Dawkins: We did not descend from Chimpanzees
Richard Dawkins clears up the misunderstanding of Evolution that is all too common: If we descended from Chimpanzees, then why are there still Chimpanzees? Dawkins explains that we DID NOT descend from Chimpanzees—we both share a common ancestor.
US man charged $23 quadrillion for cigarettes
Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours after the purchase and saw the 17-digit number – a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).
Mr Muszynski told WMUR-TV that he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers – and the $15 overdraft fee.
The bank corrected the error the next day.
Bank of America said the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.
Obama appoints evangelical Christian as health expert
Last week, President Barack Obama announced his n omination of geneticist and physician Francis Collins as the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the government organisation that funds medical research in the US. The appointment has sparked a flurry of mixed reactions across the country, largely because Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, is an outspoken evangelical Christian.
Collins is a staunch supporter of evolution and a highly-respected scientist who is responsible for the discovery of genes responsible for several diseases, including cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington’s and adult onset diabetes. He is also the author of The Language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief (Simon & Schuster, 2006) and recently the founder of the BioLogos foundation, which aims to reconcile science and religion by promoting “theistic evolution” – the idea that God chose to create life by way of evolution.
Some see Obama’s decision to appoint Collins as an attempt to negotiate peace between science and religion. “Was this the administration’s primary reason for picking Collins?” asks Dan Gilgoff in US News and World Report. “No way. But Collins’s religious side is much too central to his work nowadays for the White House not to have noticed.” Indeed, the White House press statement mentions that “Dr. Collins has a longstanding interest in the interface between science and faith.”
“Rare among world-class scientists, Collins is also a born-again Christian, which may help him build bridges with those who view some gene-based research as a potential threat to religious values,”.
Lebanese Shiite Scholar calls for Separation of Religion and State
Religion and state are two different things. There cannot be such a thing as a religious state. A state is civil in essence, and therefore, a religious state is used by one group to facilitate [the establishment of] dictatorship and despotism. Religion must be separated from the state, and all the things that are presented as the absolute truth – that Islam constitutes both religion and state – have no foundation in Islamic thought or law. Islam is a religion. That’s it. No more and no less. And the state is a state. A state is a man-made entity, which is chosen by the people and represents them, whereas religion is sacred. How can you incorporate the sacred into a worldly matter, about which people have different opinions?
WHO study on lethal violence: surprising results
Mindhacks says: I don’t know what to make of this, but the discovery is quite startling. It’s data from a World Health Organisation study on lethal violence, finding that the ratio between murder and suicide differs between countries, and in some countries differs between sexes.
It suggests an interesting hypothesis, that cultural differences affect whether lethal violence is typically directed outwards (murder) or inwards (suicide).
Via Mindhacks
Bishop says holy water spreads disease
A bishop has advised that holy water be removed from churches in a bid to halt the spread of swine flu.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend John Gladwin, said at some churches people were invited make a sign of the cross using holy water.
“The water in stoups can easily become a source of infection and a means of rapidly spreading the virus,” he said.
The Bishop also issued advice about taking holy communion warning if anyone had flu-like symptoms not to “drink wine from the chalice”.
BBC (Thanks Kenny).
Doux Delices
Bally technology. IPhone won’t let me blog at all, and I’m rarely wi-fied up to be able to do so on this laptop. But here I am. Thank you for waiting.
I have, since Sunday, been attempting to point you in the direction of Doux Delices, the extraordinary recipe blog of a friend who cooked us dinner last Sunday. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to be treated and pampered and fluffed of a Sunday afternoon when one is otherwise book-writing by day and being a handsome mind-reader by night: wonderful home-made pesto-and-bread followed by the most pant-puddlingly perfect duck, orange and mango salad and then a criminally palatable cake served with champagne and an all-you-can-eat ticket to the lovely conversation bar, all made for an unspeakably magnificent afternoon. I really can’t express how wonderful it was. I can’t. Just stop reading, it’s pointless.
This is the last full week of the show, before our final few days next week… it’s all been great fun. And then straight into The Events, ready to walk up and slap your TV screens on 09/09/09. Get in. Can’t tell you anything about them yet. It’ll all come. All good things to those who wait.
Hey-ho. Back to the book. Ta-ra.
x
One from the vaults: John Safran atheist botherer
Australian comedian / filmmaker John Safran – from the 2004 series John Safran vs God – is so fed up with mormons ringing his doorbell early in the morning that he flies to Salt Lake City Utah and tries to convert Mormons to atheism. This unusually long and caustic rant is one of my favourites from the entire series – needless to say, the locals were not pleased.
Thanks to Cinn for reminding me.
Edge Foundation
Roslyn – one of our regular contributors has told me:
The Edge Foundation, Inc., was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world. The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.
I’m away from Brown Towers for a few days and so I can’t really check it out on crappy hotel access broadband so please let me know via comments what you all think of it – if you like it then you can praise me in the usual way – if not find Roslyn and persecute her. PD.
Swearing increases pain tolerance
Swearing occurs in most cultures – people swear to let off steam, or to shock or insult others. It is also a common response to a painful experience. We’ve all done it: after stubbing our toe, or hitting our thumb with a hammer, we draw a sharp breath and mutter a swear word. Until now, though, whether swearing actually alters our perception of pain had not been investigated.
But according to a new study due to be published next month in the journal NeuroReport, swearing increases pain tolerance, enabling us to withstand at least one form of pain for longer.
Some pain theorists regard our tendency to swear after hurting ourselves to be a form of “pain-related catastrophising” – an exaggerated negative mind set which is brought to bear during a painful experience. As such, swearing is thought of as a maladaptive response, which contributes to the intensity of the pain and emotional distress.
Given that it is such a common response, Richard Stephens and his colleagues at the Keele University School of Psychology set out test the hypothesis that swearing would decrease pain tolerance and increase pain perception.
