Imaginary, stupid poll: Do you like nature?

Imaginary results: Yes – 99%.

No – 1% (It contains snakes!)

2nd imaginary poll: Do like to learn about nature?

Imaginary results: Yes – 70% (particularly if I can by watching television)

No – 30% (Learning? That requires effort!)

3rd Imaginary poll: If science were described as a careful way to learn about nature, would you say science is a good thing?

Imaginary results: Yes – 50%

No – 50% (Science? Science is always bad because the people I know pronounce the word as if a snake were hissing.)

Keep science from becoming a bad word! Be sure to smile whenever you say it! Why? Because polls of your average American numbskull are important!

On a serious note, if you enjoy learning about nature, I suggest checking out these two excellent blog carnivals, recently posted:

Scientia Pro Publica 22

Carnival of Evolution #21: The Superstar Edition

To science! Seriously.

Technorati Links: science, semantics

A new research finding lands a blow to lazy parents everywhere. It seems you can’t just plunk your young child in front of a television screen and they will learn. In a test of the effectiveness of educational DVDs, for one, the results came back negative. Maybe even worse than negative!

Researchers at University of California, Riverside did this:

…studied vocabulary acquisition among 96 children age 12 to 24 months. Participants were tested on measures of vocabulary and general development, and their primary caregivers (77 mothers, seven fathers and four others) answered a series of questions about their children’s development and previous exposure to educational media. Half of the children were then given an educational DVD to watch in their homes. [source]

The Negative Result:

When additional tests were conducted after six weeks, there was no evidence children learned the words specifically highlighted in the DVDs, and watching the DVDs was unrelated to measures of general language learning. [bold mine]

“Negative” in a scientific sense, simply means not. As in “not related.” How could the results then be worse than “not related.’

The Worse Than Negative Result:

While watching the DVD was not related learning new words, the researchers did find a relationship between age when parents began use of educational media for their child and score “on a test of vocabulary knowledge.”

As is expressed in the news release, this could simply be a case of a non-causal correlation. Rather than the DVD exposure causing the relative delay, parents may resort to educational DVDs when they have a sense the child already needs additional help. Or something.

Some futurists have envisioned a time when all learning is done in separate cubicles, with media tailor-fit to the individual’s present capabilities. But while human beings can be described as learning sponges, we tend to sop up certain types of information better. We also tend to attend better to certain sources of information. At least for children, I really wonder whether anything could replace face-time with a real living and breathing tutor, whether that tutor is mom, dad, grandma, or a caring professional.

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Addendum: Got to give kudos where they are due.  Just noticed the title — “Infants do not appear to learn words from educational DVDs.”

Do not appear.  Excellent.  For this is only one study.

Technorati Links: education, psychology

One week from today this blog ends. Oh my.

But with it will come rebirth. At another home. 360 Skeptic (dot com). Hold onto your hats. The winds of change are blowing.

(Okay, maybe it’s more of a puff a change.)

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[Original photo thanks to David Stowell via Wikimedia]

This just in: NASA’s Cassini space probe has found no evidence of gods in our solar system. Hmm. I wonder why that is….

Why is science seemingly hostile to religion? (Any hostility exists in how the results are received.) Because science refuses to place a finger on the scale when weighing the evidence for gods. Honest science, anyway. Objectivity doesn’t favor the existence of gods. The inkblot of subjective experience, however — well hell, anything can be made of that.

Yes, I’m an atheist. No, don’t take my word for it. Look at the evidence. Good evidence. And what you will find is that Saturn is devoid of evidence of a god. And a quadrillion other things are likewise devoid of gods and/or their influence.

Speaking of devoid of gods, I invite you to check out the latest godless blogging carnival: Carnival of the Godless, No. 136 – Revolutionary Communist Edition!

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[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: atheism, religion, science

In a recent post, Human Sexuality and How Questionnaires Can Fail, I concluded this way:

To the philosophical dictum “know thyself” I would thus add, “and realize there are limits to your self-knowledge.”

Well darn. Should I have five points deducted from my post’s score for going a bit cliché? At least I ended with that bit of over-used Socratic tidbit. A news release out Washington University in St. Louis used it in their first line:

Since at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to “know thyself.”

Minus ten for them. But maybe not. For the idea was central to their announcement: Others may know us better than we know ourselves, study finds. Summarizing research results that appeared in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the article states:

Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, has found that the individual is more accurate in assessing one’s own internal, or neurotic traits, such as anxiety, while friends are better barometers of intellect-related traits, such as intelligence and creativity, and even strangers are equally adept as our friends and ourselves at spotting the extrovert in us all, a psychology domain known as “extroversion.”

Interesting. Of course, as a hard-core skeptic, I’d like some numbers to go along with my study results, please. The only number I found was for the number of subjects: 165 volunteers. This Certainly makes it a preliminary finding/study. But what I really want to know is the degree of difference. How much better are we at gauging our internal states? How much better are others at gauging our intelligence and creativity?

Can we know something of ourselves? Sure. But perhaps we should keep in mind (as should psychotherapists everywhere) that what we know is not so much ourselves as it is our perceptions of ourselves. And not only does our power of perception have limits but it can be altered and skewed. Perhaps even mistaken.

Technorati Links: perception, psychology

Sometimes having nothing to fight for is a very good thing. As this cartoon from atheistcartoons.com illustrates:

Technorati Links: atheism

I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to state outright that religions tend to promote in-group thinking and behavior. Coupled with feelings of righteousness. A natural consequence of this is . . . a heightened perception of “outgroup” members. Those others who are less good.

So this article headline came as no surprise to me: Study Links Religion and Racism

As for the science behind the finding…not bad.

A meta-analysis of 55 independent studies carried out in the United States with more than 20,000 mostly Christian participants has found that members of religious congregations tend to harbor prejudiced views of other races.

Not earth-shaking, but interesting. Noteworthy, sure. As was this related finding:

Her analysis [team leader Wendy Wood] found significantly less racism among people without strong religious beliefs. [bold added]

Man, those secular values, they are so dangerous! Not.

But the point I want to make comes as a consequence of this tidbit found deep down in the article:

“The effect is strongest in the seminary,” Wood said. Of the 55 studies, 14 dealt with highly religious populations such as frequent church attendees and seminarians. [bold added]

Seminarians are most racist of the groups studied. Hmm. There they are, spending their days with the supposedly heart-and-soul-altering teachings of their allegedly Good Book . . . and?

Exactly! There is religion AND there are all these other factors that influence morality.

Religion strikes me as a placebo treatment. When it works, it works because people think it is going to work. But does it have real value?

Technorati Links: atheism, Christianity, racism, religion

It is a drizzly, cold day in Florida today. My thoughts turn to the warmer and brighter. But the thoughts themselves aren’t that warm and bright. Nothing approaching the real thing. And it is probably a good thing.

Imagine if recollections were as vivid and pleasing as real-time experience . . . there would be a lot of people, like heroin addicts, reclining on couches and beds, lost in memory.

I have often lamented over the poor resolution of my memories. They pale considerably next to any old boring thing before me face right now. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Technorati Links: memory

[It's Saturday. To hell with science and skepticism.
I'm in a different sort of mood. And so this . . . .]

Perhaps a half-dozen times in my life I have pondered the question, “If, after I die, I could come back as any type of animal, what would I be?”

My answers have included “eagle” and “dolphin.” Funny, I never considered “centipede.” During my speed-obsessed boyhood years I may have responded “cheetah.”

It has recently dawned on me that underlying the question is a sort of global recycling notion. You spend your days in one shape and then, presto, are re-formed into another. Is Hinduism thus “the greener religion?”

There is some truth to the reincarnation-as-global-recycling idea. All large mammals such as ourselves, however, go through the crucial step of becoming microbes and worms in our first turnaround before we eventually wind up as grass then rabbits then coyotes.

Today, as I think about what I’d like to come back as, I know I wouldn’t want to be an eagle. Though flying would be a thrill, I wonder if birds find it thrilling or merely a way of getting from here to there.

Flying aside, I’m afraid I would miss having hands. What if I got the urge to read a book? Just opening it would be a difficult task with a forearm that terminates in feathers.

Furthermore, the thought of cold carrion for breakfast or fish guts for lunch doesn’t do much for my present set of taste-buds.

Then there’s the problem of celebrity. The eagle is virtual royalty in the animal kingdom. I’d hate being pursued far and wide by the National Geographic paparazzi.

In my next life I also wouldn’t want to come back as a dolphin.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: humor, reincarnation

Beautiful. The launch of a spacecraft over water. [photo thanks to NASA]

The root of providence is to provide. The term is a favorite among religious folk. Providence is what their god does. Provide. Their everything.

What does the space program provide? Knowledge, for sure. Technological advances that improve our limited days, yes. Ever-lasting life? No. Transportation to a supernatural realm? Naw. Some argue that space travel may one day be our ticket “out of here.” And by that they mean to another hospitable planet. This one may not remain hospitable. Not forever it won’t.

When is providing knowledge not enough? I guess the cost must be considered.

Care to explore new realms of thought and perhaps gain some knowledge at very little cost (some effort, some time, no exchange of cash)? I recommend checking out the 131st Skeptics’ Circle posted yesterday over at . . . Providentia.

I’m going to blast that way later on today.

Technorati Links: knowledge, NASA