Abolish the Death Penalty

 
Italians are spearheading a worldwide campaign to abolish the death penalty. I support their efforts. Citizens of all countries that retain the death penalty should petition their govenrment to abolish it immediately.

The Italian government outlawed the death penalty in 1948. Whenever a death sentence is commuted, or a country abolishes capital punishment, Rome changes the color of the colosseum's lighting to deep gold. There are 68 countries that retain the death penalty. Let's try and change the colors 68 more times.

[Reuters: Rome to light Colosseum in death penalty protest][Amnesty International: Light a city for life]

Lip Balm Addiction

 
Recently some friends and relatives (you know who you are) revealed that they are "addicted" to Blistex or other lip balms.

Help is available. Lip Balm Anonymous is an organization set up to help addicts overcome their problem. Their website contains a ton of useful information about the necessity of lip balm. Many normal people need it to get through the day because otherwise they'll surely die of dry lips. Lip balm is even more important for those who can't lick their lips if their tongue is firmly planted in their cheek—like the people who created the website!

If you're still not convinced, here are Ten Signs You're Addicted to Lip Balm. Hard core addicts should take the Lip Balm Addict Quiz to see if there's any hope.

Addiction to lip balm is an urban legend. You may really, really like the taste and feel of Blistex but that's not a physical addiction. It's all in your mind. Here are some debunking sites that cover most of the myths. [Snopes, Are Lip Balms Addictive?]

There are ways of telling whether a rumor is true or not. One way is to assume that it's true and imagine the consequences. For example, let's assume that Blistix, or whatever, is physiologically addictive. If that were true, don't you think the manufacturers would have been sued by now? Wouldn't you expect to see warning labels on your tubes? In fact, wouldn't lip balms have disappeared off the shelves by now?

None of those things have happened, so you can conclude that your assumption is wrong. Either that, or there's a massive cover-up under way. But if you believe that then you've already passed beyond the stage where rationality is going to make a difference, right?

Maud Menten and the Michaelis-Menten Equation

 
The other day, when I was taking a picture of the insulin plaque on the side on my building, I also got a photo of the Maud Menten plaque at the front of the Medical Sciences Building opposite Queen's Park.

Menten is famous for the Michaelis-Menten equation

the bane of all biochemistry undergraduates.

Michaelis and Menten are responsible for establishing the fundamental principles of enzyme kinetics and for putting biochemistry on solid mathematical ground. They were never recognized by the Nobel committee for their important contributions.

Me and a Friend

 
I was cleaning up some of my files last night and I came across this photo taken in the garden of Richard Dawkins' house in Oxford last October. PZ Myers took the picture.

PZ posted a similar , but much better, photo (taken by me). I didn't have a blog back then so here it is now, better late than never. I got my copy of The God Delusion signed while I was there.

Secret Room

 
This is a photo of a door in the corridor just outside my office. I've never seen it open. What do you suppose is behind the door?

a dead Professor secret evidence that intelligent design is correct appeasers lots of dirt the Stanley Cup student lab reports that have never been graded Narnia the random genetic drift generator the graduate student lounge

Insulin Voted #1 Canadian Invention

 

CBC viewers have voted insulin the Greatest Canadian Invention. The plaque is on the side of the Medical Sciences Building where I work.

Banting and Macleod got the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923. Collip and Best were excluded in one of the most notorious omissions in Nobel history.

The top ten inventions were covered on the TV show. What about the other nine? They're almost as exciting (see below). Personally, I think #10 should have been ranked much higher.

1. insulin


2. telephone


3. lightbulb


4. five pin bowling


5. wonderbra


6. pacemaker


7. Robertson screw


8. zipper


9. electric wheelchair


10. poutine

TV Ontario's Best Lecturers

 
It's time for TV Ontario's second "best lecturer" contest. The top ten finalists have been selected. Their lectures will be televised beginning January 13th. Lecturers from all over the province and from many different disciplines will be featured in the run-off.

Saturday, January 13 4:00 PM (repeated Sunday at 4:00 PM)
Jacalyn Duffin, Medicine, Queen's University
Steve Joordens, Psychology, University of Toronto at Scarborough

Saturday, January 20 4:00 PM (repeated Sunday at 4:00 PM)
Kenneth Bartlett, History, University of Toronto
Michael Persinger, Psychology, Laurentian University

Saturday, January 27 4:00 PM (repeated Sunday at 4:00 PM)
Nick Mount, English, University of Toronto
Rupinder Brar, Physics, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Saturday, February 3 4:00 PM (repeated Sunday at 4:00 PM)
Bryan Karney, Civil Engineering, University of Toronto
Marc Fournier, Psychology, University of Toronto at Scarborough

Saturday, February 10 4:00 PM (repeated Sunday at 4:00 PM)
Allan C. Hutchinson, Law, Osgoode Hall Law School
Maydianne Andrade, Biology, University of Toronto at Scarborough

This is a popularity contest. The last one was very disappointing because some of the most important aspects of being a good university lecturer were ignored.

I'm talking about accuracy and rigour. It's not good enough to just please the students. What you are saying has to be pitched at the right level and it has to be correct. Too many of the lectures were superficial, first-year introductions that offered no challenge to the students. (One, for example, was an overview of Greek and Roman architecture by an engineering Professor.) The students loved it, of course, and so did the TV producers because they could understand the material. Lecturer's in upper level courses need not apply.

Some of last year's lectures were inaccurate. The material was either misleading or false, and the concepts being taught were flawed. Neither students nor TV audiences were in any position to evaluate the material so accuracy was not a criterion in selecting the best lecturer of 2006.

I wrote to the producers about this, suggesting that the lecturers be pre-screened by experts in the discipline. TV Ontario promised to do a better job this year. I'm looking forward to seeing if they kept their promise.

The fact that Michael Persinger is one of the finalists doesn't bode well. In case some of you don't know, Persinger is the guy who puts a motorcycle helmet full of solenoids on your head to make you become religious [This Is Your Brain on God]. Persinger used his machine to try and make Dawkins have a religious experience [God on the Brain]. It didn't work.

Persinger was not disheartened by Dawkins' immunity to the helmet's magnetic powers. He believes that the sensitivity of our temporal lobes to magnetism varies from person to person. People with TLE may be especially sensitive to magnetic fields; Prof Dawkins is well below average, it seems.

What the Heck Is Darwinian Morality?

 
John G. West is one of the chief IDiots over at the Discovery Institute. He has posted an article on Darwinism and Traditional Morality. It appears that West wrote a book about this stuff called Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest. I haven't read it, and I don't intend to.

Here's what West says in the online article at Evolution News & Views (sic). I'm not making this up.

In my book, I challenge the attempt to locate a non-relative justification for morality in Darwinism. According to a Darwinian conception of ethics, every behavior regularly practiced by at least some subpopulation of human beings is ultimately a product of natural selection. Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to Darwinism, so is infanticide. While monogamy is “natural,” so are polygamy and adultery. Because of this uncomfortable truth, even some noted Darwinists such as Thomas Huxley have recognized the difficulty of grounding ethics in a Darwinian understanding of nature.

Huxley was no idiot. Like every other rational being, he recognizes that you can't base a code of ethics on Darwinism, or any other part of science. Talk about a strawman! What the heck goes on in the minds of these IDiots? Is it religion that makes them so stupid?

Fahrenheit 451 in 2007

 
Fahrenheit 451 is a movie about a future society where books are banned. The main protagonist is a fireman who burns books. (Apparently, books catch fire at 233°C, which translates to 451°F using the quaint, old-fashioned, way of measuring temperature that was common back in 1966.)

A new version of the movie is scheduled for 2007. Don't wait for it. If you haven't seen the Truffaut version, rush out to your video store right now and rent it. You won't regret it.

On a completely unrelated issue, () there is a movement to ban the sale of some books at the Grand Canyon National Park.


Read the full story on the NCSE website [Renewed concern about creationism at Grand Canyon National Park]. It looks like lots of people have their knickers in a knot over the sale of a creationist book that promotes Young Earth Creationism. Since the American National Park Service is a government agency, the sale of creationist books on government land is a major threat to the union.

A group called the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) wants the National Park Service to ban the creationist book; Grand Canyon: A Different View. The issue is complicated because it's tied up with the claim that park rangers are being muzzled by the Bush administration. There's a suggestion that rangers aren't allowed to tell visitors the real age of the Grand Canyon for fear it will insult YEC's. Wesley Elsberry does a pretty good job of getting to the truth over on The Panda's Thumb.

Of course, park rangers should promote the truth about science and the formation of the Grand Canyon. If this offends YEC's then let them go somewhere else for their vacation. (Las Vegas isn't far away.)

However, I'm troubled by book banning. I'm against it. Not only does it not make sense (have the book banners been in any other bookstore recently?), but it sends the wrong message. As a scientist, I don't fear anyone who wants to challenge science. We have truth and rationality on our side and that should be the tools we use to defeat the anti-science forces. Exposing their stupidity is part of the objective and for that we need to make their books available.

Using the law to suppress our opponents is not the best strategy. It won't achieve the objective we seek, which is to win the hearts and minds of the people. It's time to put aside the legal wranglings and concentrate on promoting rational thinking.

Reverse PIN at ATM Summons Police

 
Friday's Urban Legend

Did you get an email message like this?

I just found out that should you ever be forced to withdraw monies from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse. The machine will still give you the monies you requested, but unknown to the robber, etc, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you. The broadcast stated that this method of calling the police is very seldom used because people don't know it exists. It might mean the difference between life & death. Hopefully, none of you will have to use this, but I wanted to pass it along just in case you hadn't heard of it. Please pass it along to everyone possible.

It's not true according to snopes.com, although some legislators have tried to pass laws making the reverse PIN signal mandatory. Banks don't like the idea. Besides, what are the chances that you can smoothly key in your reverse PIN number with a thug holding a gun to your head? I don't think I could. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure I could remember my real PIN number under those circumstances!

Flying Mammals

 
Flight has been independently invented by reptiles, insects, fish, birds, and mammals. Did you know that bats aren't the only mammals that fly? Back in the 1960's every kid on the block knew about these other flying mammals.

How times have changed ....

The University Exit Exam

 
The primary goal of a university education is to teach students how to think. This is not a cliché. It really is the objective that many Professors strive for.

There are several secondary objectives—these are not universal. One goal that is widely shared is scientific literacy. We want university students to graduate with a minimal level of understanding of the natural world. Another important goal is to teach students how to express themselves in writing. We also want students to take an active interest in the world around them and learn to apply their thinking skills to current controversies.

In our free time we sometimes amuse ourselves by designing an exit exam. This is a test that all university students must pass before we give them a degree. It would require them to sit down and write 10 essays on various topics. I like the idea that they can answer any five of the questions in the morning exam from 9-12, then take a 2 hour break where they can chat with their friends about the questions, and answer the remaining five questions during the afternoon exam from 2-5.

Would you pass this exam?

Students have to write short essay answers to 10 questions. In many cases, there's no right or wrong answer. Students will be evaluated on their logic and how well they write. If they're discussing a controversial issue, the grade will depend on how well they represent both sides.

There will be a different set of questions every year. Here's an example. Can you think of any other questions that you'd like to see on the exit exam?

1. Describe and evaluate the main arguments for the existence of God(s).


2. Explain, with diagrams, how eclipses of the sun occur.


3. List ten books you have read outside of class in the past four years and tell why you liked, or didn't like, them.


4. What is your favorite music? Why?


5. What is the theory of evolution and why is it important?


6. Are you for or against abortion?


7. Is there a difference between law and justice?


8. Is socialism better than capitalism?


9. Explain earthquakes and volcanoes and how they relate to plate tectonics.


10. Is there anything wrong with genetically modified food?

ReGenesis

 
ReGenesis is a TV show produced in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. (I live there.) The scientific advisor is Aled Edwards, a colleague at the University of Toronto.

One of the remarkable features of the show is the reality of the biotech lab. It has all the latest equipment and gadgets and none of the scientists wear lab coats. The set was recently featured in a Toronto Star article [Putting the gee in genome].

Visit the ReGenesis website and click on "Lab Tour" then click on "NorBac Tour" to try and solve a problem using the latest biotech tools. The simulation will show you what the set looks like. The website has been nominated for several awards.

The first season's episodes are coming to The Movie Network. Watch for it.

Play the GM Quiz Game

 
How much do you know about genetically modified foods? Take the GM Quiz and find out. I scored 10/10.

[Hat Tip: Genetics & Health]

Gerald Ford

 
One of my theist friends, Denny Cochran, took this picture of the planes that flew over the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids during the funeral on Wednesday. The flight is following the Grand River from Lake Michigan. According to Denny, the lead planes are right over the Museum.

The services were very moving even for a Canadian. I was living in the USA when Ford became Vice-President and I always thought he was good for the country.

One of the things that surprised me about the funeral sevices in Washington was the prominent presence of the military. I guess that's to be expected when a former commander-in-chief dies.