Now archaeologists have . . . → Read More: New Mayan discovery shows they didn’t think world would end this year.]]> I’ve said before that the only thing you can conclude about the Mayan calendar stopping on December 21st, 2012 is that it is time to get a new Mayan calendar. Yet there are still plenty of people out there who cling to the idea that it’s significant in establishing when the world will end.

Now archaeologists have found new evidence that the Mayans certainly didn’t think the world would end at that time after discovering a mural in the ancient city Xultún which included dates stretching well past the end of the calendar everyone is so worked up about:

Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth

One is a lunar table, and the other is a “ring number”—something previously known only from much later Maya books, where it was used as part of a backward calculation in establishing a base date for planetary cycles. Nearby is a sequence of numbered intervals corresponding to key calendrical and planetary cycles.

The calculations include dates some 7,000 years in the future, adding to evidence against the idea that the Maya thought the world would end in 2012—a modern myth inspired by an ancient calendar that depicts time starting over this year.

“We keep looking for endings,” expedition leader Saturno said in a statement. “The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It’s an entirely different mindset.”

There you go. Clear evidence the Mayans thought the world would continue on past the end of the calendar they were using. Can we please put this stupidity behind us now?

Probably not, but it was worth a shot.

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All these years I thought I was an atheist because I just didn’t see any evidence in support of the concept of God(s). After much critical thought and application of reason it seemed pretty logical that God, at least as described by the major religions of the world, is the result . . . → Read More: James the Preacher explains why atheists are atheists. We’re too stupid to know better.]]>

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All these years I thought I was an atheist because I just didn’t see any evidence in support of the concept of God(s). After much critical thought and application of reason it seemed pretty logical that God, at least as described by the major religions of the world, is the result of wishful thinking and lack of understanding of the natural world.

But according to James the Preacher, it’s not possible that I used reason and logic because I’m just too stupid to do so. Also, I love sin too much to let it go:

In case you don’t want to watch the video it all boils down to the Bible says we’re fools for not believing in God (Psalm 14) and an old edition of Webster’s Dictionary defines a fool as “one destitute of reason, or of the common powers of understanding; an idiot”. Put the two together and, voila, atheists are too stupid to understand the concept that a Creation requires a Creator.

The problem with that argument is that it assumes the Universe is a creation as opposed to the results of a natural process. Certainly the dictionary James the Preacher is using would suggest that is the case as it sites “specifically, the act of bringing the universe or this world into existence” as one of the definitions of Creation, but the dictionary is not a scientific authority on the issue. Nor, for that matter, is the Bible. Still, the argument commonly used is that you can’t get something from nothing so there has to be a creator to have brought the Universe into existence and that creator is God.

We don’t know the full story of how the Big Bang happened yet, but we’re getting closer to it all the time and there’s evidence that it was a natural outcome that may not even be unique. Additionally, physics has shown us that something can spring from nothing and happens all the time in what would otherwise be considered empty space. If you have an hour to spare you can learn a lot about how the Universe could come from nothing in this talk by Lawrence Krauss on that very topic:

He has since written a book with the same title that goes further in-depth on how this is possible: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. If you spend any amount of time watching Krauss’ talk or reading his book you’ll note that he doesn’t come across as being particularly stupid yet, according to James the Preacher’s simplistic argument, he’s just this side of a drooling moron because he doesn’t believe in God.

The point being, there’s been a lot of effort and thought put into the mystery of how the Universe could come to exist via totally natural processes. On one side we have all of this research and experimentation that provides evidence that you can get something from nothing and the Universe may be a naturally occurring thing with no supernatural causes behind it. On the other hand we have a book largely written by bronze-age goat herders that says an invisible, all-powerful, all-knowing being decided one day, for no particular reason, to create the “heavens and the earth” and then created light (prior to any light sources) and then the sky and then put all the water in one spot so there would be land and then he created plants, and then stars, the sun and moon, animals of the sea and land, and finally man and it all took about a week. There’s no evidence to support that account of how the Universe came to be. None. Zero. Nada. It makes logical sense to accept the explanation that has at least some evidence backing it up, but James the Preacher says no, that makes you a fool and an idiot.

OK, I guess I’m an idiot then. At least by the definition that James the Preacher is using. I’m not going to bother with the second half of his argument — that atheists love sin — because it’s even stupider than his first argument and I’ve wasted more time on him than he deserves already. I just wanted to point out his mistaken assumption that Creation is the only possible explanation for the Universe. Not is it not the only possibility, it’s not even as well supported by the evidence than many of the other possibilities.

I can remember learning about the potential impact of global climate change back when I was a kid. This video talks about what we knew some 30 years ago in 1982 and how a lot of what was predicted has come to pass. A lot of folks seem to think that warnings . . . → Read More: We’ve known about global climate change for a long time now.]]>

I can remember learning about the potential impact of global climate change back when I was a kid. This video talks about what we knew some 30 years ago in 1982 and how a lot of what was predicted has come to pass. A lot of folks seem to think that warnings about global climate change are something relatively recent, but we’ve known about the potential of this problem for a very long time. Unfortunately, by the time the evidence is clear enough for the deniers to accept it’ll be too late to do much about it other than try and cope with it as best we can. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and a lot of people are going to suffer unnecessarily because we haven’t addressed the problem.

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If anyone should know the benefits of vaccinations it’s pediatricians. With the growing number of parents refusing to vaccinate their kids the waiting room of your family doctor could be a dangerous place to be. So a number of doctors around the country are now insisting that parents with unvaccinated kids sign a waiver . . . → Read More: Doctors are taking a firmer stance with anti-vaxxers in their clinics.]]>

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If anyone should know the benefits of vaccinations it’s pediatricians. With the growing number of parents refusing to vaccinate their kids the waiting room of your family doctor could be a dangerous place to be. So a number of doctors around the country are now insisting that parents with unvaccinated kids sign a waiver or find another doctor to go to:

Pediatricians get more firm when parents refuse vaccines for children – USATODAY.com.

Doctors are growing increasingly frustrated with what they characterize as misinformation linking childhood immunizations to autism, but many parents continue to be wary of vaccines. While parents research vaccine risks, their sources usually aren’t the medical journals that doctors read.

“My response usually is for them to look at credible, researched information and data and really make an informed decision for themselves versus what someone told them,” said Breaux, a doctor at Brentwood (Tenn.) Pediatrics.

Dr. Robert Lillard of Jr. of The Children’s Clinic of Nashville refers parents to websites for respected hospitals. Doctors have a responsibility to make their clinics as safe as possible, he said.

“We want you to feel if you’re in our waiting room that you are safe,” Lillard said. “By that I mean if you have to come in for a sick visit and you are sitting in the waiting room next to a child that has a rash, we want you to feel pretty comfortable knowing that’s probably not measles. If you are in our practice, you’ve been vaccinated against measles and you’re not going to be exposed to that.“

This is a trend I hope will grow among doctors across the country. Pediatricians in particular are in a good spot to educate parents on the real risks and benefits of vaccines. If you don’t trust your doctor enough to provide advice on that topic then you are probably going to the wrong doctor. Or you’re an idiot.

*Cartoon by Stuart Carlson.

Oh, the number of times I’ve had this conversation with someone. It never ceases to amaze me how they’ll accept, . . . → Read More: The Box is infallible. Never question the Box.]]> This has been floating around for awhile, but I thought I’d share it anyway. The following cartoon illustrates near-perfectly the difficulty in using the scientific method to discover the truth with a True Believer™:

Oh, the number of times I’ve had this conversation with someone. It never ceases to amaze me how they’ll accept, without question, something their holy book says and will insist that until science has every piece of the puzzle figured out that the book is right and science in wrong. The Theory of Evolution being the most obvious example.

Doesn’t matter how much the evidence backs up science, if it doesn’t answer every little question then it’s wrong.

Holy crap that’s some Grade-A stupid right there. It’s also inexcusable in . . . → Read More: Here’s a perfect example…]]> … of the problem with stupid people being too stupid to realize how stupid they are that I talked about in my previous entry. Meet the girl who doesn’t understand why we have Leap Years: H0tAndDanger0us (that’s about half right).

Holy crap that’s some Grade-A stupid right there. It’s also inexcusable in this day and age when she obviously has the tools of her salvation from ignorance sitting right in front of her. A simple Google search would turn up all manner of explanations to enlighten her with and if reading comprehension is a hurdle she finds insurmountable then there are several YouTube videos which will make it all clear.

Here’s one that I watched myself just yesterday:

And, in case she’s too stupid to know what a year is, here’s a video that explains that (with bonus black hole goodness!):

Seriously, there’s no good excuse for the ignorance — not to mention the sense of self-entitlement — of H0tAndDanger0us. For a moment I considered the possibility that she could be a particularly effective Poe, but then I took a look at her Tumblr page and the possibility that it could just be a clever act evaporated.

I'm right there with you on that one, Chuck.

Or, in other words, ignorance is truly bliss when it comes to evaluating your own abilities. It explains so many things. Things such as the apparent surprise contestants on American Idle seem to express when they’re told they suck harder than a Hoover when it . . . → Read More: The problem with stupid people is that they’re too stupid to realize how stupid they are.]]>

I'm right there with you on that one, Chuck.

Or, in other words, ignorance is truly bliss when it comes to evaluating your own abilities. It explains so many things. Things such as the apparent surprise contestants on American Idle seem to express when they’re told they suck harder than a Hoover when it comes to singing. Or the fact that so many people find it so easy to deny the evidence of global climate change.

This is something many of us have long ago picked up on just by paying attention to the clueless people around us, but now it’s being backed up with science:

Why you’re not as great as you think you are | MNN – Mother Nature Network.

With more than a decade’s worth of research, David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, has demonstrated that humans find it “intrinsically difficult to get a sense of what we don’t know.” Whether an individual lacks competence in logical reasoning, emotional intelligence, humor or even chess abilities, the person still tends to rate his or her skills in that area as being above average.

Dunning and his colleague, Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now at New York University, “have done a number of studies where we will give people a test of some area of knowledge like logical reasoning, knowledge about STDs and how to avoid them, emotional intelligence, etcetera. Then we determine their scores, and basically just ask them how well they think they’ve done,” Dunning said. “We ask, ‘what percentile will your performance fall in?’”

The results are uniform across all the knowledge domains: People who actually did well on the test tend to feel more confident about their performance than people who didn’t do well, but only slightly. Almost everyone thinks they did better than average. “For people at the bottom who are really doing badly — those in the bottom 10th or 15th percentile — they think their work falls in the 60th or 55th percentile, so, above average,” Dunning told Life’s Little Mysteries. The same pattern emerges in tests of people’s ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of chess. “People at the bottom still think they’re outperforming other people.”

I’d hazard a guess that part of this stems from the brain’s natural tendency to lie to itself to protect its ego, but apparently that’s not the only thing at work here:

It’s not merely optimism, but rather that their total lack of expertise renders them unable to recognize their deficiency. Even when Dunning and his colleagues offer study participants a $100 reward if they can rate themselves accurately, they cannot. “They’re really trying to be honest and impartial,” he said.

If only we knew ourselves better. Dunning believes people’s inability to assess their own knowledge is the cause of many of society’s ills, including climate change denialism. “Many people don’t have training in science, and so they may very well misunderstand the science. But because they don’t have the knowledge to evaluate it, they don’t realize how off their evaluations might be,” he said.

I try very hard to remind myself of just how much I don’t know about most things even though I know a little bit about a lot of things and a whole lot about a select few things. I also try very hard to study up on issues I don’t know too much about before forming solid opinions about them. Most folks don’t seem to do that and that’s where they, and by extension the rest of us, start getting into trouble:

Along the same lines, people who aren’t talented in a given area tend not to be able to recognize the talents or good ideas of others, from co-workers to politicians. This may impede the democratic process, which relies on citizens having the capacity to identify and support the best candidate or policy.

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but really it’s the lack of knowledge that’s truly imperiling.