It's been a while..... First off, the results from last years Deadpool competition.
It was close, myself on 27, Andrew on 25 and Ms Dodo on 21.
Now for some other numbers. This Kony meme has gone ballistic. I'm always skeptical when things go viral on the net. Sure Kony is one bad guy, but what about the group who created the video? Well they have been asked questions by some about their fund raising and how much of their cash goes to helping kids in Africa. Their response was to release this graphic.
This is a very, very misleading graphic. Compare the sizes of the "Central Africa Programs" section and the "Management & General" section. The areas of the these two aren't in proportion with the numbers. Visually is seems that they spend about 7 times more on the Programs than on Management, whereas in fact the numbers say it's around 2 times as much. Dodgy. This is deceptive. So would I give to these guys? I can't trust them to be honest, so no.
Here is an idea to make shite load of money (no ethics please, we're new age followers); take a stack of words that sound impressive, take them out of context, foster them on an scientifically uninformed public, and watch the money roll in. Take this as an example:
This sticker is supposed to transmute the electromagnetic energy from a phone into a beneficial field that can surround and protect your family. They claim it contains "circuits that utilize Scalar Resonance Technology are comprised of multiple sets of circuits that mirror the structure of the earth's electro-magnetic field". There is so much to dissect in this short paragraph. Beneficial field of what? Mirror circuits? Scalar Resonance Technology? $99? The sticker would cost about 2 cents to make. Smells like powerband all over again.
So what the hell is Scalar Resonance Technology? Let's look at their description.
Scalar Resonance Technology is the process whereby each EarthCalm circuit is matched to its mirror circuit, which exponentially increases resonance to the earth.
OK.......... Mirror circuit?? What do you mean? Define the mirror circuit of a battery connected to a light. You can't, can you? Then you tag on something about exponentially increasing the resonance. What do you mean? Do you know that in a DC circuit there is no resonance? In an AC circuit, do you mean increasing the frequency of the resonance, the width of the resonance, or the peak of the resonance? Where did you learn your electronics? Because you should go and get a refund.
A scalar wave is by definition a wave that is exactly matched by another wave, i.e., it has the same frequency and the same height or amplitude but has the opposite direction, such that one wave exactly cancels out the other.
Ummm, no and yes. A scalar is a quantity that has a magnitude only. But yes, you can take a wave, invert it, and add it to the original wave and they will cancel out. You can do this experiment and it show the exact cancelling out every time.
Imagine in a pond two waves of the same frequency and amplitude, but coming from different directions. When these waves meet in the middle of the pond they cancel each other out. One might see a flat area in the middle of the pond where the two opposing twin waves met. The result however is not zero, but rather that another dimension is accessed.
Everything up to that last sentence is correct. But that last sentence is pure crap. You just told us in the previous section that the two waves exactly cancel each other out. That is, the result is zero. Now you are saying it is not zero? You can't have it both ways. And, you can always tell when stuff is just being made up when out of the blue you just add extra dimensions. Where is this dimension? What properties does it have? Where is the experiment to show this dimension exists?
It’s an interesting and exciting new concept: that when two energy fields exactly balance each other or cancel each other out, a dimension is accessed that is everywhere at once and has the power to heal.
Ahh, the repeat of the contradiction of exactly cancelling out, and, um, not cancelling out. Also, see what they have done here? They have ditched the experimentally verifiable (two waves exactly cancelling out) are now running with this dimension idea that is not verified by experiment and has no evidence for it what so ever. The rest of the text now is based on this flawed idea. No need to read on. Don't think I'll be buying this product.
So the whole idea behind this device has crumbled. This is a classic way to create the illusion that a product is backed by science. Take some science, then twist it every so slightly (or why not twist it so it says the exact opposite) and then make any claim you want. Once the mark customer has gotten past this point, the sell is so much easier.
I was wondering, Can someone buy this product or similar and if this powerful beneficial field does not appear around your family, can you sue them?
Extra: Here is a USB device that can also create this powerful beneficial field. It's only $179.00. Surely a bargain!
Ken Ham is a creationist from good ol' Queensland who didn't have much success trying to introduce creationism into the science curriculum here so he moved to the USA. This is his logic in a nutshell:
He is now trying to build a theme park based around the story of Noah's Ark.
He already has a creation museum in Kentucky. The motto is "Creation Museum - prepare to disbelieve." Mad Magazine voted it no. 14 on its most dumbest things of the year 2007. Let me quote what they said:
"Finally there is compelling evidence that the theory of evolution is wrong! For proof positive that man's intelligence has not evolved in eons, consider the Cro-Magnon brained imbeciles behind the recently opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum's exhibits don't merely challenge science, they ignore it completely! It's the only place in the world you can see man riding bareback on a dinosaur — except, of course, in an old episode of The Flintstones."
His Noah's Ark theme park was endorsed by Governor Steve Beshear who has decided to provide $45 million in tax incentives to the project. His reason for this? Because a report said that the park would bring in 1.6 million visitors and $250 million to the state.
Let's look at this report. It was a feasibility study commissioned by Ken Ham and written by his mate Brit Breemer. It's 10,000 pages long. So you would expect the governor or his staff to have read the study, questioned its findings and had independent analysis of the document. Only after such deliberation would you commit $45 million.
An article in the courier-journal.com looked at the claims made and questioned the findings of the study. When pressed about the proposed funding by the government:
"Beshear's aides later acknowledged that the state never obtained a copy of the study.
Spokeswoman Kerri Richardson said that wasn't necessary because the governor's staff had met with Ark Encounter staff and knew the study's conclusions."
So this governor just promised them money because they said it would be good for the state. Well, if they believe creationism, they will believe anything. By the way, I've got a bridge that's up for sale.......................
Following on from the last post, what should we expect to find if bigfoot did exist? If they do exist, then they must leave some sort of a trace.
Let's assume that bigfoot is a primate, more specifically a great ape.
Facts about great apes - Gestation period is roughly 9 months for all great apes. - Females and offspring stay together for at least the first 3 years of the child's life. - Females give birth every 4 - 7 years once they reach the mature age of 10 years. (Humans being the only exception). - Average life expectancy in the wild is a maximum 40 years. In captivity, about 10 years more. - Sustainable population is at the very minimum 1000. Less than this and they are classified as critically endangered. Every the bigfoottrue believers think there has to be at least 2000. - Most of the time spent eating and pooing. Humans again the exception because of the amount of meat we eat. The mountain gorilla eats about 34kg of vegetation a day!
Let's start with 1000 creatures, half female. Of these females if we spread them out over a 40 year life span, 3/4 are over 10. Of these, let's say 1/4 or these give birth in one year. That's about 90 births a year. Not all of these children will survive to adulthood. Let's be tough and say there is a 90% chance that the baby doesn't make it to adult hood. So that leaves about 10. Now, if the population is stable, this means that to balance out the births, we need 10 adult creatures to die every year. If they have been around for over 10,000 years, there should be at least 100,000 corpses in varies stages of decay. So we should be able to find some remains, eg, Hair, bones. Status: None found. Isn't it strange that when people say they have found such evidence the material always gets away.
With 1000 specimens out there, surely we should have conclusive pictorial or movie evidence. I mean, the Amur Leopard is smaller, exists in a more inaccessible habitat, consists of only 30 - 35 left in the wild and we can get superb footage of it.
We should have found faeces. These would contain the DNA of the bigfoot. Has such evidence been found? No.
That's a lot of food they eat. Where are the food scraps? And spending most of the day eating means that you probably spend most of the time in one place, especially the female caring for its young. So why has no one come across bigfoot nests, or a bigfoot den? Here you would undoubtedly find hairs and poo.
Unless they are carnivores, although we should still find poo. But then we should have found the bones of the creatures they ate with bigfoot teeth marks. Again, nothing found.
Also, from a historical perspective, there is absolutely nothing in the fossil record to show that a creature of this type could have evolved on the American continent. No evidence that a creature such as this could have migrated either. Nothing.
This is when you need to think well, maybe absence of evidence IS evidence of absence. The less you find the more likely it is that the creature does not exist.
A final note, does anyone remember a couple of years ago when two men claimed to have found bigfoot and had the corpse in a freezer? The Age newspaper ran two articles on it (here and here), I even heard Red Simons on 774 radio interview one of the men. Not much questioning went on. They sent samples away to be DNA tested.
Well, guess what? The DNA samples came back and showed it to be a mixture of human DNA and opossum DNA. Then, others were allowed to look at it, and what do you know, it turned out to be a gorilla suit. Here's a news report.
Personally, it would be fantastic if such a creature existed. It would revolutionise our understanding of evolution and we could extend our knowledge of primates. But reality has to kick in. People have searched for so long and nothing is found. What does all the evidence point to? That such a creature does not exist.
