years ago, before vaccines were developed for common and often deadly diseases like smallpox and childhood diseases like rubella and the importance of modern sanitation was understood. Epidemics were never a problem, right? Again, what medical school did Dr. Katme graduate from?

It is worrying that Dr Katme is considered an Islamic moderate and, as part of the MCB, is working towards greater integration between Muslims and the rest of the UK. Things like this are open season for the right wing nutjobs to take a swipe at Islam, and will end up causing more suffering for Muslims anyway. Who said logic and religion could go together…

Islam is not alone though. Christianity has it’s own share of the cranky crackpots. I am not really sure what Christian doctrine is anti-Vaccine but on a web site titled “Vaccination—Vatican’s Medical Inquisition Revealed at Last!!” it is nicely spelt out for me… It seems that vaccinations and immunisations are a secret plot by the Catholic church. Seriously. Now this site is properly ranting, for example:

Dr. A.R. Campbell (another Great Scot) was a Texas doctor who discovered that smallpox was only spread by the bite of the bloodsucking insect called the BEDBUG or Cimex Lectularius. Cimex is the Latin for “bug” and Lectularius is Latin for “couch” or “bed.” Dr. Campbell proved that smallpox is not contagious and is not an airborne disease.

I can only assume (by style, structure, grammar and content) that this site is the work of some one who, in the UK, would be detained under one of the sections of the Mental Health Act. It gets worse though. Some (obviously deranged) Christian groups seem to think that vaccines come from the abortion industry (?) and that there is a biblical case against vaccines. From the latter (which is a long winded ranting diatribe of nonsense):

The Bible teaches that only God has the right to understand the realm of the supernatural (Gen. 40:8), and that intrusion into the realm of the occult makes one worthy of death (Ex. 22:18)(Also see Leviticus 19:31; 2 Kings 21:6; 23:24; 1 Chron. 10:13-14; Isaiah 8:19; 19:3).

It is interesting that several of the Greek words translated “witchcraft” and “sorcery” have the root pharm, from which our words “pharmacy” and “pharmaceuticals” are derived. This root (pharm) refers to “drugs, potions, and poisons.” Those who are familiar with the practice of sorcery both among primitive tribespeople and “sophisticated” Westerners have noted that the drugs are often used to induce altered states of consciousness which, in turn, are claimed to bring increased knowledge, sensitivity, or even contact with spirits or “entities.”

Abortion is witchcraft. There’s far too much evidence to attempt to differentiate the two. To participate in vaccinations tied to the abortion industry is to participate in two rituals of witchcraft.

Now, I was working on the principle that these two crackpot websites were from the same person (similar writing styles), but sadly, I think they are actually signs that at least two people have this insane idea.

What is the world coming to?

As mentioned on the Compuskills web blog, the blogs hosted by compuskills (what a mouthfull!) will start to blacklist sources of comment spam. As of yesterday the list stood at a moderate:

• 62.149.14.43
• 5.255.119.75
• 6.232.107.234
• 18.72.250.54
• 95.225.177.4
• 85.255.119.132
• 75.46.50.213

But new IPs will be added each time they are the source for four or more spam comments. (expect a few more to be added between now and the next published list!

Thanks to a link on Pharyngula (amazingly aptly titled “John Kasich is a big fat idiot“), I came across a YouTube clip from Fox News where a frankly idiotic fox news presenter is frothing in an amazing manner about the Blasphemy Challenge.

Not living in the US, there is a tendency to miss out on the ranting, and preaching, which seems to be tolerated on network television. I am curious if there is anything similar in the UK – and I really hope not.

Watch the video but be careful not to be drinking at the time. I can pretty much guarantee you will end up choking on some bits. The ranting about how the Blasphemy Challenge is corrupting kids, how Christians are going out playing basketball and the Challenge is an insult to them all, even better – how this is an attack only on Christianity (despite the blasphemy being a sin in Islam and Judaism as well, but I don’t think Mr Kasich will ever be able to educate himself that much).

It really is a good example of how ignorant some people can be, and how despite their claims to being a “Christian” with all the charity, forgiveness and kindness that implies, people use it to be a rude, offensive idiot. Even if Kasich is just playing up to the ratings (almost certainly) it speaks more for what a small minded low life he is than anything else.

Shame on them all.

Just when you may have thought Technorati was approaching normal behaviour, this happens:

I would say it is getting repetitive but that is, surely, stating the obvious. Despite there being a positive number of blog posts each day (chart) of the last 30 days, Technorati claims to have no posts. It is doing this an awful lot at the moment.

Before this blog creates the impression it just doesn’t like Technorati (which is close to the truth now), I just want to highlight the importance of an “open standard” for things like this. People writing blog posts have no real way of knowing if their comments are getting picked up by Technorati – and if you don’t appear in the three posts listed on that page, people are very unlikely to ever read your posts. Even Google is more open and honest about how it indexes pages.

On it’s own this would be bad enough but it could be argued that blog creators will blog no matter who reads it. The bigger problem is for people searching with Technorati. The results you get from a search are almost randomly arbitrary. When you search, you have no idea if you are getting the latest posts, most relevant posts or anything. It is madness.

Now I actually don’t want the likes of Google to take over as the Blog search engine of choice (it has just as many flaws but different ones), however as Technorati seems to be spectacularly dropping the ball this may be inevitable.

So much for the weblogs being the “great publishing revolution” that allows the masses to become journalists. Unless you get millions of links you wont show up on Google, and your chances of showing up on Technorati seem to depend on you having a MySpace blog or some other covert whim.  Does this need new software to solve it? Are search engines like IceRocket better? At the moment I dont think so, but times change…

It is hard to go more than a day or two without coming across some nonsense where an ID/Creationism proponent tries to pretend they have even the slightest clue about Evolution – no matter how little they actually know and how little scientific education they may have had.

Today’s chart topper is from Pat Boone, that well known student of the scientific method, evolutionary biology and other scientific disciplines. From a quick web search it seems his background on the topic is being apparently descended from American frontier hero Daniel Boone and being a devout born-again Christian (he was raised in the conservative Church of Christ – Wikipedia). All good reasons why he should have a privileged insight into the validity of Evolution…

Anyway, on a WorldNetDaily page titled “Charles Darwin’s unfunny joke“, Mr Boone feels he can deconstruct Darwinian evolution. The post is funny, although maybe not in the way Pat Boone hopes. It is funny that he thinks what he is writing is logical, sensible or in any way refutes evolution. It really is bad science at best.

Take this from one of the early paragraphs:

“But it’s science,” you say. No, not really. Certainly, not yet, if it ever will be. It’s a theory, an extremely farfetched, unproven theory and – at its base, its fundamental core – terribly unscientific!

The mind boggles. Not only does he show he has no idea about evolution, here he shows no understanding of science. He hasn’t even bothered to research the basics. He says “It’s a theory” as if that means it is something “less” than other science. He obviously feels the Theory of Relativity is far fetched, the Theory of Electromagentism is flawed and Quantum theory is unscientific.

I actually thought ID / Creationists had realised their mistake with attacking the terminology of “Theory” or “law” but obviously not. There follows a paragraph with more logical fallacies than I care to highlight at this time. (Emphasis mine)

But this unfunny joke has been taken very seriously by a host of scientists, and now most educators, and it has been universally accepted as “fact” by most universities and school systems. And woe to the teacher, from grade school through college, who dares to question this improbable, unproven theory. If he or she dares to suggest or present the alternative theory of Intelligent Design – the vastly more plausible notion that this incredible universe and all living things point logically to a Creator with an intelligence far beyond our feeble comprehension (no matter how many Ph.D. degrees we might have among us) – lawsuits and intimidation will surely follow that teacher.

Amazing. I nearly choked on my drink when I read that. It is even funnier when you read it in the context of Pat Boone being a man without a PhD (who is this mysterious “us” he talks about..?) and his earlier denigration of the term “theory.” One the very remote off-chance anyone still thought he had the slightest idea what he was talking about, he writes this:

Had you thought about that? If all life on this planet were actually in a process of “evolution,” would every species evolve in lock step, regardless of different environments? Or wouldn’t there be all the intermediate steps still in evidence, at various places around the globe? Wouldn’t there be plenty of evolving apes, tending toward homo sapiens, in the jungles and rain forests, possibly developing verbal skills and capable of elementary math and reasoning?

Great isn’t it. He really has no idea what evolution involves and predicts, but he still feels able to ridicule the theory. The fact he is ridiculing a theory he has made up for the sole purpose of his ridicule (classic strawman for the spotters) seems to go right over his head. He really is a funny guy. One day he may realise where the true joke is.

As mentioned in a previous post, Katie is a 14 year old girl who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma and her parents have eschewed proper medical treatment in favour of alternative therapies and prayer. That alone would be bad, but reading through some of the comments on her blog opens a whole new can of worms.

One might imagine that almost all the comments are basically “we are praying for you Katie” and “with God’s help you will get through this” (neatly ignoring the fact God gave her cancer in the first place, God prevented her parents treating her and God is causing the cancer to spread). In this situation, I can actually forgive the people posting because they are just expressing their feelings towards this in the only manner they know how. It is almost nice that all these people are praying for Katie – I will leave the issue about all the other people who are dying because they dont have a blog so no one is praying for them until another post.

The one which got me was this: (some numbers “x” out to reduce the free publicity)

At 11:23 PM, John Noble said…

DO THIS NOW! Go to www.immunopower.com and order Immunopower for Katie. This formula was developed especially for cancer patients by Dr. Patrick Quillin who was VP and Director of Nutrition at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America for ten years. Then CALL the Center for Advanced Medicine (760) xxx-9xx2 and reserve a phone consultation with Dr. Quillin. If you have questions call Noreen Quillin at (760) xxx-5xx3. You may tell her that John and Rod in Houston referred you. We have been following your story since it made the front page here in Houston. As you may already know, cancer is caused by nutritional deficiencies and toxic overloads. That is why it is so important to immediately contact Dr. Quillin so that he can help find and correct the deficiencies and overloads that caused the cancer to occur in the first place. The key is to restore the immune system with an aggressive nutritional program, which combines a specially designed supplement formula with specific anti-cancer whole foods. This approach has had proven results, especially for advanced cancer patients like Katie.

How shocking is that. Still, it is nice to see we now have a cure for cancer and the world’s medical researchers can rest at last. Given it seems so simple, it is strange anyone dies of cancer any more.

Crackpottery should be made illegal.

Now, this is going to be short (ish) but mainly because I am aware that it is a sensitive issue and I am (oddly) loathe to upset people, however it is something which has managed to get my hackles up.

In a nutshell, there is a blog about Katie, a 14 year old girl who is dying of Hodgkin’s Disease. This is a story which has been picked up by various blogs (Orac for instance, but may others). No matter what, this would be a sad story and I am sure most people’s hearts go out to the girl and her family.

There is just one small problem with the whole story. Katie’s family have chosen to not head down the “conventional medicine” route for her treatment and instead opted for prayer. Now I know it is not the BMJ or anything but Wikipedia has this to say about the cancer Katie has:

Hodgkin’s lymphoma was one of the first cancers to be rendered curable by combination chemotherapy.

You would hope, that as she is young and was otherwise healthy, early (proper) treatment would have given Katie very good chances with this one. Sadly her family thought otherwise. She was denied accesss to Chemotherapy and instead relied on a combination of crackpottery and prayer. Needless to say, it has not worked. I am going to avoid linking directly to her sites or the blogs made by her family. I am not going to really talk about her or her condition any more. This is about the bad science.

Her father has put together some blogs about her / for her. At the top is this bit of shockingness:

Katie is now 14 years old and was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, a lymphatic cancer when she was 13. This site is a request to pray for her. Call her prayer pager 1-361-333-KATY (5289), enter your ZipCode and # key, to let her know you have prayed for her. Updates of her progress will be posted on the site. The Power of Prayer is Awesome. See beginning story at www.prayforkatie.blogspot.com.

Sadly for Katie, the power of prayer is not awesome. Pretty much every time it has been studied it shows people who are subject to prayer show improvement over those who are not prayed for. People who are prayed for and know about it show less improvement. If your faith does mean you feel praying for Katie will help her, then dont call her “prayer pager” just do it. And if Prayer works, why wont God cure amputees?

It is really sad to see this girls chances have been destroyed because so many people seem to think that “hope” is a better alternative to treatment. It is even sadder to read the comments on Katies blogs and see so many other people seem to rate the value of prayer that you just know there will be other, needless, deaths.

Shame on them. If their God exists, they are going to hell.

In a previous post, I mention that a comment on Uncommon Design was suggesting the book The Privelged Planet was a good one for IDers and creationists to read and use to rebut evolutionary theories.

In that post I didnt really go into the book, as I felt it deserved one of its own. It really is bad science at it’s best so no wonder the ID / Creationism lobby jump all over it. I expect Steve Fuller will be writing about how we need to re-define science to accomodate this books nonsense before too long (although the book appears to be fairly old).

Now I do have to point out, I have not read this book. I doubt I will ever be able to bring myself to spend any money on this book as the thought of giving the authors a penny in royalties makes me want to choke on my own vomit. The book does have a website though, and this serves ample evidence of the crackpottery involved. For example the FAQ provides the following:

Q #1: Is the fact that we can see “perfect” solar eclipses related to our existence?

A: The Earth’s surface provides the best view of solar eclipses in the Solar System. The Earth’s surface is also the most habitable place in the Solar System. Is this coincidence just that? In The Privileged Planet, we argue that it isn’t. The conditions that make a planet habitable also make its inhabitants more likely to see solar eclipses.

That alone is enough for me to realise the book is going to be nonsense.

Well after a long rant against Religious crackpots, it is nice to see Uncommon Descent can still produce a few laughs from their fundamental idiocy.

Part of me feels they fully appreciate the irony of the nonsense they spout and that posts titled “When Arrogance and Stupidity Collide” are actually intended to be the sideways kicks at creationism they seem to be. Sadly, given how clueless some of the commentators are, this may be overly charitable on my behalf.

This post (by William Dembski) in particular begins:

Rubbish like this should steel us to work doubly hard to put these people out of business.

Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism & Intelligent Design
Cambridge House Press, Inc. (release date 02.28.07)
By Barrett Brown, Jon P. Alston

Book Description

What is creationism? Is it science, theology, both, neither? Who’s behind it? What does it mean for Western Civilization? And why should you give a damn in the first place? National Lampoon veteran Barrett Brown and Professor of Sociology Jon P. Alston, Ph.D, answer these questions — and perhaps one or two others — in a superbly unorthodox, serenely offensive and splendidly hilarious look at the forces behind the most talked-about pseudo-theory in modern history.

Now, you really cant help but chuckle at this book and the mountains of Righteous Indignation it seems to have stirred up in the ID/Creationism camps. The comments are priceless.

Amadan writes : “I wouldn’t worry about whoopee-cushion type propaganda like that. Thought Always Rebuts Darwinism.”

Sadly, history appears to show the opposite.

Dodgingcars writes : (emphasis mine) “I think some of you have made good points. At first, it was their policy to ignore ID. Now, because they can’t properly dispute it, they mock it and attack those who accept it. It does appear the tide is turning. We already know that something like 70-80% of Americans believe in ID (though they don’t know that’s what they believe) in some form. Once they’re more educated as to what ID is, the theory of evolution will lose validity in the eyes of most people in America — this is what scares the Darwinists.”

Here we go again. Sadly, ID supporters seem to regularly argue that ID should be a science because so many people believe in it. The mind truly boggles at this nonsense. In reality, if evolution loses validity in the eyes of most people in America, the only losers will be Americans who will produce generations of students who are unable to study how diseases evolve and how species can develop over time. Creationism is a dead end. Sadly, the Christian nutters actually want that. Oh yeah, ID is not a religious idea is it, it isn’t tied to any one religion is it?

Columbo write : (again, my emphasis) “I hope that, beyond lambasting and complaining about this kind of c-rap, defenders of science and general truth-seeking will become real activists in their own neighborhoods. E.g. 1) buy extra copies of “Privileged Planet” and “Mystery of Life” and loan them to co-workers and neighbors; 2) Volunteer to teach a series on this subject to high school and college groups at your church; 3) write book reviews / letters to the editor in your local paper; 4) meet with your representatives and give them succinct outlines and talking points to work from.”

Now, I know that this is not really proof ID and Religion (Christianity) are massively interlinked (yet they are), but I certainly find it ironic that the assumption appears to be all the ID supporters are active members of their church. I suspect they are. (More on the book next time)