Okay Everybody, Chill Out.

There's apparently a big flutter (at least Pharyngula's all worked up) because the Halton Catholic school board has pulled a book authored by an atheist from the shelves. I think this is a little out of proportion, though. The parts of the article that I found most interesting, actually, were this:

Scott Millard, manager of library services with the board, told CTV.ca on Friday that the review has been board policy since 1990 and that "any community member has the right to request a re-examination of learning or library material."

and this

After reading the book, the committee will complete an evaluation form that examines a "wide variety of criteria" including grammar, plausibility, language, plot, etc.

It seems from the article that any parent can request an evaluation of any book, and that book will be pulled (not banned, mind, just pulled from public display but available on request) until a committee has made a decision. I don't think this is necessarily a bad policy. I tend to lean towards allowing lots of freedom in what literature should be available, but there's a valid argument to me be made against a school library carrying, for example, hate speech, and this policy could help weed that out, depending on the exact criteria the committee uses. Obviously there's plenty of room for the policy to be abused, as in this case, but if the committee evaluating the book is actually objective (and there's been no indication that they aren't), then the worst that can happen is the book will spend some time behind the counter and everyone's time will have been wasted. Maybe these abuses could be curbed by having a list of valid reasons why books should be reevaluated, and sticking to it.

Speaking of criteria, though, here's what I'm really wondering about: If a parent were to request an evaluation of the Bible, would it pass an unbiased committee? Obviously, finding that committee would be problematic, but if you could. I think it should be tried; at the very least it would be funny.

Snöfiskkaviar!

yay! Woke up to white stuff on the ground and it's still falling. *glee*

I'm Not Sure

But I think Seth may be right.

He says that the Intelligent Design assertion fails, not because that something looks designed shouldn't be taken as evidence that it is designed, but rather because

Living things don't look like they were designed. They don't look remotely designed, at any level, from super-macro to super-micro. From forests to molecules, the incredibly paucity of structures or systems that even vaguely resemble human creations is astonishing. Sure, we've copied natural features to supplement our terrible, inefficient, and ridiculous attempts at designing usefull things. But nothing that we do looks even a little like the inside of a cell, ccd chips don't look like retina, we can't build a decent sphincter and as for proteins... don't even get me started. We can't even model the mechanisms of protein folding, much less design something that works like one. Nothing designed looks or behaves anything like a protein.

I'm not sure, though. I'm not convinced that saying something is more complicated than anything we can design necessarily implies that it therefore doesn't look designed. And I think maybe Seth is misinterpreting Dawkins. I doubt very much that any biologist (well, except Behe), would say that living things look designed once they're examined properly. But I think it is the case that on first, uncritical glance, living structures can look designed. Once we understand how evolution works, of course, then that becomes a better explanation for what we see, because it accounts for inefficiencies and suboptimal configurations that intelligent design wouldn't bring about. So on more detailed examination living things don't look designed, because they instead look evolved.

Of course, this is all very fuzzy, because we talk about things that may or may not "look designed", but we never really say what 'looks designed' means. I think we need a specific definition for that term, but I'm not going to provide it because I'm tired.

And there are other, entirely sufficient reasons why ID is a non-starter. It makes no predictions. It has no explanatory power. It is therefore not falsifiable.
What more do we need?

So, yeah, I take it back. I think Seth is wrong.

Do Want!

ZOMG!!

By Jaköbische Decree

All arguments of the following form are hereby banned from use:

1. "No/yeah, cuz I knew this guy once, and he..."

2. "If we had data, I think it would probably show X. In light of X, so-and-so is clearly right/wrong"

All people using arguments of this form shall be sentenced to live in a world such arguments produce.

My Psych Prof Sux

Since I can't send this email to him, I'm posting it here instead. Gotta vent somewhere.

It seems to me someone might want to update the dates and information on the assignments page. I mean, I know the prof is terribly busy, what with having to create a midterm – no wait, the questions are reused from year to year... okay, marking a midterm – no wait, that's done by machine... okay, adjusting the midterm grades – no wait, that's also a job a machine can do... okay, marking our assignments – no, we do that... okay, preparing lectures and slides – nope those are reused year to year too... okay, answering email – nope, three emails I sent this semester went unanswered. Anyway, I'm sure he spent at least an hour writing that screed against cellphone use while driving that we have to respond to, so he's clearly a very busy man, but maybe one of his minions could bother to update the instructions and due dates on the assignment page.

You know, for the assignment that's due on Wednesday? That page.

Gormless

It's an adjective usually applied to faces, but after reading this article, I couldn't think of a better descriptor.

It's not that the content is idiotic (though it is), but that the style is uniquely, um,
...
*sigh*

Superfluous parentheses. What else can I say?

Via Pharyngula.

Philosophy is Stupid

There's a story my mother likes to tell about her experience with a philosopher. The philosopher gives her an example of what, to him, is an interesting philosophical question. He asks her, "is gasoline wet?"

"Well," responds my mother, "that depends on how you define 'wet'. If 'wet' means 'contains water', the no, gasoline is not wet. If wet means 'is liquid', then the answer is yes."

"All right," says the philosopher, "but is gasoline really wet?"

What my mother said in response, history does not relate.

My father told me the other day about a revelation he had had about the nature of philosophy. Philosophers of all stripes, he had realized, seem to be convinced that there is some sort of really real, objective Truth out there, that is unrelated to our human ideas about the universe and how it works. And they see their jobs as being to figure out what this capital-T Truth is.

And, I added, they seem to think that they way to do that is to sit on their asses and scratch their heads.*

Well, a couple months ago I had my own revelation about the field of philosophy. I realised that the entire field consisted of a group of people who were always talking at cross purposes because they refuse to define their terms. And they refuse to define their terms, I realised, because if they did their entire field would disappear. You can't have any kind of lengthy, balls-scratching discussion about how wet gasoline is really if you can agree on what 'wet' means. Once you do that, the question becomes empirical. That's not just true of entirely inane questions like the gasoline one, either. Once you define your terms, most questions become empirical.

When I told my dad about my revelation, he suggested that maybe philosophy could be a worthwhile endeavor if it limited itself to discussion of how to define terms. For example, it might lend itself well to the question of what 'truth' means. But no, I replied, that just takes it a step back, but doesn't change the situation. Because if you're asking how you should define 'truth' (for example), then what you're really asking is what is the best or optimal definition of the word. At which point all you have to do is define 'best' or 'optimal' and the question once more becomes empirical.

But, as I said above, if you define your terms, only most question become empirical. Some may not, depending on how you define your terms. If, for example, you insist on defining 'truth' as this unknown, objective "reality" that exists entirely external to our senses and reason, then the question of whether any statement is true is not empirical. But, since it is in that case a question that it is theoretically impossible to answer (since it is, by definition, impossible to know if the truth our senses and reason show us is the same as this hypothetical, objective Truth that it is supposed exists), I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would waste time thinking about it.

And that's why philosophy is stupid.

---

*I'm fairly certain that the word I said out loud was heads, but the word I was thinking of was balls

Sux

So, we already knew that Toronto sucks, but I guess didn't realise just how much.

So, a year and a half ago I took a quiz to determine how many Earths we would need if everyone lived like me. It turned out the answer was 2.4, which totally blows.

My lifestyle isn't substantially different now from how it was then in terms of the choices I make, but where I live has severely constrained those choices. For example, I can't use my bike as my primary mode of transportation anymore because here in the suburbs nothing is fucking biking distance, but we can't live downtown because it's too damned expensive. Also, I buy all my groceries at supermarkets, because that's the only place there is, which means that I have no idea how much, if any, is locally grown.

Now it would take 3.4 Earths to sustain 6.5 billion of me.

Stupid Toronto. grmblgrmbl

I'm Surrounded by Children

To the morons in my anatomy class: If you're old enough to be taking classes at university, you're old enough to use the word vagina. I mean really.

I had hoped that not having a television would protect me from this unfortunate new phenomenon (Amanda Marcotte has more on the topic here), but apparently not.

Watch Keith Olbermann

Especially his latest Special Comment.

As usual, I find his American exceptionalism to be kind of offensive, but other than that he's always quite good, and this time he's amazing.



And while we're at it, on a considerably lighter note, everyone should also watch this recent talk by Richard Dawkins.

I haven't bothered to watch the Q & A (you can find it here if you're interested), so I don't know if anyone has asked him to elaborate on his throw-away "abuse" comment at the end of the talk, which I would have liked him to do, but other than that I found this to be one of his better presentations.

Not yet...

The temperature is high and the ground is wet and puddle-y, but the rain drops swirling around under the street lamp are starting to look suspiciously flake-like.

I Said...

I coulda sworn I posted this, but apparently blogger et it.

The best thing about my Evolution prof: She calls white Americans "European-Americans". Always.

C'est l'halloween, on veut des bonbons!

Every halloween of my childhood I went out. I kept going trick or treating until people started turning me away, at about age 14 or 15, then I got up to other age-appropriate revelry, like scary movies, Samhain rituals, parties, whatever. Then, when I was 17 I moved out, and have lived in apartments every since. For the first time since I moved out, I happen to be at my parents place this halloween. So I insisted that my dad and I buy some candy and put it in the orange plastic bowl and put that bowl by the door, just like it always was when I was on my way out for my reveling. I promised that I'd take care of the hordes.

You know what? It's not as exciting as I expected. I was hoping for something like this, but instead, it's all just lame fairy princess costumes and no eye contact.

I'm disappointed.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Apparently, Hamas is training American Muslim college students in terrorist techniques. Now, I don't want to come off as fear mongering here, but I think we all need to be very careful. Muslim girls in American colleges have learned the previously-unknown-to-them terrorist techniques of wearing head scarves, rolling their eyes, and getting up to pee. If we don't act now, no psychotic right-wing Christian speaker will ever be safe from... um... neutral or mildly rude behaviour?

Shit, I can't keep this up. I can't even pretend to follow the reasoning here. Just go read Thers' post cuz it's funny as hell.

Chocolat chaud amer*

I first got the idea for bitter hot chocolate from Toi, Moi et Fumée,** who serve it that way, with a sugar bowl so you can sweeten it to your taste. I found that I liked my hot chocolate very bitter indeed, with just barely enough sugar to take the edge off the cocoa.

Here's how you make it so that the cocoa dissolves properly. It's usually not worth the effort if you're only making it for one, because it's a pain to deal with one mug's worth of milk on the stove, but if there's two or more of you, it's perfect.

Ingredients:
milk
cocoa powder (NOT hot chocolate powder)
sugar

Equipment:
stove
pot large enough to hold all the milk
tea strainer like this (plastic is also fine)
wooden spoon
funnel or ladle
mugs, spoons, and so forth for serving.

Instructions:
Measure the milk by filling the mug you'll be drinking out of until it's just slightly fuller than you would want, and then pouring it into the pot. Do that as many times as there are people.

Put the pot on the stove at medium heat and let it warm a bit (it shouldn't be close to boiling). Add the cocoa, about 2.5-3tbsp/person, as follows: over the pot, dump about 1.5tbsp cocoa into the tea strainer, then tap the tea strainer on the edge of the pot to sift the cocoa into the milk, while stirring constantly with the wooden spoon. Make sure that the first strainer's worth of cocoa is fully dissolved before you add the next one. Keep this up until all the cocoa is dissolved in the milk. At this point the milk should be quite warm. If it isn't, keep it on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is. You may have to turn the heat down at some point during the dissolving process to keep the milk from boiling, which you do not want. Also, if you really stir constantly it will prevent the milk from acquiring a skin.

Dish up the hot cocoa using the funnel or ladle and serve with a sugar bowl and spoons. I like to add just under a teaspoon of sugar to my mug, but ymmv.

I'm very proud of this recipe, as I invented it my very own self. It's kind of a no-brainer, but my biggest problem with hot cocoa was always getting the cocoa properly dissolved, and I can now declare that no longer a problem.

---

*Which has no business being spelled like that, but WordReference.com swears up and down that there's no accent on that e. Any francophones care to weigh in?

**I guess we have to rename it now that Quebec has gone smoke-free indoors

meep

I have four midterms and a major lab report to do before the end of next week. Don't be surprised if you don't hear from me until then. Also, don't be surprised if you find yourselves picking little bits of my brain out of your hair after my head explodes from stress. Anyone want to read and summarize a bunch of articles on sexual selection/prey selection tension in guppies for me? No? Oh well.

You Know You Spend Too Much Time Online When:

I just spent a full minute grumping about how CBC's insistence on using Windoze Media format for their streaming audio makes it impossible for me to listen to the live election results until I remembered that, hey, there's an *actual radio* sitting on the shelf in the living room. It's plugged in and works and everything.

I'm a moron.

Go! Now!

The polls are open until 9 tonight. If you haven't already, please go vote.

Uuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

Last night at the party I remember asking myself why it had been so long since I'd done shots of JD, so yummy and shootable. Now I remember.

Excuse me while I curl up with my pint of water and moan.