Happy 29th Birthday Amanda!
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Doh! I missed it!!
Earlier today, the Linux Epoch time … which is the number os seconds since January 1st 1970 when the world was created … reached this number:
The Bible as Ethnography ~ 03 ~ Sometimes a Snake is Just a Snake. But not in this case….
Genesis 2 ends with Adam and Eve being naked yet not ashamed. In Genesis 3, the Serpent, who is wiser than average, tricks Eve into partaking of the forbidden fruit of one of god’s two magic trees. This results in Adam and Eve recognizing their own nakedness, and compelling them to produce the first clothing. The word “naked” in the original Hebrew is either eromim or arumim. The former means naked (no clothes) and the latter means exposure as in exposing lies. The original Hebrew for the “clothing” that they put together, “chagowr” probably means “belt.” The parallel (and probably older) Babylonian/Sumerian story explicitly tells of “sexual knowledge.” Remember, the tree providing the forbidden fruit is the tree of knowledge. The only thing that is clear about this story is that it, the story, is heavily clothed in euphemism.
Origin stories sometimes refer to origins of sexual relations, sometimes prescribing and sometimes proscribing certain practices. The origin story for the Efe (Pygmies) and Lese (horticulturalists) of the Ituri Forest has the first Efe man teaching the first Lese man about sex. He does this by having sex with the first Lese woman. That is an incredibly outrageous concept. Efe men are not allowed to have carnal relationships with Lese women under any circumstances (though Efe women can marry Lese men). This, the Efe/Lese origin story is a kind of beginning and a kind of end for a certain sort of relationship.
Continue reading The Bible as Ethnography ~ 03 ~ Sometimes a Snake is Just a Snake. But not in this case….
Hints and Tips for Kicking Butt on the Wii Mario Kart
First of all, I want you to understand that I’m a lightweight in the Mario Kart game. Julia is not. So my pointers come mainly from watching her. (Watching her kick my butt, actually.)
I also want to make a few other comments that are not tricks, tips, or “cheats” on how to win, but rather, general observation.
Continue reading Hints and Tips for Kicking Butt on the Wii Mario Kart
This is not supposed to happen
Imagine if two people got in their cars and drove to work. They both live in different places and work in different places. They live miles from where they work. Their driving paths cross at one point.
There are no other cars in the universe, just these two (remember, I’m asking you to use your imagination). And from the first time they make the commute to work and back thereafter, the cars make the same trip every day on autopilot.
Eventually, this might happen:
According to Sorting Out Science (whence I totally stole this video) this is a reconstruction of a collision between two communicatoins satellites over Siberia. Think of all those people at that very moment looking at their cell phones and going “Hmmmm… must be in a dead spot…..”
Darwin’s Birthday Gallup Poll on “Belief in Evolution”
The Gallup Poll is not surprising in any of its results but it is, of course, alarming and interesting. Here’s a summary.
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don’t have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity.
The data:
Believe in evolution 39%
Do not believe in evolutoin 25%
No opinon either way 36%
Not surprisingly, education level has a strong effect on tresponse. Have a look at this graph:
The good news:
Younger Americans, who are less likely to be religious than those who are older, are also more likely to believe in evolution. Still, just about half of those aged 18 to 34 say they believe in evolution.
Well, not great news, but good news.
In answer to the question “Can you tell me with which scientific theory Charles Darwin is associated?” only a little over half knew. That was asked before all the other questions. And, knowing or not knowing the answer to that question went way way up with higher education levels, not surprisingly.
The poll reporters conclude:
As Darwin is being lauded as one of the most important scientists in history on the 200th anniversary of his birth (on Feb. 12, 1809), it is perhaps dismaying to scientists who study and respect his work to see that well less than half of Americans today say they believe in the theory of evolution, and that just 55% can associate the man with his theory.
… Americans who have lower levels of formal education are significantly less likely than others to be able to identity Darwin with his theory, and to have an opinion on it either way. Still, the evidence is clear that even to this day, Americans’ religious beliefs are a significant predictor of their attitudes toward Darwin’s theory….
Feb 14 is tomorrow
Give your sweetie an Awkward Valentine.
Coleman Promises to Not Take Recount to US Courts!
“While Al Franken, Harry Reid and their allies will likely continue their efforts to short-circuit Minnesota election law, you can be assured that I will continue fighting to ensure the Minnesota voters — and nobody else! — will truly decide who won this election.”
Source: MnIndy
President Obama on Darwin’s Birthday
… and some other guy …
You must go to just after six minutes 20 second. And then it’s like, one second long. But there is is.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Quiz: Who first and most consistently against slavery, Lincoln or Darwin?
The Bible as Ethnography ~ 02 ~ In The Beginning…
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 (5 – 25) are distinctly different and contradictory origin stories. The biblical origin story represented in this text has long been known to resemble a set of Sumerian stories that mainly deal with a multitude of gods interacting (some of these gods are converted to humans in the biblical version). What is consistent about all of these stories is the relationship between status and labor, in the context of a labor-intensive agricultural system.
Genesis 1 is very systematic, resembling a post-hoc construction of events, and its main practical purpose may be to justify the sabbath. Genesis 2 gives some meaty ethnographic details, including specific geographical reference points (though reconstruction based on this is probably beyond the realm of possibility), reference to irrigation as a practice, and reference to sex. Both of these texts make reference to “seeds” and “fruit” as key features of plants, to an ocean and to whales, and to a variety of other animals. The second text makes specific reference to cattle.
Continue reading The Bible as Ethnography ~ 02 ~ In The Beginning…
Two chimps walked into a bar …
… and made a real mess of the place when one of them spotted the jar of pickles on the counter. They fought over it until one of them had almost all the pickles and the other one had a number of bruises and a tiny fragment of one pickle that the other chimp dropped by accident.
That would be the way it would happen if two chimps walked into a bar. Or imagine two chimps, and each finds a nice juicy bit of fruit out in the forest. And instead of eating the fruit, because they are not hungry, they carry it around for a while (this would never happen, but pretend) and then accidentally run into each other. What would happen? Same thing. Event though neither chimp actually needed the fruit and each chimp had its own fruit, the dominant chimp (between the two) would end up with both pieces of fruit.
This is why chimps could not possibly cooperate in any effort to scour the forest for various edible items, bring them all back to a central place, share and then cooperatively process the food items, and ultimately produce a meal that is eaten by all of the chimps on an as needed basis. Humans do that but chimps can’t. Explain this and you explain one of the major features of human evolution…
Continue reading Two chimps walked into a bar …
Pagel on Darwin
Mark Pagel, evolutionary theorist extraordinaire, has published an Insight piece in Nature on Natural selection 150 years on. Pagel, well known for myriad projects in natural selecition theory and adaptation, and for developing with Harvey the widely used statistical phylogenetic method (and for being a reader of my thesis) wishes Charles Darwin a happy 200th birthday, and assesses this question:
How has Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection fared over the last 150 years, and what needs to be done to bring this theoretical approach to bear as we increasingly examine complex systems, including human society?
Continue reading Pagel on Darwin
Great Moments in Human Evolution: The Invention of Chipped Stone Tools
Or not.
Much is made of the early use of stone tools by human ancestors. Darwin saw the freeing of the hands ad co-evolving with the use of the hands to make and use tools which co-evolved with the big brain. And that would make the initial appearance of stone tools in the archaeological record a great and momentous thing. However, things did not work out that way.
Continue reading Great Moments in Human Evolution: The Invention of Chipped Stone Tools
Elephants and Horses
In 1833, Darwin spent a fair amount of time on the East Coast of South America, including in the Pampas, where he had access to abundant fossil material. Here I’d like to examine his writings about some of the megafauna, including Toxodon, Mastodon, and horses, and his further considerations of biogeography and evolution.
Seed Does Darwin
Seed Magazine has a Darwin 200 page, here. It is loaded with cool Darwin stuff. Enjoy!