Sarah Palin - Worst Hand Job Ever!

You've probably heard about Sarah Palin's speech in which she criticized president Obama for relying on teleprompters to discuss complex matters. The irony is that Palin delivered the speech while using her palm-prompter as a cheat sheet to remind herself of the vague and vacuous talking points the tea-baggers wet themselves over.

That's one hand job with no happy ending :)

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And here is Colbert's brilliant analysis on the issue:

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Don't you just love satire ;)
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Sports Science - Spiraling the Pig Skin vs. Shooting Arrows

I'm not a very big fan of watching sports. I'm not sure why that's the case (although I tell myself plenty of reasons), but there's something frustrating about sitting down watching someone else engage in an fun activity instead of being part of the action myself. Now, of course, I'm at a loss to explain my fascination with porn, but that's a whole other story:)

Anyway, and since everyone is probably still thinking about yesterday's SuperBowl, the following short clip shows the physics involved in a perfect football throw (and when I say perfect, I mean perfect!), understood from the detailed analysis of Quarterback Drew Brees' incredible and uncannily consistent accuracy.

Before watching the video, ask yourself this: who would be more accurate at shooting from a distance of 20 yards, a professional football player or a professional archer? The answer might surprise you...

Holy cow!
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Male Inequality

There are those who complain that men are emasculated by women... but more often than not, it's men who end up emasculating themselves... and making the rest of us look like total wimps :)

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I love Samantha Bee! :)
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The Secret Life of Chaos

There was a time, not too long ago actually, when complexity and order could only be understood and made sense of in terms of the wisdom, ingenuity and foresight of some intelligent creator. Despite depending on a viciously circular argument leading to an infinite regress (can it get any worse?), the mere appearance of design and contrivance was considered as direct a proof of God's existence as one could possibly demand, providing plenty of emotional support for believers while moving the question one step back and explaining nothing. Still, the idea that complexity could arise out of simplicity, or order out of chaos, wasn't simply ignored: it was considered anathema.

There are those who deny the fact of evolution. They think it impossible that the complexity exhibited by biological organisms could have evolved gradually and piecemeal over millions and billions of years... even though they are fully aware that a single fertilized egg can give rise to a remarkably complex baby only nine months later without any particular guidance or direct intervention on the part of the mother or even her doctors.

And this raises the question, among others, of how all the individual cells in an embryo, all genetically identical to each other, somehow 'know' how to differentiate themselves and self-assemble into the different kinds of tissues and organs precisely located in their respective places.

It turns out, as Jim Al-Khalili shows in the following captivating and visually stunning documentary, that the physical world runs according to mathematical principles that make it seem as though order and complexity are almost the inevitable consequences of simplicity and chaos let loose.

To do this, the documentary seamlessly runs through Alan Turing's work on computational intelligence and morphogenesis, digital Darwinian evolution through natural selection, the physical implications of chaos theory and the butterfly effect, the mathematical insights derived from the Mandelbrot Set, and many other utterly fascinating and independent ideas, all converging on the same basic conclusion:

Complex systems, and even simple ones, though fundamentally unpredictable (due to the emergence of unexpected properties resulting from the stochasticity of initial conditions and the accumulation of minute irregularities), are nevertheless fully determined and consistent with the laws of physics.

If you're thinking this poses a threat to the stability of your belief in free will, I'd say you're probably right :)

And if you don't think you could be living in a computer simulation, you have no idea :)
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David Hume - Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Widely considered to be the most important philosopher ever to write in the English language, the Scottish philosopher David Hume's ideas are as profound, subtle and revolutionary as they are playful, ironic and elusive. Brave and daring to the end, and way ahead of his time, Hume's positions on various philosophical issues, paradoxical as they may seem sometimes, were based on the great power of his reasoning and the evidence he obtained from his acute observations of his own mind and the world at large.

Hume's empiricism is a devastating response to the rationalism of philosophers like Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, but his philosophical virtue, courage and honesty also led him to take the very same empiricism he endorsed to its true logical conclusion, demonstrating in the process the limits of reason and human knowledge... oh, and your non-existence too :)

The following clip is a nice excerpt of some of Hume's most important ideas (as articulated in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), starting with his distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact:

Here is a short, but very good analysis of Hume's ideas from Philosophy Bites:

Check out more fascinating entries on The Masters of Philosophy.
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Rep. Seeks Retroactive Immunity for Anyone Who Hit on First Lady Last Night

She may look like a big flirt on the picture to the right, but Michelle Obama only reserves those hints of coquetry for her husband. Still, there's always the possibility that some socially awkward politician may confuse those vibes and get the wrong impression. Add some alcohol to the mix, and you might get some hilarious self-serving push for new legislation :)

Since this happened at the White House, could the expression "would you like to see my eagle get real big?" be covered under the new statute, please? :)
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Justice - What Is the Right Thing To Do?

Episode 12. When we, post-colonial citizens of liberal democracies in the 21st century, deliberate about principles of justice and the distribution of rights, we tend to think that respect for the plurality of competing conceptions of the good requires that we consider them from a neutral point of view, focusing only on the formal question of equality under the law, and not on any substantive or normative questions of value.

In these two final lectures, Professor Sandel tries to challenge this notion by suggesting that questions of justice and legal rights cannot be properly understood independently of our conception of the good. Try as we might, he argues, we cannot ultimately separate these questions from their historic and social roots without falling into the trap of self-delusion and wishful thinking. For citizens of a pluralistic society, this raises the question of how we can reason about the good life without establishing social institutions that end up imposing the tyrannical values of the majority on everyone else.

The development of this controversial claim takes place in the context of a discussion of same-sex marriage. Can we settle this question without considering the moral permissibility of homosexuality and the purpose of marriage? Or are these questions ultimately unavoidable?

I happen to disagree with this question of the inseparability of our conceptions of the good and questions of justice and the distribution of rights, but whatever conclusion you come to, I think we can all agree that moral and social progress can only be made when we are willing to engage in open, critical and generous dialogue with each other.

Using Rawls' concept of reflective equilibrium, Professor Sandel demonstrates the importance and promise of the deliberative and self-correcting method of mutual adjustment between particular considered moral judgments and general moral principles. Progress may be slow, but it is possible.

For someone who endorses the honest expression of controversial points of view, Professor Sandel got rather shy about the question of masturbation, huh? :)

Episode list: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
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Howard Zinn - War and Social Justice

Historian Howard Zinn, civil rights activist and author of revolutionary and influential books such as A People's History of the United States and You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train, unfortunately passed away yesterday at the age of 87.

As you can see in the powerful, engaging and amusing lecture below, given at my own Alma Matter, Professor Zinn was a great speaker: casual, quick-witted, funny and thoughtful. An iconoclast to the end, he never lost sight of the social and moral imperative to question power and challenge the prevailing attitudes and false dilemmas of our culture.

He will be greatly missed.

Click here for more lessons from this inspiring intellectual.

Thanks to Chris for sharing the sad news :(
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Ben Goldacre - The Placebo and Nocebo Effects

You're probably familiar with the concept of the placebo effect: you pretend to provide some sort of treatment to a patient (sugar pill, saline shot, shaman chicken dance, homeopathic elixir, etc.), and because there is no actual medicine or treatment, there should be no improvement in the patient's physical condition... except there is, and there's the rub and the mystery...

Scientists have been studying the placebo effect systematically since at least the time when illustrious men of science like Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier (check out more of his amazing work here and here) investigated the claims surrounding Franz Anton Mezmer's ability to harness "animal magnetism." The magnetism part turned out to be a sham, but it revealed the power of the placebo effect, as well as just how suggestible the human brain can be.

The more we look into the mystery of this phenomenon, the more interesting it gets, and here is Ben Goldacre with a hilarious and enlightening account of just how powerful this effect is, as well as the cruel, but hilarious uses to which it can be put :)

I'm going to have to see in how many of my friends I can induce asthma attacks...

Click here for the 'full treatment' on homeopathy, and here for the 'diluted' but hilarious version :)
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Rev. Tom Honey - How Could God Allow Natural Disasters?

The devastation recently experienced by the unfortunate inhabitants of Port-au-Prince in Haiti certainly deserves our attention, our compassion, and our help. Other natural disasters, like the 2004 Tsunami, for instance, raise important and challenging questions to the religious and the faithful, which should be confronted head-on, like the problem of evil: how could a loving and powerful God allow such massive destruction of life?

Attempts to reconcile God's benevolence and omnipotence with unnecessary suffering are known generally as theodicy. Theodicy, unfortunately, has a bad reputation for historically failing to satisfy the intellectual question, as well as the more visceral one, since redeeming God (even when remotely successfully) is normally accomplished at the expense of genuine sympathy and compassion for those who needlessly suffer.

In this powerful and gripping TEDTalk presentation, and probably the best and most honest sermon I've ever heard, Reverend Tom Honey grapples with the problem of evil and does what few believers ever muster up the courage to do: face the question directly, identify the existential problems and logical inconsistencies found in most proposed solutions, reflect on the alternatives left, and demonstrate through example that any faith worth having can only be grounded in existential doubt, and that it can only be experienced through fear and trembling.

For another powerful analysis of the problem of evil, watch God on Trial.
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