the evolving mind

The new Skeptics’ Circle is up over at The Lay Scientist.  If you haven’t, check it out (that’s not a command but a suggestion).

As a few of you may have noticed, I’m in the process of changing the look and layout of this blog.

Today I’m heading to the beach.  Doesn’t look like there will be any surfable waves, but I’m bringing my board just in case.  If this turns out to be my last post, it’s because I broke my neck attempting to ride a wave measuring in inches rather than feet and collided with some poor kid attempting to refill his plastic castle bucket.

Otherwise, there will be new posts tomorrow.

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Can you guess how the title of this ScienceDaily post would cause a skeptical word-nerd to grunt?

Birdsong Not Just For The Birds: Bio-acoustic Method Also Hears Nature’s Cry For Help

Yes, nature doesn’t cry for help. Nature is not a single, autonomous agent, capable of crying out, despite what the Giai hypothesis may lead some people to believe.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go ready for potential hurricanes. It is that season here in Florida. If Katrina’s cousin comes knocking, I want to be ready. She might be a real bitch.

Technorati Links: science

Okay, I’ve got your attention. At least you don’t have to wait until the 11:00 news to find out what I mean. But you will have to be a bit patient.

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Technorati Links: homosexuality, primatology, sociology

As I have argued and will continue to argue, nature makes sense. At least if you look at it with an evolutionary perspective. No designer worth his salt would put together such a slapdash, albeit beautiful, mess.

Speaking of salt, let’s add some water and consider my home state’s coastline. Florida has beaches galore. The sandbar state (highest elevation, 200-something feet) is fringed by sand. Which makes the snorkeling boring. Why? Because Gawd failed to design a multitude of colorful, sand-eating, fish. And why not?

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Technorati Links: creationism, nature

Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord, Selah, him who rides the ancient skies above, who thunders with mighty voice.  (Psalms 68:32-33)

In the animal kingdom, placing yourself above another is intimidating and can signify higher status. A dog that looms over another cowering beneath is in a dominant position, whether or not the dominance is transient. Similarly, no doubt, human beings instinctively recognize that the higher position is the more dominant position. Think Olympic Games medals platform. Gold is higher than silver is higher than bronze.

When play-fighting (practice-fighting?), one of my dogs will frequently jump onto the couch to gain a height advantage on the other. Do human beings give their invisible alphas, their gods, a high platform, a throne even, so as to make that god appear dominant?

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Technorati Links: dominance, evolution, gods, psychology, religion

The Great Super-Intelligent Designer Dude of the universe apparently had some favorite themes. True, there are millions of species on Earth: good thing the guy is beyond time and space, that’s quite a bit of designing.

Sill, it seems to me that if you design something, you work with a plan or goal. As an avid birdwatcher I wonder, why so many sparrows? Why so many herons? When my wife and I go boating the bird we are most likely to spy is the heron. Well, one of the heron and heron-like birds. There is the little blue, as photographed above, the great blue, the tri-color and the green. At least in my neck of the woods. I can add the great egret and the snowy egret to the list because, for all practical purposes, they belong in the same class: wading birds that use their long necks and spear-like bills to feed on small fish and amphibians.

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Technorati Links: creationism, nature

[Preface: In the words of Monty Python: "And now for something completely different." This post was inspired by PZ Myers over at Pharyngula and his efforts to get a blog carnival going called "Elitist Bastards."  Can I make the grade?  I would both like to and wouldn't.  Stay tuned.]

I don’t read many books. Books are long, and I’m just too busy. If I had more time, I’d read more books. But not just any books.

It has been said, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” To the question, “Can you judge a book by its dustjacket?” I would respond, Hell ya. My judgment may not be accurate, but what else am I supposed to do but engage in literary profiling? It’s all about efficiency.

If, on the front of the dustjacket, there is an illustration of a man who looks like a cross between a bricklayer and a model for Breck shampoo, and he is holding a beautiful woman by the elbows as her breasts are on the verge of making an escape from their cloth Alcatraz, I assume this book is good for curling up in front of a fireplace with. And tossing in. Continue Reading »

Okay, I admit it, when it comes to nature I am a leftist tree-hugger. Or at least a tree photographer. At one time in my life I considered doing a series of photos of solitary trees. I considered titling it, “green personalities.”

No, trees don’t have personalities. I’m not that far out in left field. But if you bother to look at a number of trees, one at a time, you can see that the form of each will tell us something about both its nature and nurture. Continue Reading »

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As an aspiring rational thinker I try to be an equal-opportunity skeptic. If I hear something about religion, I question it; if I watch a news item about psychic powers, I question it; if I read a new science finding-you guessed it-I question it.

An article posted yesterday over at ScienceDaily is a good example. Upon reading the title, “Frequent Family Meals Might Reduce Teen Substance Use,” I initially experienced a small glow of satisfaction. Not because I have “strong family values,” but because I thought the word might  reflected a strongly scientific attitude. Initial finding . . . psychological study with a variables that would rate low on the Moh’s scale of hardness for gemstones . . . etc.

Upon reading the piece my suspicion about the hardness of the data was confirmed: surveys. Nothing solid you can conclude from them. And then I came across this: Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: culture, drugs, psychology

Half hour ago I just drove home from an outing. Against my better judgment I read the billboard in front of a church not a mile from my door:

 An Altar in the Home Alters Any Family.

My reaction? A flurry of questions. I wondered, “how do they know that? . . . Any family? How does it altar the family? How do they know?”

In the above we can see the way in which the water of skepticism meets the oil of religion and doesn’t mix. The former forever probes with questions, the latter rests easy on the bogus laurels of untested answers.

Technorati Links: religion