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27 April 2013

We Are The Universe

Just going to post a video with minimal commentary.  Really, everything that needs said is said in the video itself.



Although, I can't resist also including a quote:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
- Isaac Asimov

11 April 2013

Here's Your Fucking Refund!

So today, science minded people are lamenting the lack of funding that NASA gets, and looking at the President's FY14 budget. I'll let Dr. Phil Plait discuss the budget and everything that it means. Instead, I'd like to make the NASA budget more personal.  A lot of folks may know what part of the federal budget is dedicated to NASA, but in case you don't know, it's around half a percent. A little more than half a penny of every federal tax dollar ends up at NASA. That means that a family with the median household income ($49,777 according to the U.S. Census Bureau), which pays $6,629 of federal taxes, pays the space agency...

$33.

Yeah, that's it. $33 measly dollars.  I bet you waste more than that on coffee in a single month. Every time I hear someone complain about NASA getting money, I feel that I should always carry $33 wrapped around a brick.  That way I can throw it at their head as I yell, "Here's your fucking refund!"

As a point of comparison (without making any judgements on personal spending), according to a November 2003 report by Barna Research Group and the Baptist Press, Americans are spending -- in ONE year -- an average of:


$586.5 billion on gambling;
$80 billion on illegal drugs;
$58 billion on alcohol consumption;
$31 billion on tobacco products, and;
$250 billion on the medical treatment for the above related issues

Additionally, during 2003, Americans also collectively spent:

$224 billion to eat out;
$191 billion on personal water craft;
$67 billion on frozen dinners;
$25 billion on gardening;
$22.1 billion on hunting;
$21.3 billion on extravagant pet products, and;
$15 billion on junk food snacks

Again, this is what people spend their personal money on, but if they think that because they contributed $33 to the NASA budget they can poo-poo the work, well, I am going to get angry.  Especially considering the return on investment we have received from NASA. A 1971 NASA study by the Midwest Research Institute concluded:

"The 25 billion in 1958 dollars spent on civilian space R & D during the 1958-1969 period has returned $52 billion through 1971 and will continue to produce pay-off through 1987, at which time the total pay off will have been $181 billion. The discounted rate of return for this investment will have been 33 percent."

This statement is plausible since those were the years when NASA's spending on the Apollo program was at its height, but NASA also invested in other programs and they are included in the mix, so the conclusion is not as definitive as one would like.  Also, a 33 percent return on investment is not really big enough to make the normal venture capitalist go wild -- but for a government program, however, a 33% ROI is quite respectable. A short article in the prestigious British science journal, "Nature" (January 9, 1992, pgs. 105-106), reported:


"The economic benefits of NASA's programs are greater than generally realized. The main beneficiaries (the American public) may not even realize the source of their good fortune..."

So if you want your fucking refund you selfish bastard, I'd gladly deliver it with a brick up side your head...

31 March 2013

Lack Of Blogging?

A while back I was all happy about my new tablet. I figured it would allow me to blog and do a bunch of other things from various locations and maybe engage a bit more. Well, seems that didn't quite pan out. Sure, I can access a lot of different apps and do things that I couldn't do before. I just haven't got on to my Google app as much. Seems like I have been sharing my opinions and voice more on facebook than I have been blogging, tweeting, or anything else. I guess it's the easiest thing of all to do. And let's face it, facebook is a lot easier to share stuff on. Especially with the problem of typing on a tablet (and all the fun mistakes that result from autocorrect). I am involved still on Skeptics Stack Exchange, and still busy with facebook, but that's about it. The rest of my time is basically taken up by work, and that's about it. So while I would like to blog and share more detailed opinions more often, I may be restricted to facebook drive-by postings and sharing. Not that it's any great mystery what I generally share and post about. I will try to do one thing though. I'd like to keep this blog space alive (on life support?) for a while still. My goal/plan is to put something here at least once a month. In the meantime, follow me on facebook I guess.

03 February 2013

Too short an animation

I love all these science type videos, but I always have one complaint...


No, it's not the artistic license that the artist takes. No, it's not that they made it for the purpose of memorializing a friend or to raise money for cancer research.

No, my complaint is that these videos are too short!  I would love to see one done with these production values that have to use several pieces of music, and really get a roller-coaster ride of emotions and imagery.

30 January 2013

Religiosity and the numerous ills to society

The other day I posted this quote on Facebook and it got a lot of likes:
"Atheists are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without religion telling them not to do it, especially a religion that backs up the orders with threats of hell. Believers, listen to me carefully when I say this: When you use this argument, you terrify atheists. We hear you saying that the only thing standing between you and Ted Bundy is a flimsy belief in a supernatural being made up by pre-literate people trying to figure out where the rain came from. This is not very reassuring if you’re trying to argue from a position of moral superiority."
~ Amanda Marcotte
Which of course reminded me about a lot of other things regarding morality and atheists. 
One of my favorite papers is from the Virtual World project (which lists itself also as Moses Creighton, and appears to be an educational site because of the .edu extension). They have a Jopurnal of Religion & Society.  I suggest you read Volume 7 from 2005.

To say that it shows rather interesting data is probably an understatement.  So why would the quote I posted on Facebook remind me of this paper?  Well, the ills of society that for some reason are so disproportionately high  in the US, even though we are supposedly such a religious nation are aspects of morality.  Just read the abstract (emphasis mine):
Large-scale surveys show dramatic declines in religiosity in favor of secularization in the developed democracies. Popular acceptance of evolutionary science correlates negatively with levels of religiosity, and the United States is the only prosperous nation where the majority absolutely believes in a creator and evolutionary science is unpopular. Abundant data is available on rates of societal dysfunction and health in the first world. Cross-national comparisons of highly differing rates of religiosity and societal conditions form a mass epidemiological experiment that can be used to test whether high rates of belief in and worship of a creator are necessary for high levels of social health. Data correlations show that in almost all regards the highly secular democracies consistently enjoy low rates of societal dysfunction, while pro-religious and antievolution America performs poorly.
Of course, correlation does not equal causation, but after a while, you may start to wonder.  And this isn't the only data-point to consider... For instance, this article talking about our religiously motivate prudishness also mentions a lot of dysfunction.  They also note the correlation of (emphasis mine again):
“Prudes,” they would argue, should be upheld as exemplary role models because a sexually repressive society is also a society with fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. But not only do the facts not bear that out, they also demonstrate that the exact opposite is true. Countries that embrace many of the things social conservatives detest (comprehensive sex education, pro-gay legislation, nude or topless beaches, legal or decriminalized prostitution, adult entertainment) tend to be countries that have  less sexual dysfunction than the United States, not more. And when one compares sexual attitudes in the United States to sexual attitudes in Western Europe, it becomes evident that there is a strong correlation between social conservatism and higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
Okay, so there is the whole societal ills thing, but what about some other measure of adherence to morality?  I think that maybe one measure could be prison populations.  What about them?  Well, generally Americans seem more inclined to believe a default position of christianity, but there was this one study that showed a much higher percentage of christians in jail than atheists.  Granted this is from 1997, and the past 15 years has changed the American landscape quite a bit.

Maybe a measure of morality that the religious would be more familiar with?  How about the so called "seven deadly sins"?  That may provide some insight?  The University of Kansas Geography department made a great info-graphic on those imaginary "sins" and how they stack up by region.  Although it would have been nice to overlay those maps with a measure of actual religiosity, however it is generally accepted that religiosity does run deeper in the southern US as supported by the Pew Forum. So AGAIN there is a correlation that is the exact opposite of what the religious claim regarding religion and morality.



Now in my opinion, I think the really telling part is that all religion does is give away a person's accountability.  Instead of someone actually internalizing their morality, they end up just following what is told to them by some authority figure with no supporting evidence.  Sound just like religion?  Of course.  Add to this the horrible morality contained in the bible and other holy books.  This is morality based on bronze-age misogynistic ignorant tribal nomads...  Seriously?

The worst part is that there are way too many people in legislative positions that think it's just fine to attempt to legislate these bronze-age misogynistic ignorant tribal morals on the rest of the population.  All in all it's abject failure, and then there is the whole problem that the people that actually believe the bullshit version of morality seem to have a problem adhering to it, while at the same time screaming about their freedoms.  And of course, they will gladly deny freedoms to groups they consider immoral just because of the same holy books, but in reality have no real bearing of morality

Well, I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  After so many correlations, I am starting to wonder if there is some causation here?  What do you think?