And Slaters Go Plop

What it is:
Evolution is descent with modification. Another way of saying this is that over the generations the descendants gradually become different (by mutation). Charles Darwin’s contribution to the theory of evolution was to add the observation that it is the environment that rewards some mutations and penalises others - this is called evolution by natural selection.

What it’s not:
It’s got nothing to do with the Big Bang and it’s got nothing to do with how life started in the first place.

Find out more:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

#!  /usr/bin/python2.5
import os

mydir = "/path/to/directory"
mysearch = "text to find"
myreplace = "Text to replace"

def doReplace(filePath):
    fin = open(filePath, "r")
    s = fin.read()
    fin.flush()
    fin.close()
    fout = open(filePath, "w")
    s = s.replace(mysearch, myreplace)
    fout.write(s)
    fout.close()

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(mydir):
    for f in files:
        name, ext = os.path.splitext(f)
        if ext == '.html':
            doReplace(root + '/' + f)

Explanation: This will find all files ending in .html in the directory specified in mydir along with all matching files in any subfolders and will replace the text specified in mysearch with the text in myreplace. It’s only been tested on Linux but with a bit of tweaking will run on Windows and Mac.

The excellent six-part video series by Professor Daniel Dennett on consciousness.

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Here is the preview of the upcoming Golden Compass movie:

And here is a video by a bloke who’s pretty upset about it (mind the volume, he’s a shouty one):
What he doesn’t realise is that he’s just made it ten times more likely that people are going to go out an watch it now. I know I’m going to. Hell, I might even buy the trilogy.

Way to go that guy, way to go. And good luck selling your 23 page rebuttal booklet of the movie for $5 a pop.

Finally. The complete documentary has been posted on YouTube. Here is the entire documentary, split into eleven parts…

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Here’s an interesting phenomenon. Watch the video through before continuing to read these comments.

Once you’ve watched it through, press replay and close your eyes.

I heard about this on a recent Quirks and Quarks podcast. The talking head is filmed saying “Ga ga ga ga” and is overdubbed with the sound of him saying “Ba ba ba ba”. Because our visual and aural senses work in tandem and our brain is really good at trying to make sense of things we will ‘hear’ the guy on the video saying “Da da da da”. This is true of just about any other kind of illusion. Our brains help us out by pre-rendering things we see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Sometimes our brains can be tricked and this is one of those times.

Ween, my favourite-ist band in the whole wide world are coming to New Zealand on 25 February next year! They’re playing at the Powerstation from 7.30pm and I’ve heard that they’re on for 2.5 hours. Tickets are $58.10 from ticketmaster.co.nz

I missed out on seeing them ten years ago and there’s no way I’m missing them this time!

On the evening of October 11 this year a Maori ritual for lifting a curse was held for 22 year old Janet Moses in Wainuiomata. The ritual was attended by about 40 people and lasted until 8am the following morning where Janet finally died by drowning. She had multiple grazes on her arms and torso and a neighbour reported hearing noises like “banging on a wall” throughout the night. Her death was reported to police at 5.30pm later that day.
The family believed that there was a curse, or makutu, on Janet because some bad things had happened to people around her, i.e. a relative had become sick.

Instead of outright condemming these kinds of barbaric ceremonies, the archdecon of the Maori Anglican Church said “It’s a very difficult process. I’m personally very wary of removing them [curses]“. It appears the issue for him is not a question of whether curses exist but how difficult they are to remove.

Curses don’t exist in the real world, neither do demons, angels, tree spirits, fairies, gobblins, desert djin, ghosts or gods. They do exist however. They exist in the minds of the people who believe in them and that can make them almost as real as if they were in the physical world.

How do I know this? Two main reasons: 1. These various supernatural creatures are confined to cultural (and, often, geographical) boundaries which means they spread from mind to mind like a language or a story, and 2. There is no evidence in the physical world that they exist.

There has been a ton of study done on how the human brain is wired to personalise inanimate objects and to try to give purpose to otherwise random events. You will have experienced this for yourself if you’ve ever see a cloud or wood bark or an illusion where you immediately see a person’s face. It’s uncanny but we now realise that the tree isn’t trying to tell us something - there are lots of patterns and we’re wired to recognise faces because faces are important to us. Likewise with giving purpose to random events; a Tsunami kills quarter of a million people and we just know there had to be some reason; you win a raffle, the lottery and you get an unexpected tax refund all in the same week - someone is clearly watching over you; the eye is amazingly complex - it must have been designed by some super being, a god perhaps; bad things start happening to those around you - you must be cursed or something.

These interpretations of randomness are a result of an inbuilt pattern recognition all humans have. It’s been useful to us in our evolutionary past - our ancestors passed on these attributes in their genes because by recognising patterns and being able to recognise that other people and animals had intentions they had a greater change of survival.

We’re really very good at it but that can be our weakness. Especially when we over-recognise intentions and patterns and throw away our more recently acquired logic and reason in favour of primal fears and rituals.

So, how do we stop curse-lifting rituals from happening? Education and the teaching of critical thinking has to be of some use. Also, people like Dr Hone Kaa, the archdecon of the Maori Anglican Church, who provide safe harbour and lend authority to all forms of harmful superstition need to be re-educated or removed from their positions of influence by their seniors. If their seniors or church authorities are not willing to do this then we as a country need to stop encouraging the spread of these beliefs by removing tax breaks and any other existing privileges usually reserved to promote beneficial causes.

Superstition has been helpful to us in the distant past but it’s, literally, killing us now. Let’s drop it and move on.

I can sense the mighty stirrings of the creationist herd so let me be the first to say it. ‘Evilution’ has reared it’s ugly head again. First it was Nazi Germany and now, after a long and bloody history, in Finland a teenager has become the latest proponent of the callous hatred that is endorsed by the followers of Darwin.

From TFA:

…showing him pointing a gun and declaring himself a “social Darwinist” who would “eliminate all who I see unfit”.

This wouldn’t have happened if Intelligent Design were taught in schools. How many more children need to die?

——

On a serious note though, my thoughts go out to all affected by this tragedy, including the family of Pekka-Eric who will be having to come to terms with not only the anger of their neighbours but the loss of a son.