The Fragility Of Science

Some sobering thoughts, and a warning to Daniel Dennett, from John Derbyshire:

Science is…a fragile thing, and might easily be lost. (The same applies to math. Readers of, ahem, my forthcoming book will learn about a key development in mathematical thinking that was discovered in ancient Alexandria, then lost, then rediscovered 1300 years later.) It is my belief in this fact that makes me so defensive of science, and so hostile to obscurantist thinking, under which heading I include both Left Creationists like Wieseltier and Right Creationists like the “intelligent design” crowd. They are playing with fire. So, by their absurd provocations, are the village atheists like Dennett. If we lose science (again?), we shall be plunged back into a world far less comfortable, far darker and crueller, than this one. If the LCs and the RCs join forces, they might just possibly bring on that world… if the Islamofascists don’t beat them to it.

The natural tendency of human beings is to think religiously. Science and math are deeply unnatural activities, favored by only a scant few, who could easily be rounded up and dispatched by a mob of more normal human beings. Scientistic triumphalism of the Dennett variety is therefore foolish. An attitude of respectful humility by the more-scientifically inclined towards the more-religiously inclined is not only intellectually proper (at any rate to those of us non-Dennettians who think that religious belief is intellectually respectable, and that the reality of human nature should be faced honestly), it is prudent.

Not Fun Much Longer

At the end of an interesting article on the evolution of blondes, I found this:

Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure. However, the future of the blonde is uncertain.

A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

Am I the only person who said “Huh?” upon reading this? I’d be interested to see the actual study, because it sure doesn’t make much sense to me as reported.

Dispatch From Bizarro World

United For Peace And Justice (gotta love the names these wackos come up with) plans to install a new US government next month:

For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others – We will not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule us any longer.

They need to work on their capitalization–it’s not quite random enough to reveal their full kookery.

Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion, resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not step down, we must storm in.

When was the last time they “stormed in” to protest any of the real torture and imprisonment based on race and religion by Middle Eastern governments? No, instead they’re going to storm the White House, in protest of a policy that has actually ended much of the imprisonment and torture under Saddam Hussein.

They hope to have allies:

We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.,

Even Israel?

All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts, all soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed by the dictators to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Ignoring the ambiguous grammar here (government officials were blackmailed by the dictators to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld? Which dictators were those? When did this happen? You’d think it would have made the news…) are they proposing to have a trial, or just incarcerate them? Or incarcerate them until trial? I’m confused.

They have a plan for a new government.

The Political Cooperative will put a new government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch? In what way are they qualified to run a government? These people are amazing.

We need all of you to save U.S. citizens and Global Victims from their ongoing criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the Criminals in the United States Government.

Right. We’ll “bring democracy back” (when did it go missing, anyway?) by storming the White House, removing duly elected officials and putting unelected people from Amnesty International in their place.

What they have done all over the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are they not in jail too?

Note that we’re supposed to take all of this lunacy as a given–they feel no need to explain or substantiate it in any way.

They have admitted to international and national crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?

Because they haven’t admitted to crime of either kind, perhaps? Is this part of what some (laughably) call the “Reality-based Community”? And seriously, isn’t this a call for insurrection? I suspect that these people could be jailed for this, particularly during war, if anyone actually took them seriously. But these types are generally harmless, being afraid of guns and all. It should be an amusing show on the Ides of March.

A Girly Man

That’s what they found to play the latest James Bond:

An insider is quoted in Britain’s Daily Star newspaper as saying: “They’ve started shooting here and are using the old DB5, which is absolutely sensational. It was shipped over and was ready to go but then we found out he can’t drive a manual car.

“So we have had to adapt it so it’s like an automatic. You don’t expect that with James Bond, to be honest.”

Last year, Craig admitted he is struggling to overcome his biggest fear to play Bond – he’s terrified of guns.

Who’ll be the next one? Boy George?

SpaceWar.com Off Google

Simon Mansfield reports that his publication SpaceWar.com, one of his SpaceDaily family of web sites is no longer having its pages served by Google. Strangely, if you search for “Space War” you find lots of sites linking to http://www.spacewar.com, but if you search for sites linking to www.spacewar.com, the search comes up empty. To enforce Google’s “Don’t be evil” policy, I don’t think Google’s robots are smart enough to parse the following:

<META NAME=”keywords” CONTENT=”war, death, destruction, ruin, hate, bad bad bad”>

which have been in the keywords section for years. (Load this page and view source to see it last year.)

Space.TV corp, SpaceWar.com’s parent isn’t taking this lying down. “We consider the ban a violation of the recently enacted US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.” We wish them a fruitful trade war.

2006-02-25 09:55 Update: It’s back up and running. See Simon’s comment.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!