Archive for the ‘In the News’ Category
Politicians are Truly Stupid
On December 14, 2007 in In the News
So I hear that the UK is going to ban Samurai Swords because in the years between 2003 and 2007, there were a whopping total of 4 deaths caused by Samurai Swords. So, the solution is to ban the object! After all, how could people kill each other without Samurai Swords?
Responses on the video shared other suggestions for things that need to be banned, including (but not limited to) scissors, marbles, and bears. Afterall, they all have caused deaths too.
While you’re at it, UK, ban McDonald’s.
It’s ridiculous decisions like this that make me feel completely hopeless when it comes to government. I mean, if you take away all of the guns, 1 man with a gun can control 50 men without one. Imagine how long a bank robbery would last if everybody in the bank was carrying a fire arm? Imagine how many school-shootings would result in dozens of deaths if the teachers carried fire arms and were required to take training.
You may think I’m joking, but I am 100% in favor of giving every sane adult a fire arm, and teaching them how to aim.
Link Summary
Mommy backs show ridiculous Evolutionary flexibility
On December 12, 2007 in In the News, Science Related
I read an article on CNN today talking about how phenomenal it was that a woman can go big-belly during gestation and not tip-over when she tries to walk. This extraordinary (sarcasm) demonstration is the product of millions of years of evolution. You see, women evolved the ability to balance their weight to offer more mobility from predators as they blah blah blah, you could finish these crap-stories yourself I’m sure.
So I decided to take just a moment tonight and see what other websites were saying about this same “discovery”. I ran over to livescience to see what they were saying only to get a slightly more wordy version. I won’t go into detail about what they say, since it doesn’t really differ from CNN, but I wanted to bring up one comment on the livescience website.
Before I repost the quote here, I want to share with you all something that Walter ReMine, the author of The Biotic Message, wrote some years ago. “Evolutionary theory is structureless, and predicts virtually nothing. It adapts to data like fog adapts to landscape.”
Basically, any observation made can fit into the Evolutionary framework in one way or another - making the base-theory itself rubbish. Monkey is big, beneficial adaptation to fight predators; Monkey is small, beneficial adaptation to avoid predators. Blah blah.
So onto the statement made on the livescience page: “Early human women lived very strenuous, active lives, and pregnant females were forced to cope with the discomfort of childbearing while foraging for food and escaping from predators,” Lieberman said. “This evolution of the lower back helped early woman to remain more mobile during pregnancy, which would have been essential to survival, and appears to have been favored by natural selection.”
They go on to say that our “cousins”, the chimpanzees don’t have this same “adaptation”. They still carry their young while prancing through the forest on all fours - well, that is until we see one occasionally walking on their two back feet, which immediately becomes even more evidence for Evolution!
Anyway, so this difference helped the Moms when they were “escaping from predators” and thus was “essential to survival”. But the chimps don’t do it, and they still have moms today…so, did I miss something here? Did the chimps and their ancestors not have predators for the last couple million years? Their moms got to sit aside and watch the bipedal-primates get chased by predators?
Seems kinda stupid if you ask me. You can spin this crap anyway you like. You could say the chimps were better equipped because they could still climb trees whereas the bipedal monkeys couldn’t, and thus had to figure out other ways of escaping predators. Yet the bipedal-monkeys were advanced because they had this useless advantage called “bipedalism”.
See what I mean? This is all a bunch of play-doh nonsense. You can fit it and mold it anyway you like.
Link Summary
Evolution balances the Baby-bearers?
On December 12, 2007 in In the News, Science Related
Baby-bearing Momma’s are an enigma? Well, according to some super-genius scientists on CNN.com’s recent article, “Evolution keeps pregnant women upright.“
You know, these little false-attributions just make me giggle. Say, Mr. Scientist, does evolution keep me upright when I walk down a hill, adjusting my weight backwards so as not to skid down in a violent belly-flop-fashion?
Since when do we attribute common-sense to some non-material force of the mysterious past that cannot really be tested? Aren’t scientific-claims suppose to be testable, etc? How the heck do you test statements like, “Evolution gave you a gum-ball”?
“That’s a big load that’s pulling you forward,” said Liza Shapiro, an Anthropologist at the University of Texas. Um, yeah…so is the Beer-gut on my Uncle Rodney, big deal!
Allow me a moment to cast my lot into the mix and share how I think women are able to carry a child, and do so without attributing it to some super-mysterious force of the non-observable past.
As your body changes, you adjust to the changes. This isn’t simply a rule of body-changes, but a rule of practically everything. At one time you couldn’t swim, yet you slowly learned to move your arms and legs in a motion that kept you afloat. At one time you couldn’t ride a bike, or hit a baseball, but as you continued to endure the attempts, you slowly acquired the ability.
It’s seems ridiculously obvious to me, as it should to anybody, that a mother can carry a child for the same reason I can carry a backpack. When a new influence is introduced into your environment, you adjust to accommodate it. If a fire breaks out, you stop walking and start crawling. If the room becomes flooded, you stop standing and start swimming.
This seems like another stupid attempt to attribute a common-sense accommodation to an unobservable force.
How do you think they would feel if I answered the question with “God did it.” Because that is essentially what they’re doing, but with their god instead of mine.
