Previously, I engaged in a discussion with someone who helped put on an anti-evolution event in Florida. He came on displaying classic trollish behavior, and as soon as I pointed him out on that, he laid out some of his arguments. Following that, I responded to the arguments in kind. The discussion trailed off, and at least one thing was resolved. A couple people chimed into what was primarily a debate between John and myself.

Contrast it to this recent discussion, just finished, between Bonnie (and Walter) at The Ethicurean and myself. As I mentioned previously, Bonnie posted an interview with anti-GE activist and lawyer, Claire Hope Cummings. I immediately responded by pointing out that the interview was riddled with factual errors and one glaring logical fallacy employing a form of linguistic bias. How did this one turn out? Read More…

John McDonald, the Director of Student Ministries at Westminster Presbyterian Church, has stopped by my blog to drop a few comments. He has been seen previously at the Florida Citizens for Science blog prodding them with taunts and ill-informed criticisms of evolutionary science.

One of the interesting claims that he has been making repeatedly is that David Hume destroyed Empiricism, and that Immanuel Kant saved science from the pickle Hume put it in. This seemed rather odd, considering that Hume was himself an empiricist - he believed that knowledge derived through observation, rather than pure reason (Descartes et al.) was the way to go. Here are John’s comments on this topic on the KCS blog: Read More…

A listener just sent me a comment about McCain’s statement on autism over a month ago. I answered it, and here’s my response, reproduced so everyone can benefit! (They were probably responding to my comments in Episode 78)

It sounded to me as if McCain was taking

the same position as you, that vaccines

aren't the source of autism.

My response: Read More…

The month of March began just like any other month. I submitted my latest progress report to my advisor, I flew back from Washington D.C., well, ok not every month starts with me flying back from Washington DC. Actually, this was the only month where this was true. Anyway, March began like any other month, but then something odd happened. Call it a feeling that something was not right about my website statistics. A post of mine, called Return of the Science Guy, written two years ago, suddenly had 100 hits and climbing. In terms of a whole month, that’s not too significant for your average recent post, but 100 hits already on the 4th of March, and an old post like that that never got too much attention? Had to be a referral. But from where?

At the same time, there was a similar rise in people linking over from one page, a forum called The Magic Cafe. It would seem that a magician took notice of my take-down of Mentalist Adrian Saint, a stage magician who claimed that he predicted the Super Bowl two years ago using statistics, when it was all just a trick stereo. Intrigued, I took a look at the forum page in question, titled, Why We Should Be Careful.

The forum topic was discussing whether or not they thought open magic forums were a good idea, given that people can look up how tricks are done. It started when one magician did a google search and my website popped up. They talked about code words to use to fool people who aren’t “in the know,” suggested that I’m a boring writer, or defended online magic forums. But then, someone named magicman02 swoops in to attack me personally. They claim they are a friend of Adrian Saint, and that they know something about me:

Hey guys, I know this performer who the article is about. He did a great job with the publicity of this event. This guy who wrote the article is an a**hole and stalked the poor guy. He told numerous times that he didn’t have any supernatural powers, but this guy keep stalking him over and over again. Some people are just a**holes

Hey readers, I know this commenter. The handle, magicman02, belongs to Amir Ghasri, Mentalist Adrian Saint himself. Oh no! He called me a stalker! It’s time for some Monday Madness. Read More…

It turns out that 2007 WD5, the asteroid heading toward Mars, will not hit the red planet. (Darn!) Here’s the Space.com story on the matter, but what I particularly liked was this part:

The new odds were released one day after astronomers with NASA’s NEO office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., lowered 2007 WD5’s chances of striking Mars from 3.6 percent to 2.5 percent, or about a 1-in-40 chance, on Tuesday. After analyzing results from a new round of observations between Jan. 5 and Jan. 8, scientists now estimate the asteroid will make its closest pass by Mars at a maximum distance of about 16,155 miles (26,000 km).

JPL researchers said that they are 99.7 percent confident that 2007 WD5 will pass no closer than 2,485 miles (4,000 km) from the martian surface.

What you’ve just read was their confidence interval, a statistical concept. Read More…

I was searching around the ‘net this morning looking for some pictures of corn fields for the re-theming of my website (you can check the progress by selecting “damuhan” in the theme switcher on the bottom right), when I came upon an interesting page. A company called Peeled Snacks was celebrating that its fruit and nut products that would soon be available in Whole Foods stores, but were lamenting the fact that Whole Foods was forcing them to use non-biodegradable packaging? How the hell? Read More…

I just got an email asking for some advice. There must be other people looking for the same advice out there, so this sounds like a perfect post to file under the Ask The Mind category.

Read More…

My website host provides me with an interesting collection of statistics about who comes and goes to my website. Everything from the browser being used, to the number of visits, bandwidth, time of day, time on the site, and even the search terms that brought them here. Because of these statistics, I now know that October was a record month for me! Read More…

Back in February 2006, Super Bowl XL surprised the experts. It was a low-scoring game that was predicted to be a high-scoring game. But one person, mentalist performer Adrian Saint, claimed to have predicted the outcome. Read More…

At the beginning of my second year writing for The California Aggie, my new editor buttered me up with a danish and pitched to me this idea - that my column would be like a Dear Abby, but for science. “Dear Inoculated Mind.” On the other hand, I wanted to write Op-ed pieces about science, but I gave it a try agreeing that I would mix it up. I’ll write more extensively about my experience some other time, but to put it short, my voice was stifled and the format was silly. No one asked any questions until I abandoned the format, so I was making up silly questions and pressing my family for ideas. Some folks at the Aggie helped me out, too. But Op-Eds are what I do best.

However, Read More…