Goodbye, Christopher

News-wise, living on the west coast is difficult. All the TV shows, news programs, and political punditry is geared for an east coast time zone, so I feel like I'm learning about news after everyone else; unless of course something happens later at night. Unfortunately that has happened tonight, and just about an hour ago I found out that Christopher Hitchens has died from complications related to his esophageal cancer. He was only 62.

While in many places and to many people he is known for his literary and political writing and polemic, I have always loved him for his vigorous fight against superstitious believers. For some years now, it's been my dream to meet Christopher Hitchens - he fought tirelessly for human rights and for freedom from the tyranny of religion. He was a superb debater and had a wit matched by no one. It is sad to know that he is no longer with us to fight the good fight, but he lives on in his writing and in those of us who choose to carry the banner of science, skepticism, and critical thinking.

Almost every time I've seen a video of Hitchens he was smoking or having a stiff drink of whiskey. So tonight, this drink is for you. We'll miss you, Christopher.

Christmas is Not Christian

One of my friends on Facebook posted this video, and I thought that I would re-post it here. It's a little overzealous in its explanation, but it has plenty of great points to make about some facts concerning the Christmas holiday ... namely that most everything about Christmas has nothing to with Christ or Christianity. Essentially pagan practices centered around a pagan holiday were adopted to be part of Christianity starting around the 16th century - but many of the traditions of Christmas time are unoriginal and date back to practices long before Jesus was around. Check out some of the points and leave any interesting comments you might have:

Because He's a Dick

Debating creationists and intelligent design (ID) proponents is a sort of hobby for me. One of my favorite things to do is find the logical inconsistencies in their argument and point it out to them to see what new maneuvers they will try to get out of the intellectual trouble.

The geniuses over at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic have nailed it with a spoof on the well-known argument from design by the 18th century theologian William Paley. You can find the comic here, or see it below:

THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT: The world must be designed (by the Christian God). In the same way that you would look at a watch and clearly see all the parts could not have been made and put together by 'chance', so our world runs as intricate and perfectly as a watch, therefore there must be a designer (the Christian God, of course).

THE PROBLEM: The seemingly 'designed' world is full of sickness, death, oppression, tyranny, and disasters that do not discriminate based on race, sex, or religion. Horrible things seem to happen to people across all economic backgrounds and social classes. This indicates an indiscriminate God, a capricious deity, who randomly punishes humans for any whim. The only way this could be consistent with a deity that is also responsible for designing the world is if that deity is a dick. This is highly incompatible with a loving, personal Christian God.

THE ATHEIST RESOLUTION: Instead of supposing that there is a designer and that he's a dick (which is actually far more believable than the Christian version of a designer who actually cares about people), atheists simply (and correctly) challenge the notion that there is any interventionist, designer, or creator at all. It's not necessary, and our world does not need a creator. In fact, many have argued that the world is poorly designed in many ways, suggesting that there could not have been any overseer in the process.

Supplement Infographic

There's a lot of "woo" out there, especially when it comes to dietary supplements. Someone shared a great website with me that helps to cut through all the noise of company propaganda and get to the real issue of whether certain supplements do what they claim to do. This website at InformationIsBeautiful has done a great job at organizing the existing data for taking supplements and displaying it in an interactive chart so that you can see what works and what doesn't - and guess what? The majority of supplements out there don't make the cut.  Figures.

Take this screen shot from one of the latest editions of the chart:

The Y-axis represents whether or not the evidence is strong for the supplement in question. By simply scrolling the mouse over the circle you can see what the target effect is - for example, in the image above, the evidence is strong that garlic is good for lowering blood pressure.

The size of the circle around the supplement ID represents its popularity in Google's search engine. Green tea, folic acid, and vitamin D show the most hits, whereas peppermint oil, devil's claw, and melatonin show the fewest hits. The cool color of these circles represents strong evidence - the brown color indicates that supplement does not have much evidence for or against it, and continued surveillance is important.

Now let's look at what didn't make the cut:

Well, well, well - royal jelly, despite the many late night TV ads that have been put out, is probably one of the biggest flavors of snake oil out there. It bottoms out along with wheat grass, chamomile, papain, and certain anti-oxidants for having no effect.

The next time you see a commercial promoting the ingredient of some supplement for a desired effect, check this chart out to verify the claim - most likely the commercial is over-reaching its claims, and could even be distorting the data. If you want to read the science, just click on the circle the website directs you to peer-reviewed published articles that support the claim or refute it.

It's good to be in the know.

Hitchslapped!

As I've said in other places, I'm an agnostic because of science, an atheist because of probability, and an anti-theist because of religion. No one affirms my last position more clearly than Christopher Hitchens:

Episode 33 is up!

The 33rd episode of Pascal's Bettors podcast has just been uploaded, and this time there's a special godless guest interview with the new Director of Development at American Atheists, AJ Johnson. Plus we have some interesting news items, discussions, and a short (but interesting) ethics corner. Give it a listen! Remember that you can download or play from the website here, or subscribe to us on iTunes.

Mr. Deity's Opposition

My how the Deity has grown ... grown to be despised.  See how Lucy Fair Angel gets sucked into the narrative as the bad "guy" - it even has references to all the skeptical brouhaha about sexism that has been going on recently!

Theodicy*

From wiki: 

Theodicy is a theological or philosophical study which attempts to justify God's (largely in the monotheistic or Abrahamic sense) intrinsic (or foundational) nature of omni-benevolence (all loving), omniscience (all knowing) and omnipotence (all powerful), despite the existence of evil which, in the view of some, would otherwise stand to refute one or more of these qualities or God's existence altogether.

SMBC posted this fantastic illustration of how most people are satisfied with these justification attempts and suggests why a more reality-based alternative to belief in god just doesn't fly with most people:

New podcast episode up!

The latest episode of our podcast is up!  Give us a listen and tell us what you think.  Also, if you have some interesting news stories to submit, or ideas for segments, drop us a line.

The PhD Movie

Brought to you by Jorge Cham, creator and illustrator of Piled Higher and Deeper.


PHD Movie Trailer from PHD Comics on Vimeo.


Looking forward to seeing this ... something's got to vindicate my decision to continue the grad student life as a postdoc ....