Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch

Birthdays? I share mine with Pat Buchanan

Dades

Lucy Lawless !



(Or "Number 3", if you're not a Xena fan... )

liamw

Ellen...

magicbastarder

possibly posted already.



http://fakescience.tumblr.com/

liamw

magicbastarder wrote: »

possibly posted already.

More funny than interesting, no?

Genghiz Cohen

liamw wrote: »

More funny than interesting, no?

More interesting than religious.

robindch

Intriguing article by Robert Sapolsky on the biological bases for literal-metaphorical crossover:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/this-is-your-brain-on-metaphors/

liamw

robindch wrote: »

Intriguing article by Robert Sapolsky on the biological bases for literal-metaphorical crossover:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/this-is-your-brain-on-metaphors/

I knew the title reminded me of another interesting article!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997741

ShumanTheHuman

Flying spaghetti monster (or something) caught on camera!

magicbastarder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

sponsoredwalk

Ever see that simpsons episode where Homer bowls a 300 game and is a
flavour of the month local celebrity? Remember when he does the walk-on
during Penn & Teller? I think I've found the political equivalent, although this
one doesn't end in anyone being chased with a harpoon unfortunately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8wV5PD3N14

sponsoredwalk

Not trying to hock off memberships lol but I signed up to get a weekly
update from the NCSE & the weekly e-mails are always extremely interesting,
plenty of creationist fun as well. Might be of interest to some of you, &
their youtube channel is full of good debates.

sponsoredwalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCSxf1JgeQk

vibe666

not sure if this is good news or bad news?

Snake gives 'virgin birth' to extraordinary babies

giving birth to 22 snakey jesuses? or possibly jesii if there's more than one?

recedite

vibe666 wrote: »

not sure if this is good news or bad news?

Snake gives 'virgin birth' to extraordinary babies

giving birth to 22 snakey jesuses? or possibly jesii if there's more than one?

"It appears that some interaction with a male is required. However, why she does not utilise his sperm is at present unknown"

The male Boas involved declined to be interviewed, and are now said to be suffering depression as a result of very low self esteem.

sponsoredwalk

I have mixed feelings about this Zizek, he was good in the Perverts Guide to
Cinema but a lot of his lectures are too Freudian-Marxist for me.
Still, on this topic I've never heard him speak, the start is good & the title
is pretty funny :pac: so I think it's worth it, hopefully someone else will too!

Why Only an Atheist Can Be a True Christian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx3_2lpvZKM

Starts around 06:30!

edit: This lecture is truly brilliant, really worth the time.

Turtwig

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19760-thoughts-of-religion-prompt-acts-of-punishment.html

Many religions offers plenty of positive incentives to their followers – the promise of life after death, for instance. But why have religions that involve self-sacrifice and punishment survived? The link between support for a religion and a willingness to inflict punishment may point to the answer.

To study this link, Ernst Fehr at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and his team enrolled 304 people, mainly students. They were sorted into pairs and played 20 rounds of a game in which the first player was shown a monetary reward and had to choose one of two ways to split it with their partner: they could either share it equally or take a greater share for themselves.

The second player then had the option of punishing the first one by deducting from their reward. Dishing out punishment came at a cost, however: the punisher lost a reward unit for each three units they deducted from their partner.

Fehr wanted to find out what motivated people to punish others. Before deciding on the punishment, the second player was subliminally shown a group of words. These either related to religion – like "divine", "holy", "pious" and "religious" – to secular punishment, or were neutral words like "tractor".

After the game, all players were asked if they had donated money to a religious organisation in the previous year. The team found that those who had donated – about 15 per cent of participants – exacted the most severe punishments, but only after they had been shown the subliminal religious cues. When primed in this way, this group deducted roughly three times as many points on average as other players.

"We think that the cues give them a reminder they are being watched," says psychologist Ryan McKay of Royal Holloway University of London, who co-led the study with Fehr. "To please the supernatural agent they worship, they exact higher punishments. The other possibility is that the cued words awakened the concepts of appropriate punishment in their minds."

McKay points out that being religious can be costly in various ways: donating money, suffering painful rites and avoiding pleasures, for example. So the team wondered how religion survived, despite these apparent costs. "The answer may be that these sacrifices enable the group to secure more cooperation. The punishing may be unpleasant but it's in the service of the greater good for that particular group or religion, enabling them to thrive and spread the word," he says.

Chris Frith of University College London says previous studies have shown that people will impose punishments at a cost to themselves, and that this is a powerful means of maintaining group cooperation and reducing selfish behaviour. Fehr and McKay's study suggests religion may enhance such behaviour, Frith says, and thus have a survival value.

But other motivations are possible too, Frith adds. "Appropriate secular ideas, such as socialism should, in principle, be equally effective in priming group-oriented behaviour."

CerebralCortex

A great blog dealing with the art of rationality, see here for details.

Pushtrak

Brilliant video.

Edit: A podcast, 2 eps out. Just listening to the first now, so I can't say anything as to its quality, but I know they are very good youtubers. http://theaword.podomatic.com/ (allbabiesareatheists and bionicdance for those who wish to know.)

magicbastarder

mr. blasphemy will not be contesting his seat at the next election. it would be nice to think that his successor might revisit the blasphemy issue.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1130/ahernd.html

magicbastarder

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/inconvenient-truths-about-our-evolution-2146994.html

sponsoredwalk

magicbastarder wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/inconvenient-truths-about-our-evolution-2146994.html

Yay, more culturally bound evolutionary psychology just-so stories!!!
What next, the Bell Jar revisited?

goingpostal

http://bagger-ce.blogspot.com/2009/12/fire-in-my-belly-1987-david-wojnarowicz.html
Some creepy virgin in a frock got this video taken down from a New York art gallery exhibition, because it shows ants crawling over a crucifix. They haven't gone away, you know.

Coriolanus

goingpostal wrote: »

http://baggoer-ce.blogspot.com/2009/12/fire-in-my-belly-1987-david-wojnarowicz.html
Some creepy virgin in a frock got this video taken down from a New York art gallery exhibition, because it shows ants crawling over a crucifix. They haven't gone away, you know.

People can hold any stupid opinion they like as far as I'm concerned. It's the management of the gallery that deserves condemnation.

sponsoredwalk

The cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life
form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently
living in planet Earth. This changes everything.
At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce
that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we
know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life
on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,
phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest microorganism to the
largest animal, share the same life stream. Their DNA blocks are the same.
Not this one. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this
bacteria is made of arsenic, which was thought to be completely
impossible. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our
understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other
planets.
We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found
in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything. [NOS—In
Dutch]

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life-completely-different-from-all-life-we-know

Read this thread just before 7pm to find out how to watch the live stream
official announcement of this discovery but I think this is pretty big stuff.

strobe

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Read this thread just before 7pm to find out how to watch the live stream
official announcement of this discovery but I think this is pretty big stuff.

:eek:

vibe666

this is pretty epic by any standards. :eek:

so it either landed in the lake from some outer space meteorite strike, proving alien life exists, or life spontaneously evolved in that region totally separate from the rest of life on this planet proving alien life is possible in places and ways we never even imagined.

there's no way it evolved FROM anything else on this planet if the basic biological building blocks of the thing are incompatible with our own.

this is huge.

I want someone from NASA to send the discovery to the Vatican with the headline "when you see it, you'll $hit bricks!".

Dades

^^ Dedicated thread here.

Dave!

David Silverman of American Atheists vs 4 Christian Fox 'News' panelists regarding a new billboard they erected:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5NQF5Ha5tM

Thought he did a very good job. Also thought the Fox panelists were surprisingly subdued, even though they are morons.

recedite

Dave! wrote: »

the Fox panelists were surprisingly subdued,

There was a lot of uneasy shuffling going on there among them. David Silverman was that 9 yr old boy telling his friends that there is no such thing as Santa Claus

achtungbarry

Don't know if this has been posted before but found it interesting. An unusually serious Billy Connolly gives his views on religion during an interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS_4OopJuYI

goingpostal

Dave! wrote: »

David Silverman of American Atheists vs 4 Christian Fox 'News' panelists regarding a new billboard they erected:



Thought he did a very good job. Also thought the Fox panelists were surprisingly subdued, even though they are morons.

Silverman owned those wishy washy wasters. "You're hurting my feelings, you're hurting my feelings." The last refuge of the theistic scoundrel.

vibe666

achtungbarry wrote: »

Don't know if this has been posted before but found it interesting. An unusually serious Billy Connolly gives his views on religion during an interview.

oddly enough, apparently being interviewed by his wife?

Dave!

Interesting talk by Michael Newdow about separation of church and state:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QwAx7uQVsM

It's in 9 parts (so it's pretty long!), and he appears to be ad libbing the whole thing, which is pretty impressive! He also really knows his American history... Would love to see him in a debate with some religious nut, he would p1ss all over them. He's been on Fox and the likes a few times, and he skullfvcks them every time.

liamw

Dave! wrote: »

Would love to see him in a debate with some religious nut, he would p1ss all over them. He's been on Fox and the likes a few times, and he skullfvcks them every time.

Ye, unfortunately there isn't too many on youtube. Here's a couple I enjoyed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzVxHF8T0Hk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg8EWbuJOvQ

MrPudding

Newly discoverd microde in the Titanic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11926932

MrP

sponsoredwalk

MrPudding wrote: »

Newly discoverd microde in the Titanic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11926932

MrP

Arsenic based or...?

Coriolanus

Is it new new, ie do they think it evolved specifically because man has put massive quantities of iron into the ocean in the form of wrecks or is it found naturally near exposed ore on the seabed and has just travelled to a new niche or something.

sponsoredwalk

Reminds me of those fish that evolved latex, or spandex or something
Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Coriolanus

No bites on an admittedly brief Google search but it sounds interesting.

amacachi

Haven't some microbes in the ocean already adapted to digest plastics?

MrPudding

Nevore wrote: »

Is it new new, ie do they think it evolved specifically because man has put massive quantities of iron into the ocean in the form of wrecks or is it found naturally near exposed ore on the seabed and has just travelled to a new niche or something.

I think it is just a new species that has developed to take advantage to these specific local conditions.

MrP

magicbastarder

i hadn't heard this before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Kh-xzerjE

Dades

*cough* Atheist! *cough*

Dave!

woah, never saw that either! I whole-heartedly endorse the sentiments he expressed :eek:

GO_Bear

Oblamo!

mikhail

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11966108

Mexican police have been involved in fierce gun battles with suspected drug traffickers blockading the main roads into Morelia, the capital of Michoacan state...

Michoacan, in western Mexico, is a stronghold of a powerful drugs cartel known as La Familia Michoacana...

La Familia Michoacana is involved in cocaine smuggling to the US along Mexico's Pacific coast as well as the production of the synthetic drug, methamphetamine.

Despite a reputation for ruthless violence, it has always claimed strong links to the community in Michoacan state, and advocates religious and family values...

I can't decide whether it's more funny than sad that violent criminal organisations so often publically espouse religion, and seem to mean it.

robindch

mikhail wrote: »

violent criminal organisations so often publically espouse religion, and seem to mean it.

It's all about control. As in for example, the current president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who's involved in organized crime (for profits) as much as he is fundamentalist religion (for control).

Reminds me of Gibbon's line, paraphrasing, I think, Tacitus:

Edward Gibbon wrote:

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.

The word 'crook' could be substituted there for 'magistrate'.

strobe

Dave! wrote: »

woah, never saw that either! I whole-heartedly endorse the sentiments he expressed :eek:

Obama has being getting a lot of stick lately but I'm still regularly surprised and impressed by the guy, I'm willing to forgive him for a lot of his mistakes. However if something should happen to a certain white haired Australian, I'll be the first to call for his head. I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame that man in the White house. And that, I do not forgive.

sink

strobe wrote: »

Obama has being getting a lot of stick lately but I'm still regularly surprised and impressed by the guy, I'm willing to forgive him for a lot of his mistakes. However if something should happen to a certain white haired Australian, I'll be the first to call for his head. I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame that man in the White house. And that, I do not forgive.

I know that spiel.

Don Corleone wrote:

You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance gonna bring your son back to you and my boy to me? I forgo all the vengeance in my son. But I have selfish reasons. [after saying that Michael is returning to the U.S.] I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive. But that aside, let me say that I swear on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.