The Post has an interesting article about the origin of morality (HT curvemudgeon). It talks about research showing that various moral impulses are hardwired into our brains by evolution. This dovetails nicely with another bit of research I stumbled upon recently (but can’t find now) that showed that, when posed with a moral problem, people from […]
This is for real, as far as I can tell: Iran plans to make special bicycles designed for women that will be compatible with Islamic regulations and not expose their body movements while riding. The new bicycle would have a cabin to cover half of a rider’s body, the newspaper Iran quoted project manager Elaheh Sofali as […]
One question that’s been bugging me (sorry for the pun) is why any newspaper would call itself the “Town Name Bee”. Thankfully, the Sacramento Bee has an explanation (summary: the bee represents industry, as in “busy as a bee”). Naturally, if I point out that there’s a town in Arkansas called De Queen, you won’t be […]
Falwell In Hell
Imagine an animal that requires some substance, but that substance is scarce. Say, a mountain goat that needs salt, but lives in mountains where there’s hardly any around, unlike the seashore. In such an environment, it’ll need all the salt it can get, and natural selection will favor those goats that find salt tasty, since […]
I’m reading Douglas Hofstadter’s I Am A Strange Loop, and there’s something that doesn’t sit well with me. In Chapter 4, he discusses his fascination with self-reference and feedback loops of all kinds. He talks about the operation of a toilet, in which water enters the tank, which raises the floater, which in turn cuts off the intake valve. The […]
Maybe I just don’t hang out at the right coffee houses, but I don’t think I’ve seen this before: Coffee Geek has a guide on how to do this sort of stuff.
Kent Hovind says on his weblog: At lunch last week, one of the inmates said, “If I could, I would bomb the Christian Coalition. They are the reason we are here.” I was shocked by his statement! I love the Christian Coalition, but I understand the man’s point. For years, Christians have […]
Frank Pastore has a rather moronic column over at Clownhall. If you’ve got your anti-stupid goggles on, you can read the whole thing, but one paragraph isn’t addressed in the comments. Here, he is ostensibly reading from the atheist playbook: Avoid the pesky problem of freewill. If atheism is true, if all that exists is mere […]
DaveScot has an article over at Casa Dembski about Epulopiscium fishelsoni. Judging by the article that he links to (from the Journal of Bacteriology, 1998), this bacterium looks like a pretty interesting beastie: it changes size by up to 20 times. That’s individual cells, not variation in a population: a single E. fishelsoni can grow […]
