Europe According to the United States of America

Before anyone complains that the following picture is a huge misrepresentation of our levels of education in America, just remember what we really do say when asked to locate various countries on a map.


And if you need a geography refresher, check out the Animaniacs geography song.
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I Am a Moderate!

As you may already be aware, Jon Stewart is combating Glenn Beck's recent sensationalist, hate-inducing, fear-mongering rally with a Rally to Restore Sanity to the political discourse in our country. It's about time!

Funny man Roy Zimmerman has composed a little anthem to mark the occasion.

Of course, if you really want moderate, you could not do better than the fundamentalists of the Church of the Holy Undecided :)
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Penn Jillette - This I Believe: There Is No God

When it comes to the intellectual battle between atheism and religion, the group with the imaginary friends ain't gonna win. But what about the intellectual tension between atheism and agnosticism? One could argue that atheism is an arrogant position, since it claims the non-existence of God, but one could also argue agnosticism is a bleeding-heart fence-sitting position held by people afraid to have some conviction.

It may seem reasonable to be an agnostic, since one can't prove that God doesn't exist. But it's also impossible to prove that unicorns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster don't exist. Should we really be agnostic toward their existence? Is that really a sensible position? Or would it make more sense to believe they don't exist (since there is no evidence that they do), and then change our minds should evidence of their existence ever make itself available?

In the following short clip from NPR's series 'This I Believe,' Penn Jilette shares some of his thoughts on the issue, as well as why being an atheist is bound to make one a more compassionate and loving human being.

And don't forget to check out some awesome Penn & Teller magic.
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Carl Sagan - Consider Again that Pale Blue Dot

You've seen Carl Sagan meditate on the significance of looking at Earth, our pale blue dot, from the distance of outer space and in the context of the rest of the universe.

Continuing with that meditation on the follies of our anthropocentrism, he describes in the following video the history of this all-too-human psychological imperative, explaining in the process that our ancestors, given their knowledge at the time, were justified in feeling themselves the center of the universe: from their perspective, that's what it looked like. But just as children must learn when they grow up that the universe doesn't revolve around them, it is time for us to do the same. Much depends on it.

Of course it looked like the sun revolves around us, but just ask yourself, as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once did, what would it look like if it looked like we revolved around the sun? Just some food for thought :)
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Steven Johnson - Where Good Ideas Come From

If you're familiar with Steven Johnson's books, you've probably noticed his view that place and social networks have historically played an important role in our understanding of social and intellectual innovation. In his latest book (to be released soon), he finally tackles the question of the origin of good ideas head on, trying to understand the sorts of conditions that are common to periods of disproportionate innovation.

Despite our romantic view of the quirky mathematician who has a spontaneous eureka moment while taking a bath, or the apocryphal story of the lonely genius who figures out the law of gravity after being hit on the head by a falling apple, good ideas are seldom the result of solitary genius let loose. Instead of Archimedes or Newton, Johnson uses Darwin's "slow hunch" as a more realistic model of the emergence of great ideas.

But having a long hunch isn't always enough. It also helps if curious and thoughtful people get to meet and share their ideas with other curious and thoughtful minds, and then let those ideas have sex with each other. It's those intellectual orgies that, Johnson argues, have given rise to truly revolutionary ideas which are more powerful than the sum of their parts. Here is an animated trailer of the upcoming book:

And here is a slightly more detailed explanation of Johnson's main thesis:

Don't forget to check out other fascinating TEDTalks.
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The Golden Eagle, Bird of Evil

When presented with the problem of evil (the logical inconsistency between an omnipotent and benevolent god and the existence of needless suffering), religious believers usually argue that human suffering is a necessary cost we pay for the greater benefit of having free will (I know.... justify one imaginary concept with another).

Even if the free will defense were capable of explaining some of the evil in the world, however, it still doesn't explain the indiscriminate suffering caused by natural disasters, nor does it even remotely touch on the sheer cruelty found in the animal world.

Consider parasites, or the predator-prey dichotomy. What kind of benevolent God would create beings whose survival depends upon the violent and gruesome destruction of others? Why not make everyone herbivores? Why would a kind and intelligent designer design parasitic worms whose ideal environment is the eyes of children consigned to blindness as a result? And what kind of loving God would create a creature like the golden eagle, who so viciously preys upon Bambi's family?

And if you need further proof these birds are not fucking around, here is what happened to one cameraman:


Check out a recent NYT article on the problem of evil in terms of animal suffering, and the ethics of driving meat-eating animals to extinction.
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e & pi Go On a Blind Date

In the mathematical realm, perhaps there's nothing sadder and lonelier than being zero, but with imaginary, irrational, transcendental and odd numbers, there's plenty of romantic misery to go around.

And yes, in case you're wondering, you're about to see some ultra geeky humor... sorry :)

Check out the math tag for more math stuff, serious and otherwise.
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Malcolm Gladwell - Where Does Success Come From?

When we think about how our lives have turned out, we have a tendency to blame circumstances for our misfortunes and talent for our success. As you may already begin to suspect, there's something missing with this convenient explanation.

In the following fascinating, thought-provoking and hilarious conversation with Robert Krulwich, pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell challenges the traditional conception of talent and raw giftedness, and shows in the process that when you're born, for instance, has a much greater influence on your future success than you might imagine. Similarly, all kinds of other external forces usually conspire in brilliantly interesting ways to dictate the way your life will turn out in the end.

You may need the right circumstances to converge, but you don't have to be born 'gifted' in order to succeed. And this means that it's not entirely out of our hands, and Gladwell's research suggests some possible solutions we might want to think about without necessarily falling into the traps of self-delusion to which we are so easily susceptible.

And if you think some people really are born talented, check out the documentary My Brilliant Brain: Born Genius for some perspective.
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Richard Dawkins Makes the Pope His Bitch

You've probably heard already that almost as soon as he got off the plane in England, the Pope started his usual rant blaming secularism and atheism for the rise of Nazism and other such evils.

Hey, if you had to answer for your own involvement in and cover-up of countless cases of child abuse perpetrated by your own minions, you'd try to distract everyone too... Is that Elvis over there?

Of course, vilifying a minority made up by great numbers of highly educated and intelligent people is probably not the best PR strategy to follow because these are people who do their homework AND think critically, and that's a killer combination.

Here is Richard Dawkins (photoshopped in the picture above with the Pope) beautifully laying out the facts and letting the Pope have it :)

Of course, one could always go the Tim Minchin route with a song:

And Penn & Teller think this is all bullshit too
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When It's Time to Stand Up to the Tea Party

There are many things about the so-called 'Tea Party' that just drive me bat shit crazy and make me want to go on a killing spree. For one (and ignoring for the moment the overt scape-goating, twisted rhetoric, self-righteous fear mongering, complete lack of historical understanding of our founding principles, and a lack of basic common sense), they are so arrogant and self-deluding as to compare themselves to Shakespeare (>_<)

Also, of course, they seem to be unduly obsessed, as most religious nuts tend to be, with the sexual activities and preferences people like to indulge in in the privacy of their own homes, and as Jimmy Kimmel shows, that's when it's time to stand up to the madness :)

It's time for the Tea Party to get 'refudiated'...
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Being a Flat Lizard Ain't Easy

Many of the things that really interest and trouble us humans are exactly the same kinds of things that interest and trouble most other species. We are concerned with our status within the social group, for instance, and seek ways of posturing and making it known to others that our territory is ours and shouldn't be trespassed.

There's also the quintessential division of interests according to sex: when going out to dinner, the females fancy the food, while the males only want some tail :)

These brightly colored lizards are a case in point, as David Attenborough shows:

Check out way more awesomeness on animals.
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The Atheism Tapes - Arthur Miller

After having explored the intellectual roots of atheism in A Brief History of Disbelief, Jonathan Miller continues his series of thought-provoking conversations with leading intellectuals.

In this installment with the late playwright Arthur Miller, he discusses the relationship between being a Jew in America while simultaneously being a non-believer. More interestingly perhaps, they explore the implications and oddities of the history and politics of antisemitism in the twentieth century, as well as our strange tradition of associating atheism and religious skepticism with being... unpatriotic?!?

Check out A Brief History of Disbelief (parts 1, 2 and 3).
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Chemistry: A Volatile History - The Power of the Elements

After having explored the early history of chemistry, from its birth in the mysticism of alchemy to its more scientific and systematic formulation, as well as the subsequent theoretical understanding of the relationship of the chemical elements, Professor Jim Al-Khalili traces the history of the inquiry into the various ways in which different elements interact with one another.

In philosophy, the study of the relationship between parts and wholes is known as mereology, and chemical interactions present fascinating ways of testing some such theories. In chemistry, it turns out, wholes are much more than the mere sum of their parts. Take a bunch of carbon, for instance, and depending on how its molecules are configured, you could end up having two fundamentally different substances, even though they are made of exactly the same single ingredient.

You could end up with a diamond, which is clear and hard as hell, but is a crappy electrical conductor... or you could end up with graphite, which is opaque and weak as shit, but has great conductivity. Of course, if you subject a diamond to sufficient heat, as Antoine Lavoissier did in 1772, you would be able to scientifically prove that (despite the mind-numbing marketing campaign with which so many women have been brainwashed in America) diamonds are NOT forever :)

But I digress... As Professor Al-Khalili explains, even though the world around us is made up of roughly 92 elements, it's the various ways in which they can combine and interact with each other that explains the various objects and substances we see everywhere.

Configuration is key, and it opens up an astonishing chapter in the history of chemistry, a window into the realization of an ancient alchemical dream: the ability to turn one basic element into another. The discovery of nuclear fusion would also help us understand how the sun fuels itself, and in its most dramatic and practical application, it would give rise to the atomic age.

Learn more about the incredible work of Lisa Meitner here and here.
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Space Odyssey - Voyage to the Planets

I recently posted an entry featuring author Mary Roach talking about the science and logistics of manned space exploration. As you will remember (and as it applies to the rest of her awesome books), her focus is primarily on the interesting circumstances in which the human body can find itself, and how such circumstances create opportunities for curious scientists to learn a bit more about how we operate.

Combine the question of what would happen to the human body when exposed to the great diversity of environments available in our solar system, how scientists, engineers and doctors would tackle these challenges, and what we would learn about the solar system itself if we were to send a manned crew to explore it in all its glory... and what you'd find is today's visually stunning documentary/movie.

Would it be possible for humans to land on Venus, when its atmospheric pressure alone (92 times stronger than that on Earth) is strong enough to make carbon dioxide a kind of liquid? And let's not even get started with its heat, which is enough to melt lead, and makes Venus the hottest planet in the solar system. What about approaching and escaping Jupiter's gravitational field, or visiting any of its moons? What about flying through Saturn's rings? Or landing on a comet?!? Clear your schedule, grab a bite, sit back and enjoy the show.

Check out a similarly awesome documentary about Titan.
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Three Minute Philosophy - Heraclitus & Parmenides

Living in an age full of ever-improving technology and scientific understanding, we may sometimes be inclined to think that observation and measurement constitute the only way to get a hold of reality, but there is a long history in philosophy of great thinkers questioning what it means exactly for something to count as evidence, and this, as you may already suspect, is a question that lies beyond the scope of science.

In fact, when philosophy was just being articulated for the first time in the minds of the pre-Socratic philosophers, one of the greatest intellectual battles (and one that hasn't been fully resolved yet) was held between Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Heraclitus argued that the basic nature of the universe was change (or becoming), and that experience and observation were the methods to acquire knowledge.

Parmenides, on the other hand, thought that observation, partly by virtue of its subjectivity, was not a reliable method of inquiry. Instead, he favored the cold rigor of logic and argument, and argued, consequently, that reality must be static (or being).

If you want to get an idea of some of the arguments proposed by these emblematic figures, and the radically different world-views their arguments entail, here is a three-minute tongue-in-cheek animation:

Well, wouldn't you know it, despite the many ways in which we have come to provisionally adopt a practical compromise between these two approaches to reality and knowledge, the intellectual debate rages on, as philosopher Raymond Tallis explains in this episode of Philosophy Bites:

Most problems in philosophy, I dare say, are somehow reducible to some version of the battle between Heraclitus and Parmenides. What do you think? And who do you favor?
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Rush - On the Origin of Specious, Religion Family Tree

One of the most useful tools Darwin bequeathed to us is the phylogenetic tree of life. Part of the reason this is a great tool is that it can help us visualize virtually any genealogical relationship in which some version of the mechanism of natural selection applies, regardless of whether this takes the form of animal or plant speciation, the historical development of languages, family genealogies, the rise and fall of civilizations, the emergence of scientific paradigms, or the history and evolution of cultural memes.

One of the ironic consequences of the tree of life is that its structure can even be applied to understand the history of religion, including those that deny the fact of evolution, and as the following music video makes clear, it looks like in the very act of creating his tree of life, Chuck brought an axe with him :)

Learn more about the tree of life in this wonderful documentary.
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My Trip Out West

I think I've spent my life on the East Coast, and as far as I can remember, just about every state I've ever visited has had direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. A few weeks ago, however, I went on a little vacation out west and visited some amazing national parks in Utah and Arizona.

I had seen pictures of some of these places before, and thought it would be nice to see them, but I was not prepared for the splendor, beauty, sublimity and gripping awesomeness that I would encounter there.

If I had to describe my experience in one sentence, I'd say that I fell in love with America all over again, and I hope the slideshow of some of the pictures we took (below) gives you all a small glimpse of the magnificence that geological forces can create given enough time (just click on the x when the annoying advertising pops up).

In case you're wondering, the parks featured in the slideshow include Zion, the Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam.
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Inside Nature's Giants - Great White Shark

Continuing with a second season of the fascinating documentary series Inside Nature's Giants, the team sets out to dissect and understand the inner workings of the most feared predator of the ocean: the great white shark.

At first glance, you might imagine that this is just an overgrown fish with huge teeth, but you would be wrong. As it turns out, the set of adaptations that have conferred upon this animal its infamous reputation is not only a remarkable display of evolution's problem-solving skills but of its blind creativity and opportunism... on steroids.

From its ability to smell minute traces of blood from miles away to the power to propel itself into the air, or from its ever-rotating factory of teeth to its chain-mail skin or its launchable jaws, every cut in this dissection presents new and truly astonishing facts about this predator's highly evolved anatomy and physiology.

Prepare to learn the secrets of this cold-blooded killer that, apparently, is not actually cold-blooded :)

Get inside more of nature's giants.
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The Three Little Pigs vs. Wile E. Coyote

Conventional wisdom tells us that the three little pigs managed to escape from the big bad wolf by finding refuge in increasingly stronger buildings. But what if instead of the wolf, they had to escape from Wile E. Coyote?

We all know he loved to use Acme technology to chase the Roadrunner, so it stands to reason that if he wanted to have some pork for dinner, he'd probably resort to the technology offered by his favorite corporation, and in this case, what he'd need is a vortex canon. Let's see how he might fare:

BBQ pulled pork, anyone? :)
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