The Michael Canfield Channel

If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Shermer

Nah, probably you won't.

Skepticblog » Gay Marriage: Stone Them to Death! : "Mark my words. Here is what is going to happen. Within a decade, maybe two, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat members of other groups whom they previously persecuted — women, Jews, blacks — but not because of some new interpretation of a biblical passage, or because of a new revelation from God. These changes will come about the same way that they always do: by the oppressed minority fighting for the right to be treated equally, and by a few enlightened members of the oppressing majority supporting their cause."

-- Michael Shermer

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, Civlib, Democrats, News, politics, Prop 8

Hey, a lot of people believe a lot of things!

There's this poll that something like a third of American's believe 9/11 was a put-job involving the U.S. government. Ya know, because the government is so anti-business they wanted to put our economy into a tail-spin I guess. Also, somebody in the government must have decided the Pentagon needed a renovation. This is just like when Lincoln shot himself in the head to cement his legacy and when George the Third wrote the U.S. Declaration of Independence in order to rid himself of the onerous colonies.
Evidently were are, Stephen Colbert-like, meant to believe that facts are a matter of opinion. After all, if some many people believe something, there must be some truth in it. Well, a lot of people believe John Edward has special powers. This stupid poll begs the same question as that belief does, namely WHERE DO PEOPLE COME UP WITH THIS BULLSHIT !?!?!?!

Link to a news story with the focus completely wrong: Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?.

Hitchens on Gibson

Is Mel Gibson an anti-Semite? By Christopher Hitchens.

[Gibson] has told interviewers that his wife, the mother of his children, is going to hell because she subscribes to the wrong Christian sect (a view that he justifies as "a pronouncement from the chair"). And it has been obvious for some time to the most meager intelligence that he is sick to his empty core with Jew-hatred.

Religious right Repubs rescuing vast amounts of embryos? Nah.

Slog: The Stranger's Blog | Number of Embryos "Adopted" is Negligible:

So far, according to Newsweek, only 128 of 400,000 frozen embryos stored in medical facilities around the country have been “adopted,” resulting in pregnancies.

South Park

[Via TV Squad] found a Penn (of Penn and Teller) interview Trey Parker (of South Park), which got me thinking about the show, which I love. It made me think of the most obnoxious unfunny episode of the year -- the one I found personally offensive -- the hybrid car episode which portrayed all hybrid car owners as smug self-righteous weenies. I don't have a hybrid car (I don't have any car, but when/if the point comes that I need one, I definitely would buy one).  

Meme Therapy: Brain Parade Magical Thinking part one

SF and Fantasy writers, Tim Pratt, Sean Williams, and Jason Stoddard, along with biologist Daniel Rhoads, philosopher Janet D. Stemwedel at the invitation of the blog Meme Therapy to discuss the dangers of Magical Thinking. As both longtime readers of my blog will know this keeping magical thinking out of the public discourse (not to mention psychology) and keeping it where it belongs -- in fiction -- is a longtime interest of mine, so I'm folling the discussion with interest.

[Via Tim's Tropism]

Nature Ranks Top 5 Science Blogs

And makes a very detailed link title out of it to boot: news @ nature.com�-�Top five science blogs�-�Weblogs written by scientists are relatively rare, but some of them are proving popular. Out of 46.7 million blogs indexed by the Technorati blog search engine, five scientists' sites make it into the top 3,500. Declan Butler asks the winners about the reasons for their success.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ...

Link: Global Pulse.

In case of extinction, a "doomsday vault" for three million seeds will be built on Svalbard, a very cold island about 966 kilometres (604 miles) south of the North Pole. The seed vault will be guarded by polar bears.

Spaceships and Scooters

Interesting article by Jeff Foust on some marketing  problems shared by NASA and the Segway scooter (remember that?), including the gem of a pull quote:

The Segway demonstrated a different kind of failure: the failure to meet overhyped expectations, the failure to compete effectively against cheaper alternatives; in short, a solution looking for a problem.

Exactly what our sedentary society needed: another motorized conveyance.

Does Our Desire for a Higher Power Lead Us to Overestimate the Chances for Finding Other Intelligent Life in the Universe?

From the editorial material:

"[The author] questions the common modern scientific reasoning that life converges on intelligence, and intelligence converges on one science valid everywhere. He ends the book by agreeing with Stephen Hawking (usually a safe bet) that intelligence is overrated for survival in the universe, and that we are most likely alone."