Ancient bacteria living in deep-sea sediments are alive—but with metabolisms so slow that it’s hard to tell.
In the northern Pacific Ocean, buried 20 meters below the ocean floor, are bacteria that live life in the extreme slow lane. They have not received any fresh sources of food since they were buried 86 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked the land. Still, they cling to life by using up the little oxygen available to them at an incredibly slow rate.
“Their activity is so slow that on our timescale, nothing happens at all,” said Hans Røy from Aarhus University, who discovered the microbes. “It’s much less than any laboratory culture we have.”
“Besides being interesting on its own, it has large implication for the potential of life in other low energy environments such as the subsurface of Mars,” added Arthur Spivack from the University of Rhode Island, who was not involved in the study.
The study, published today (May 17) in Science, is part of Røy’s ongoing effort to understand the organisms that live in marine sediments, which could account for 90 percent of all microbes in the world. “We’re looking at the most common forms of life on this planet, and we know almost nothing about them,” said Røy.
Extremely slow-going bacteria were discovered in the surface of the ocean floor in the 1990s, but many scientists initially dismissed them as dead. A Japanese group challenged that idea last year, when they showed that cells buried in sediments from the Sea of Japan could grow if they were given a fresh source of nutrients. Now, Røy has gone one step further by measuring the metabolism of subsurface bacteria in their native soil, and confirming that they are alive, if barely so.
. . .
To put that into perspective, if you put sediment from the North Sea into a sealed container, the microbes inside would use up all the oxygen in a few minutes. “If we did the same thing with our sediments, it would be 1,000 years before we could even measure a change,” said Røy.
. . . Read more
It’s time again to play the SkepchickCON Psychic Challenge. This week we have mystery box number THREE!
Use energy or quantum forces or laser vision to tell what is in the box. Or, you know just guess.
Last week’s winner, Teletheus had some additional psychic advice for us.
It was simple, really; I just needed to sleep on it. And by “sleep on it,” I of course mean “allow the answer to come to me in a vision as I dreamt last night.” In the spirit of cybercedd’s generosity last weekend, I should also warn you—yes, you, the person reading this right now, not anyone else who might have read it before or after—that my dream also revealed you will face a great challenge in the near future, but you’ll become a stronger person as a result of it. Be prepared for anything!
Absolutely brilliant. That is why psychics make that cold-hard cash.
Teletheus picked prize number 3 but we still have TWO prizes left! And I should mention that if you can not make it to SkepchickCON but know someone who wants to go, you can pick prize number 1 and put it in someone else’s name. Just let me know the name by sending it to me in a vision or preferably, an email and I will set that up for you.
Remaining prizes:
________________________
Prizes:
Prize 1: I will personally pay for someone’s pass to get in to Convergence/SkepchickCon! You have to get there and find somewhere to stay but I will pay your admission to the event!
Prize 2: A drink created and named after the winner for the Skepchick party created specially for you by our resident Mad Art Lab cocktail specialist, Anne Sauer! Recipe will be provided! And we will toast to you at the Skepchick party at SkepchicCON with you if you can make it or in honor of you if you can’t.
Prize 3:A four pack of surprise Surly-Ramicsgiven to you at SkepchickCON if you can attend, or mailed to you if you can not. You can tell me if you prefer nature or science themes.
Prize 4:A Skepchick shirt signed by all the Skepchicks who attend SkepchickCON 2012. If you can attend we will give it to you there, if not we will mail it to you after the event.
________________________
Once again, here are the rules of play:
Each commenter is allowed a total of TWO guesses per secret box post per week.
I will post one box a week for four weeks.
That means YOU can guess two times per post per week. Guess more than that and even if you are spot on your guess will not count.
The first person to guess the contents of a box in the comment section gets to pick from the prize list above.
Once a prize is picked, it will be marked off the list. So winners can’t pick the same prize twice.
If no one guesses exactly what is in a particular box I will show the item to Rebecca and then together we will decide which guess is closest to the actual contents and give a prize to that commenter.
Winners will be announced in the comment sections of each post and in any follow-up posts.
I will give one hint each week.
I have sent a photo of what is in each box to an official, classified Skepchick for verification purposes. Then, I sealed the boxes. They will not be opened again until the contest is over.
The boxes have been sealed.
This week’s hint: You guys really rock, I mean it. I am positive some of you already know what is in the box, well at least one of you does. You are so good at this game you don’t even need a hint.
One last note, I am currently at the Women in Secularism conference so I will pop in and check the comments and leave clues if needed when I can but my access to the internet may be spotty.
Now, may the force be with you and TELL ME WHAT IS IN THE BOX!
For once, there’s no need for the West Coast to envy the East Coast or vice versa.
This weekend marks not only CFI’s Women in Secularism conference, where our very own Rebecca and Surly Amy are sure to kick some ass, but the Orange County Freethought Alliance Conference (held at my alma mater — go Anteaters!), where I will be making my skeptical public speaking debut with a talk entitled “Push and Pull: The Role of Religion in Social Justice.”
Synopsis: Religion and religious institutions have played a complex, intimate, and sometimes contradictory role in shaping, promoting, and hindering various American social justice movements. The relationship between faith and the fight for rights, while more often fraught that not, is undeniable. Would the accomplishments achieved by social justice movements have been possible without religion, and is there a secular alternative?
If you live on neither of said coasts, the latter of the two conferences will be available for live streaming online. I will also be posting a write-up based on my speech on Monday.
Texas’s war on history – “Christian-nationalist zealots are trying to rewrite US history, airbrush slavery and enshrine creationism in Texas schools.” An article by this month’s Skepchick book club author. From Buzz Parsec.
When a blow to the head creates a sudden genius – “Brain injuries can sometimes reveal extraordinary talents in people. Now, savant syndrome is helping to create whole new fields of scientific discovery.”
The peroxiredoxin active site is highly conserved in all domains of life. Image: Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11088
Phys.org) -- A group of biology researchers, led by Akhilesh Reddy from Cambridge University have found an enzyme that they believe serves as a circadian clock that operates in virtually all forms of life. In a paper published in the journal Nature, they describe a class of enzymes known as peroxiredoxins which are present in almost all plants and other organisms and which appear to serve as a basic ingredient in non-feedback loop biological clocks.
Up till now, researchers have not been able to find any kind of common biorhythmic clock among the Earth’s varied organisms, each class seemed to have its own. They did find though that one common feature of most was a feedback loop, which is where genes are transcribed before being translated into proteins which then build up until they reach a tipping point. Once that happens, transcription is turned off and the enzyme goes dormant. This cycle, for most organisms occurs on a twenty four hour basis, and is responsible for such things as the feelings of sleepiness or hunger in people that occur at roughly the same time each day.
But now, this new research suggests that the true clock controlling behavior in virtually every imaginable plant, animal, fungus, etc. has its roots in an enzyme whose purpose is to help clean up residue left over from the ravages of antioxidants.
Peroxiredoxins, which exist in virtually all life forms, are enzymes that cycle between two states depending on whether they have reacted recently with hydrogen peroxide, or not. The researchers found that this cycle occurs on a roughly twenty four hour cycle in all of the organisms they’ve tested to date. What’s more, the cycle continued even in the absence of light, proving that it’s not part of a feedback loop. Unfortunately, the team has not yet been able to show how or if the enzyme controls other clock mechanisms that are a part of feedback loops.
Christian-nationalist zealots are trying to rewrite US history, airbrush slavery and enshrine creationism in Texas schools
Texas Governor Rick Perry famously dismissed evolution as 'a theory that's out there', during his failed run for the GOP presidential nomination. Photograph: David J Phillip/AP
Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2009, is a "young earth" creationist. He believes the earth is 6,000 years old, that human beings walked with dinosaurs, and that Noah's Ark had a unique, multi-level construction that allowed it to house every species of animal, including the dinosaurs.
He has a right to his beliefs, but it's his views on history that are problematic. McLeroy is part of a large and powerful movement determined to impose a thoroughly distorted, ultra-partisan, Christian nationalist version of US history on America's public school students. And he has scored stunning successes.
If you want to see a scary movie about this movement, consider taking in Scott Thurman's finely-crafted documentary Revisionaries, currently making the festival circuit, which records the antics of McLeroy and a hard right majority on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) as they revise the textbook standards that will be used in Texas (and many other states).
The first part of this documentary deals with the familiar "science wars", in which one side seeks to educate children in the sciences, and the other side proposes to "teach the controversy" in order to undermine those aspects of science that conflict with its religious convictions. But it's the second part of the movie where the horror really kicks in. As I explain in more detail in The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, the history debate makes the science debate look genteel. While the handful of moderates on the SBOE squeals in opposition, the conservative majority lands blow after blow, passing resolutions imposing its mythological history on the nation's textbooks.
As you all know (because you’re going to be there), I leave tomorrow today for the Women in Secularism conference in DC; then Saturday after my panel, I fly to Berlin for the World Skeptics Conference, and then I fly to Cologne for the European Atheist Convention. Because I’ll be unable to keep a constant eye on Skepchick to keep the site from devolving into a nonstop stream of MS Paint penises, I’ve brought on a new editor to serve as President Pro Tem. The irony is that she probably has no idea what that term means. Her name is Tracy King and she is a filthy Brit.
Many of you may remember Tracy from the many years she spent as a Skepchick contributor. The rest of you may remember her from that guest post she penned two weeks ago. Regardless, you should be very excited right now. I know that all the other Skepchick contributors are – Elyse had an entire folder of MS Paint penises ready to go, but she was happy to repurpose them for Tracy. I’ve used one (cropped) piece of art as the featured image of this post.
So everyone, please welcome Tracy! I trust that when I return in ten days, Skepchick will not have been turned into the latest Queen-worshipping, ale-guzzling, trousers-wearing, lift-riding British colony.
I’ll also take this moment to mention that there’s been a lot of turnover here at Skepchick over the past year or so. Some great friends have departed, and so it’s awesome to have one return. If you’re wondering who is currently active here, you can check out the mostly accurate Who’s Who page, though I’m not going to re-add Tracy until she proves her worth in battle. BLOG BATTLE.
I’m not sure what that means; it’s late and I haven’t slept much and I’m prepping for three conferences. Just give me a break, okay?
Published by Rebecca Watson
on Fri 18 May 11:00:20
I am a member of a club in which every member either always lies or always tells the truth. Yesterday I had a telephone call from a member who always tells the truth and he said ‘Some members have just had dinner around a circular table, and each member said ‘I declare that the man on my left is a liar’”. Ten minutes later I received another telephone call from another member called John, and he said “I was at the dinner and there were 11 of us there”. Ten minutes after that I received yet another telephone call from a member called Tim, and he said “I was at the dinner and there were 8 of us there”. Either John or Tim was lying. But who was the liar?
As ever, please do NOT post your answers, but do say if you think you have solved the puzzle and how long it took. Solution on Monday.
I have produced an ebook containing 101 of the previous Friday Puzzles! It is called PUZZLED and is available for theKindle (UK here and USA here) and on the iBookstore (UK here in the USA here). You can try 101 of the puzzles for free here.
Published by Richard Wiseman
on Fri 18 May 06:00:06
Greetings, my fellow travelers on this tiny little planet. We received an interesting question here on Skepchick about the formation of the Moon. I got a little busy with the whole dissertation-writing thing, but I’m back to tell you about the somewhat violent formation of the Earth’s famous natural satellite.
Smashy-smashy artist's conception. Credit: NASA
Here is the question from Barry:
So I was watching a rerun of the Universe on TV about the
Moon and its origins. One of the theories of the origins of our moon
is that a Mars sized impactor hit Earth in its early days and the
debris that acretted around the bulk of the Earth that was left formed
the Moon. I was on board with this idea until they said that the
model simulations they do puts the formation of the moon taking about
a standard year, maybe 2. This feels so ludicrous to me because
everything that happens in the universe (creation-wise) takes million
and billions of years. Can you look into this particular area and see
what these models are based on?
The currently favored hypothesis of the Moon’s formation is also known as they “Giant Impactor Hypothesis” or the “The Big Whack” hypothesis. Yes, really. Astronomers: not so good at naming stuff.
According to this scenario, as the question says, something about half the size of the Earth whacked into the proto-Earth early on in the formation of the solar system. This is not so much of a stretch to believe as the early solar system was a veritable shooting gallery full of debris that was coalescing into what we now know as the planets. This glancing blow would have scattered debris everywhere, but some would have stayed in orbit to coalesce to form the Moon. This would explain why the Moon is slightly different in composition from the Earth, particularly that it has a tiny iron core and is overall less dense than planet Earth. This makes sense if it was primarily formed from this impactor and the upper layers of the Earth’s crust and mantle.
It is true that this whole event happens over a “short time scale” as compared to the age of the solar system (about 4.5 billion years). The actual time depends on the exact circumstances of the cosmic smash, and computer models don’t always agree. The disk of debris that would become the Moon probably took about a hundred years to come together, which is still an incredibly short period of time on cosmic scales.
But why so short cosmologically? Stars live out their lives over billions of years, and planetary systems are formed over millions of years. However, some dynamical processes can still occur on shorter timescales. Impacts, in particular, take just minutes, hours, or days for the dust to settle. A great example is the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact of a comet onto Jupiter in 1994. It only took a few months for the damage to disappear, since Jupiter is so much larger than the comet, but it shows that short events can happen.
Of course, the currently accepted hypothesis is not perfect, and some recent lines of evidence have challenged its dominance. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe reported on one such story recently about titanium isotopes in Earth and Moon rocks, and how they seem too similar to have come from the collision of two bodies. However, these minor details probably have more to do with the initial conditions of the impact, which are not well known, and aren’t enough to throw out this hypothesis completely. The “Big Whack” is still the most viable hypothesis and the one that makes the most physical sense. One early hypothesis had the Earth spinning so fast that part of it was flung off to form the Moon, but without an implausible Superman movie plot, there is no way the planet could have spun up that quickly.
One thing that we do know is that the Moon continues to surprise us. Not just a dead hunk of rock, the Moon has been shown to have water in its shadowy craters, and spacecraft such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) are measuring the physical properties of our nearest planetary neighbor with unprecedented accuracy. The best part of this is that you can participate.
LRO is sending back tons and tons of high resolution images of the Moon, and planetary scientists can’t possibly comb through all that data. Enter Moon Mappers, where you can identify craters and even pit yourself against computer algorithms to pick out faint structures on the Moon. A part of the growing CosmoQuest empire, of which I am proudly a part, this project is invaluable to making modern Moon research happen. This is just one of several projects that we’ll be rolling out, allowing anyone with a bit of time and interest to do cutting edge science. And that is going to help us get better and better at explaining how the Moon, Earth, and rest of our little Solar System came to be, and came to be our home.
Say what you will about Bristol Palin, she’s a quick study. It didn’t take her long to master the ways of her elders on the censorious right and decide that personal circumstance and past error needn’t prevent someone from claiming righteous leadership. Uncle Rush must be proud.
Soon after President Obama stated support for same-sex marriage, Bristol publicly weighed in. Because, you know, the world was on tenterhooks.
In a blog post she focused on the reference that Obama made to his daughters — and to the same-sex parents of some of the girls’ friends.
“It would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends (sic) parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage,” wrote Bristol, making her heady debut as the new Dr. Spock for a nascent millennium. She added that “in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.”
Fathers like ... Levi Johnston? It’s with him that she conceived her child — out of wedlock, at the age of 17 — and by most accounts, his relationship with her and the Palin family isn’t any warmer than Juneau in January. A mother/father home is not what he and Bristol have succeeded in creating.
What’s more, she has made sure that their son, Tripp, will at some point be treated to a worldview-shaping image of Dad as something akin to a date rapist. That’s the description of him immortalized in her memoir, one of her many efforts to monetize her surname. It recounts the loss of her virginity as a result of getting drunk and blacking out in the company of Levi, who pounced. What a gift that narrative is to Tripp, now being hauled into a TV reality show, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” already in production. Little children are known to thrive in such environments.
I hesitated before picking on Bristol because she’s an easy target. It’s like shooting moose from a helicopter flying low over the tundra. Read more
As we reported back in April, Sanal Edamaruku, leading Indian rationalist and scourge of fakirs and charlatans, is facing prosecution for blasphemy in India, after the Catholic Church made complaints about his myth-busting to the authorities. We have been in touch with Sanal and asked him to clarify what's happening, what he's doing about it and how his supporters can help. Here's what he told us:
1.What are you accused of by the catholic Church, and
why? Actually, I do not
know. Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, charges a person with “deliberately hurting religious
feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious
sentiments of any class or community”. I have no idea how this applies to me. And strangely, we never got a copy of any of the charge
sheets filed against me nor any other official document.The church people –
stretching my words like chewing gum – keep complaining about this and that
statement that I have allegedly made in the TV debate. Well, since all my statements
are both perfectly documented and factually correct, there should be nothing to worry about.
In fact, I would love to support all that I said about the Catholic Church with
evidence in a court of law: about its miracle-mongering throughout history, about
its support for fascist regimes, about its promotion of exorcism etc. That
would be a landmark historic trial. But it seems that this is not exactly what they want.
2.What have they actually done? They have filed
charges in at least three police stations against me. And they manage to keep
at least one police station very actively engaged in persuing the case. There
is a police inspector from Juhu station, who calls me nearly every day and
urges me to come to Mumbai and offer myself for arrest.Section 295A is a
special criminal law that applies as and when the allegedly offended party
makes enough noise. In this context the vigorous smear campaigns against me are crucial. They are not just the outburst of a fringe fanatic group, they
are setting the stage for a potentially successful trial. It is a classic set-up
with the Bishop of Mumbai lamenting that I have allegedly hurt Catholic feelings
and the mob howling.Of course, though I
am immune to such things, there is also the psychological warfare angle: The police
are calling every night. The mob is baring their teeth: (Should such a
blasphemer “go scot-free”? What would “other religious communities”, e.g. Islamists,
do with him? Put him in a “mental asylum”! etc.) Finally the bishop is offering
the classical escape route: I should apologise!
3.How seriously are you taking the charges? I think nobody takes
the charges serious. They have not been filed on merit. The case is a political
one, stage managed by the Catholic Church to silence me. Formally, the attack
is launched by a kind of Catholic “vox populi”, but there is no doubt who writes the script. “We can
rejoice that there are some people who have the courage to stand up when the
attempts are made to besmirch the name of the Catholic community”, stated the Bishop
of Mumbai.The Catholic Church is a serious
opponent, known for being both rigorous and relentless in destroying its critics.
Being aware of this we are looking beyond the legal case. While my lawyers are
asking the High Court to intervene and stop the charges against me going
further, we have considered it necessary to establish precautionary measures
for my personal protection.
4.What kind of support are you getting? Thousands of people are
writing letters, tweets and blog comments in my support. There have been some
really wonderful articles published and some very sensible interviews with me. Also
monitory support for the Defence Fund has come in. It is mainly coming in hundred
Rupee and ten Dollar notes: As always, the section of people who cannot really
afford it turns out to be most generous. Their donations do add up to real
help. Still, we all have to put in our personal money to make my life a little safer,
to buy the necessary flight tickets to Mumbai to get things going and to enable
our dedicated legal team to work smoothly. Besides fighting the
case, we are planning to challenge
the blasphemy law in the Supreme Court of India. This law goes against the
fundamental right of freedom of expression and we want to put an end to the
history of its misuse. We want it to be abolished.
5.Do you intend to continue exposing frauds like this? I have been exposing
frauds and miracle mongers for more than 30 years now. The Mumbai interlude
would not change that in any way. It has rather strengthened my resolve to do more.
And undoubtedly, it has moved the Catholic Church from an up to now rather
marginal position on the Indian rationalist radar a little bit more towards
the centre.Since Catholic forces
are trying to stop me in a way radical Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Buddhists
never did, I feel enormous energy in me to fight against obscurantism. The pace
is increasing: during the last three weeks, I have done nearly 100 hours on
air, participating in various TV panel discussions to corner faith healers of
different religious origin. These programs are quite successful and they seem
to trigger a public wave of awareness that may go a long way.
6.What can people do to help?
Regarding the blasphemy case,
there are mainly two ways to support us: to spread information about the Catholic
attempt to silence me and to donate to the Defence Fund, enabling us to cover the
direct and indirect costs of the case.The Defence Fund is in urgent
need of money and any penny helps. Some people seem to worry there could be a surplus
after running the cases. A very friendly blogger (unknown to me) moved me by expressing
hopes I would finally be able to buy the Ferrari that I – according to his
opinion – deserved. Nice wishes, indeed,
but so far not realistic. Still, if there is any overflow of the Defence
Fund anytime, it will be absorbed into a rationalist trust that we are planning
to establish soon. It will power the engines of our work, and could yield great
results.
Former Republican lobbyist Edwina Rogers has been
appointed executive director of the Secular Coalition
for America
In what looks like a surprising move, the Secular Coalition for America – an umbrella group that represents a number of American secularist, humanist and atheist organisations – has appointed a former Republican lobbyist as its new executive director.
The appointment of Edwina Rogers, who has worked for both Bush presidents and four Republican senators, has raised eyebrows among US secularists, who view the Republican Party as particularly hostile to their values, but, as spokesperson for the Coalition told the Washington Post, there is a belief that Rogers' connections will help broaden support for secularism:
“She can reach out to segments of the population that may be receptive to our message but maybe never heard of us before or maybe associated us with one particular political party. She can help this organization grow beyond its traditional reach.”
While Rogers' appointment is likely to divide opinion, there's certainly wisdom in seeking to broaden the appeal of secularism in the US. As Jacques Berlinerblau, author of the forthcoming book How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom, points out in our current issue, American secularism is currently beset on all sides, encountering not just outright hostility from Republicans, but a lukewarm reception from the Democrats traditionally associated with its defence. In Berlinerblau's view, the blame for this lies, in part, with the secular movement itself:
"Aside from conservative religious reaction, there is a second explanation for secularism’s crack-up: a colossal failure of leadership and strategic vision. Those who advocated on its behalf in the 1970s and ’80s had little understanding of who their irate, coalescing adversaries actually were. In the secular mindset these “Fundies” were just a bunch of yokels, sitting on their front porches, cleaning their guns to the musical accompaniment of Pa strumming the gutbucket. In reality, however, the movement had scads of charismatic and savvy, if not incendiary, leaders.
Secular leadership, by contrast, was static and moribund. As I demonstrate in my forthcoming book it is exceedingly difficult to figure out exactly who was steering the good ship secularism while the Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons and Ralph Reeds of the nation suited up and took to the pitch. My own research indicates that in the waning decades of the past century, there was little in the way of effective direction and guidance provided to the secular base.
Then again, who was the base? And with that we arrive at one of the most debilitating ironies afflicting American secularism, if not secularism itself. If one looks at the history of this movement it is exceedingly difficult to gain clarity as to what precisely it stands for and what types of people it represents."
We've interviewed Berlinerblau for our May podcast (which is due online this afternoon), and in that he suggests that the key to increasing support for secularism in the US lies with building coalitions between atheists and religious moderates who can agree on the benefits of separating church and state. If Edwina Rogers can use her experience to build such coalitions, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats who understand the importance of secularism, the Secular Coalition for American will surely have made a sensible move in selecting its new director.
You can read more about the appointment on the Friendly Atheist blog, which has a detailed interview with Rogers. For a dissenting view, see PZ Myers, who is unconvinced that secularism stands a chance of gaining a sympathetic hearing among Republican politicians
Published by noreply@blogger.com (Paul Sims)
on Fri 04 May 11:46:00
From the Ms. Editors: Despite doubts about the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education, U.S. tax dollars are still funding it. Conservatives earmarked $250 million for such programs under the Affordable Care Act, and last month, the Obama administration controversially green-lit the Heritage Keepers abstinence-only curriculum to receive funds reserved for evidence-based sex education. The excerpt below, from Katherine Stewart’s recent book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, takes a detailed look at the problems posed by abstinence-only education.
Abstinence education posits the idea that the proper way to educate adolescents about sex is to instruct them to refrain from sexual activity until marriage. The way to avoid contracting an STD or an unwanted pregnancy, a typical program tells its students, is follow a few simple rules: “Respect yourself. Choose friends who are positive influences. Go out as a group. Get plenty of rest.” Doug Herman, a popular abstinence-until-marriage speaker at public high schools across the United States, sums up the message this way: “If the sun doesn’t touch it, nobody else’s son ought to be touchin’ it either!”
The typical abstinence program, however, is not against sex per se. Abstinence instructors often make a point of telling teenagers that they know how hard it is to refrain from sexual activity. Sex is wonderful, it is incredible, it is mind-blowing—if you are married. The principal goal of most such programs, in fact, is to imbue childrern with a certain view about the proper relationship between sex and marriage. Sex within marriage is a source of fulfillment and even ecstasy; sex in all other contexts is degrading and shameful.
Abstinence educators frequently promote this view by representing all sex that occurs outside the marital bed as harmful. Premarital sex is dangerous and dirty, they say—a gateway to decadence, depression, broken lives, and an early grave, especially for women. If you have sex outside of marriage, says Pam Stenzel, a nationally recognized “abstinence proponent” who delivers talks to public school students around the country, “then you will pay.” Read more
As you have probably worked out by now, I am a fan of pareidolia. Yesterday I was sent this great photo….
It was taken by ace photographer Matthew Horwood, who very kindly gave me permission to post it here. It gets my vote as the most unusual pareidolia I have seen. What do you think?
Published by Richard Wiseman
on Thu 17 May 06:00:53
Here are a couple of events we are involved over the next few weeks. Do come if you can. They are both at Conway Hall, the (ahem) spiritual home of British non-belief, in Red Lion Square, London W1. It's a lovely building, purpose built in 1928 as a home for the South Place Ethical Society, and well worth a look. Here are two reasons to visit:
31 May - Four Ways to Live Forever?
A debate triggered by Stephen Cave new book Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilisation, looking at the many ways humans have tried to cheat death – from ancient Egyptian ideas about preserving the soul to transhumanist dreams of downloading consciousness onto computers (read Stephen Cave 's recent piece for New Humanist on the subject). In addition to Stephen Cave the panel features biologist and expert on ageing Lewis Wolpert (read a recent interview with him), and Catherine Mayer, Europe Editor of Time magazine and author of Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of living Agelessly. Panel will be chaired by New Humanist Editor Caspar Melville. Tickets, on the door, are £7 (£5 for members of the Rationalist Association).
27 June - 5 July - Looking In Looking Out: a philosophy and film festival
An innovative series of films, talks, lectures and workshops exploring the relationship between film and philosophy – from existentialism in Cronenberg's Crash, to the phenomenology of Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, to the ethics of superheroes – in the company of special guests Will Self, Bidisha, Mark Vernon, Julian Baggini, Robin Ince and many more. Earlybird ticket offer until 1st June: £35 week pass, which
guarantees access to over 30 screenings, talks and workshops.
Published by noreply@blogger.com (Caspar Melville)
on Tue 15 May 10:01:00
This is an animated version of a lovely old Victorian puzzle. Basically, you have to count the number of people in the image, wait for the piece to flip around, and count them again. The flip should happen after about 10 seconds (if it doesn’t, you might have to click on the image and have it open in a separate window)
My thanks to @DrBrocktagon for bringing it to my attention. 10 points to anyone who can explain why it works!
Published by Richard Wiseman
on Wed 16 May 06:00:04
@Letitia_Potorac brought my attention to this great ‘two cats hugging’ illusion….
So, time for a poll. Imagine that animals could fire guns. In general, would you trust a cat or a dog with a gun? Vote now and let’s nail this pressing issue once and for all.
Published by Richard Wiseman
on Tue 15 May 06:00:09
A press release reaches us from Premier Christian Radio with the headline "UK's belief that God created the Universe at an all-time low". It reports the findings of a study conducted by ComRes for PCR (2054 were polled online across the UK in April), ahead of the conference , called "Unbelievable 2012" PCR are holding in London on May 26 at which "academics and scientists" from the US and UK will be arguing that contemporary cosmology indicates that God created the world.
The headline findings of the survey are that only 26% believe that God created the world, 41% said they didn't believe this and 23% didn't know or didn't want to say. In what the press release describes as a "strange twist" fully 25% of those who identified as "Christian" did not believe that God was the cause of the Universe.
So, why would a Christian outfit be trumpeting numbers which show that the idea of a God-created universe is in decline, even amongst their own gang? It's a canny ploy actually, allowing them to make the case that their conference is important – a chance to hear the "very best" scientifically grounded arguments for God. As the presenter and conference host Justin Brierly says in the release: "I believe that modern science is increasing the amount of evidence for God. But it appears that certain atheistic voices have the ear of the British public. It's a disturbing trend and we need to redress the balance." Aha! So it's Dawkins wot dun it, and here's us thinking that the decline of the belief in a God-created Universe has come about as a result of the rise of scientific literacy, the decline of respect for religious doctrines which are unsupported by evidence, and the general common sense of the public. Silly us.
The language also neatly tessellates with the whole culture of Christian victimhood that has been abroad of late, suggesting that a few influential "militant" atheists have been conning the public and misrepresenting science – and positioning themselves as part of the fightback on behalf of beleaguered believers. What is new here, of course, is the drafting in of "science" to support the case. The press release quotes the cosmologist Paul Davies, recipient of a Templeton prize and someone who is unwilling to discount the idea of a creator without really signing up to any particular version. Davies is on record as disputing Lawrence Krauss' argument that the Universe could have come from "nothing", but I'm sure he does not go as far as to suggest that science confirms the Bible. Needless to say neither Davies nor Krauss will be at the conference, instead keynote speakers include Hugh Ross, Ken Samples and Michael Green (no, me neither) who all specialise in "Christian apologetics" and promise to show how science really does confirm the Bible. If anyone is planning on going do let us know, we'd be fascinated to find out of they succeed in proving that.
That really would be Unbelievable.
Published by noreply@blogger.com (Caspar Melville)
on Thu 10 May 14:37:00
Let’s play a little game. Imagine taking 4 playing cards out of a deck. Two of them are red and the other two are black. We mix them up and place them face down on the table. I am going to ask you to turn two of the cards face up. If they are both the same (as in, if both of them are red cards or both of them are black cards) then you win. Otherwise, I win. Is that fair?
If you have not tried to solve it, have a go now. For everyone else, the answer is after the break.
Nope, it is not a fair game. Let’s imagine you start off by turning over a red card. Of the three remaining cards, two are black and one is red, and so you only have a one in three chance of winning.
Did you solve it? Any other answers?
I have produced an ebook containing 101 of the previous Friday Puzzles! It is called PUZZLED and is available for the Kindle (UK here and USA here) and on the iBookstore (UK here in the USA here). You can try 101 of the puzzles for free here.
Published by Richard Wiseman
on Mon 14 May 06:00:47
Meet Jeff Flake from Arizona. His number one goal is the destruction of the federal government, one piece at a time. His first target: the National Science Foundation. The NSF funds a big chunk of the country's basic research to the tune of about $7 billion/year, and Flake proposed cutting it by a billion dollars.
He didn't get what he wanted, fortunately.
But now he's fallen back on the tricks of anti-science demagogues everywhere, falling back on using his ignorance to justify gutting programs, one by one. He's managed to block funding of all political science research through NSF, because, he says, they're "meritless" and "These studies might satisfy the curiosities of a few academics, but I seriously doubt society will benefit from them".
What did he single out as worthy of cutting?
A project to "develop a new model for international climate change analysis" — apparently, if you close your eyes to a problem, it goes away.
"Understanding the origins of the gender gap in political ambition," a project to identify why young people aren't running for office. Oh, that one we can cut, because the reason is obvious: because the offices are full of assholes like Flake.
Strangely, Flake has an MA in political science. I guess he thinks his degree is worthless, not realizing that it's not the diploma, it's the brain behind it.
Bruce Schneier is a highly-respected expert on security who has written for The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Forbes, Wired, Nature, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and other major publications. His most recent book is Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive.
At the suggestion of many readers, I invited Bruce to set me straight about airline security on this page. The following is his response to my controversial article, “In Defense of Profiling.” Bruce and I will discuss these issues in greater depth in a subsequent post.—SH
* * *
Why do otherwise rational people think it’s a goodideatoprofilepeople at airports? Recently, neuroscientist and best-selling author Sam Harris related a story of an elderly couple being given the twice-over by the TSA, pointed out how these two were obviously not a threat, and recommended that the TSA focus on the actual threat: “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim.”
This is a bad idea. It doesn’t make us any safer—and it actually puts us all at risk.
The right way to look at security is in terms of cost-benefit trade-offs. If adding profiling to airport checkpoints allowed us to detect more threats at a lower cost, then we should implement it. If it didn’t, we’d be foolish to do so. Sometimes profiling works. Consider a sheep in a meadow, happily munching on grass. When he spies a wolf, he’s going to judge that individual wolf based on a bunch of assumptions related to the past behavior of its species. In short, that sheep is going to profile…and then run away. This makes perfect sense, and is why evolution produced sheep—and other animals—that react this way. But this sort of profiling doesn’t work with humans at airports, for several reasons.
First, in the sheep’s case the profile is accurate, in that all wolves are out to eat sheep. Maybe a particular wolf isn’t hungry at the moment, but enough wolves are hungry enough of the time to justify the occasional false alarm. However, it isn’t true that almost all Muslims are out to blow up airplanes. In fact, almost none of them are. Post 9/11, we’ve had 2 Muslim terrorists on U.S airplanes: the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. If you assume 0.8% (that’s one estimate of the percentage of Muslim Americans) of the 630 million annual airplane fliers are Muslim and triple it to account for others who look Semitic, then the chances any profiled flier will be a Muslim terrorist is 1 in 80 million. Add the 19 9/11 terrorists—arguably a singular event—that number drops to 1 in 8 million. Either way, because the number of actual terrorists is so low, almost everyone selected by the profile will be innocent. This is called the “base rate fallacy,” and dooms any type of broadterroristprofiling, including the TSA’s behavioral profiling.
Second, sheep can safely ignore animals that don’t look like the few predators they know. On the other hand, to assume that only Arab-appearing people are terrorists is dangerously naive. Muslims are black, white, Asian, and everything else—most Muslims are not Arab. Recent terrorists have been European, Asian, African, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern; male and female; young and old. Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was Nigerian. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was British with a Jamaican father. One of the London subway bombers, Germaine Lindsay, was Afro-Caribbean. Dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla was Hispanic-American. The 2002 Bali terrorists were Indonesian. Both Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were white Americans. The Chechen terrorists who blew up two Russian planes in 2004 were female. Focusing on a profile increases the risk that TSA agents will miss those who don’t match it.
Third, wolves can’t deliberately try to evade the profile. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is just a story, but humans are smart and adaptable enough to put the concept into practice. Once the TSA establishes a profile, terrorists will take steps to avoid it. The Chechens deliberately chose female suicide bombers because Russian security was less thorough with women. Al Qaeda has tried to recruit non-Muslims. And terrorists have given bombs to innocent—and innocent-looking—travelers. Randomized secondary screening is more effective, especially since the goal isn’t to catch every plot but to create enough uncertainty that terrorists don’t even try.
And fourth, sheep don’t care if they offend innocent wolves; the two species are never going to be friends. At airports, though, there is an enormous social and political cost to the millions of false alarms. Beyond the societal harms of deliberately harassing a minority group, singling out Muslims alienates the very people who are in the best position to discover and alert authorities about Muslim plots before the terrorists even get to the airport. This alone is reason enough not to profile.
I too am incensed—but not surprised—when the TSA manhandles four-year old girls, children with cerebral palsy, pretty women, theelderly, and wheelchair users for humiliation, abuse, and sometimes theft. Any bureaucracy that processes 630 million people per year will generate stories like this. When people propose profiling, they are really asking for a security system that can apply judgment. Unfortunately, that’s really hard. Rules are easier to explain and train. Zero tolerance is easier to justify and defend. Judgment requires better-educated, more expert, and much-higher-paid screeners. And the personal career risks to a TSA agent of being wrong when exercising judgment far outweigh any benefits from being sensible.
The proper reaction to screening horror stories isn’t to subject only “those people” to it; it’s to subject no one to it. (Can anyone even explain what hypothetical terrorist plot could successfully evade normal security, but would be discovered during secondary screening?) Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theater. It doesn’t make us safer, and it’s not worth the cost. Even more strongly, security isn’t our society’s only value. Do we really want the full power of government to act out our stereotypes and prejudices? Have we Americans ever done something like this and not been ashamed later? This is what we have a Constitution for: to help us live up to our values and not down to our fears.
I recently wrote a short essay about airline security (“In Defense of Profiling”) that provoked a ferocious backlash from readers. In publishing this piece, I’m afraid that I broke one of my cardinal rules of time (and sanity) management: Not everything worth saying is worth saying oneself. I learned this the hard way once before, in discussing the ethics of torture and collateral damage, but this time the backlash has been even more unpleasant and less rational.
One idea that seems to unite many of my critics is that I am shamefully ignorant about how airline security actually works and about the means that terrorists can use to circumvent it. Many who were eager to educate me on these matters, or to find another way of declaring me an imbecile, recommended that I consult the work of Bruce Schneier. Whether well-intentioned or not, this was a useful piece of advice.
Bruce is an expert on security who has testified before Congress and has written and debated these issues for many major publications, including The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Forbes, Wired, Nature, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post. He has repeatedly argued against profiling.
I invited Bruce to set me straight about airline security on this page, and he very generously accepted. He is writing a direct response to my article, which I will publish tomorrow. We will then discuss our differences in a subsequent post.
One line in my article raised a tsunami of contempt for me in liberal and secular circles:
We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.
Once again, I included myself in this profile—but that did almost nothing to stem the accusations of racism.
Imagine that you work for the TSA and are executing a hand search of a traveler’s bag. He is a young man in his twenties and seems nervous. You notice that he is carrying a hardcover copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You pick up the book and ask him if he likes it. He now appears even more nervous than before. You notice something odd about the book—the dust jacket doesn’t seem to fit. You remove it and find a different book underneath. How do you feel about this traveler’s demeanor, and the likelihood of his being a terrorist, if the book is:
A. The Qur’an (in Arabic)
B. The Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide
C. Overcoming Impotence: A Leading Urologist Tells You Everything You Need to Know
D. Dianetics
If you care more about A than B, C, or D, as I think you should, you are guilty of religious profiling (and calling it “behavioral profiling” doesn’t change this fact).
The funny thing about my “racism” is that I would probably be more concerned if the young man in this example were light-skinned, like me, than Middle Eastern. Why? Because he would have had to make a great effort to learn Arabic. Is there anything intrinsically sinister about learning Arabic? No. I wish I knew Arabic. But it is one more detail that fits the profile of someone who is deeply committed to the worldview of Islam and disposed to conceal that fact. Are all such people terrorists? Of course not. But every person who attempts to blow himself up on an airplane, now or in the foreseeable future, is likely to come from this group. Of course, if that changes, we should alter our view of security accordingly. If the Ku Klux Klan were to declare a broader war on civilization and begin a campaign of suicide bombings, we would have to keep an eye on that profile too (and being nonwhite or Jewish would help smooth your path through security).
In trying to understand the reaction to my essay, I think I have uncovered most of the assumptions at work in the minds of my critics. I believe that every one of these assumptions is false. To my surprise, a few people who have a reputation for being very intelligent, such as the biologist-blogger PZ Myers, appear to believe all of them:
1. Terrorism is just terrorism—there is nothing special about jihadists as a group, or suicide bombing as a tactic. When thinking about airline security, therefore, it makes perfect sense to put forward Timothy McVeigh (a non-Muslim terrorist) as an example of why any focus on Muslims is wrongheaded.
2. Furthermore, there is no link between Islam and suicidal terrorism.
3. Thus, any focus on the Muslim community is a sign of prejudice against dark-skinned people, Arabs, foreigners, or some other beleaguered minority.
4. And, in any case, it is impossible to tell whether someone is likely to be Muslim in the first place—there is no such thing as “looking Muslim” or “not looking Muslim.”
5. Focusing on people who could conceivably be Muslim would require ugly infringements of civil liberties—separate lines for dark-skinned people at the airport, for instance.
6. It would also allow terrorists to find another path through security—such as recruiting 80-year-old women from Okinawa to do their suicidal dirty work (though #4 tells us that there is no such thing as “looking Muslim,” so 80-year-old women from Okinawa look no less Muslim than anyone else). Random searches are actually more prudent than targeted ones because terrorists cannot game a random system.
7. And focusing on Muslims would prove so offensive to the Muslim community worldwide that it could increase Muslim support for terrorism (though #2 assures us that nothing about Islam makes this more likely than it would otherwise be; any group could be expected to support suicidal terrorism in response to being profiled).
8. If we had the resources, we would follow the Israeli approach to airline security, wherein no one is profiled on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, or gender. Rather, the Israelis attend only to a person’s behavior at the airport. “Behavioral profiling” is logically and empirically distinct from other sorts of profiling, and we should practice it alone.
The only assumptions on this list that stand a chance of being true are #6 and #7. Bruce Schneier appears to be very fond of #6, and I trust we will hear more from him about how terrorists can successfully game any system that profiles. But I don’t buy this argument, at least not yet, for reasons that we will probably discuss.
Assumption #7 does strike me as possible, though not likely. But this is just a statement about how terrifying Muslims have become worldwide: Don’t draw cartoons of their Prophet, or they’ll kill you. Don’t write a novel that could be considered blasphemous, or they’ll kill you. Don’t criticize their treatment of women, or they’ll kill you. Don’t leave the religion and publicly disavow it, or they’ll kill you. Don’t burn a Qur’an, or they’ll kill you. And if their vicious intolerance of civil discourse causes you to profile them at the airport, well, some who would not have otherwise thought to kill you will grow more insular and radicalized and, in the end, they will kill you too. I agree that a concern about alienating the Muslim community isn’t absurd—we desperately need Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement (i.e., to help profile within their own community)—but I’m not worried about creating more jihadists by simply taking intelligent steps to keep them off airplanes.
The Israelis have had a spotless record of airline security since 1972. It is widely imagined that they would never be so stupid as to profile people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. But this is just a pious fantasy. The Israelis have well-trained screeners who use all the information they can possibly glean to mitigate the risk of terrorism. Racial and ethnic profiling appears to be central to their process. I agree with many of my critics that we should emulate the Israeli approach insofar as it is possible. That would require smart, well-trained screeners who are empowered to use their discretion (i.e., to profile).
I have discovered that most secular liberals are quite unwilling to think in any detail about the threat we face in our “war on terror.” For instance, why should we be especially concerned about suicide bombing? Because it is much harder to prevent and tends to be much more destructive than ordinary bombing. People who want to get safely home after committing an act of terrorism are significantly restricted in what they can do, and they can be deterred in ways that aspiring martyrs cannot. Anyone determined to board an airplane and destroy it in flight is, by definition, a suicide bomber.
In my previous article, I linked to videos of young children being searched by the TSA (like this one). Ask yourself, What are TSA screeners doing when they search a toddler in this way? They are wondering whether the adults accompanying this child have decided to murder him along with everyone else in sight. Who would do such a thing? As it turns out, such people exist. Ask yourself, What percentage of these people are Muslim?
Some readers might think that this question would be difficult or impossible to answer. Let’s try another, then: What percentage of porn stars are also theoretical physicists? Is this a hard question for which to give a ballpark answer? No. In fact, I would be willing to bet my life that I could get within 10 percentage points of the exact figure without doing any research—and the same holds for the question about using children as bombs on airplanes in the year 2012. It is possible to make educated guesses of this kind with a high degree of confidence. In the context of airport security, this is “profiling” by another name.
The most pernicious and uncharitable way of parsing my remarks about Islam is to say that I believe that most (or all) Muslims are evil. The truth is, I don’t necessarily believe that any Muslims are evil—even jihadists. And this is what I find so troubling about the doctrine of Islam. Are most jihadists psychopaths devoid of empathy? I see no reason to think so. If you believe that the creator of the universe wants you to wage jihad against infidels, I think you can be perfectly healthy in psychological terms while becoming a suicide bomber. Secularists who doubt this seem to be the ones devoid of empathy, in fact: They are unwilling or unable to see the world through the eyes of our enemies—even when our enemies tell us, ad nauseam, exactly how they see the world. The most dangerous failing of secularism (and of moderate religion) is that its adherents cannot seem to grasp that some people really believe martyrdom is a path to Paradise.
Within a few hours of publishing “In Defense of Profiling,” I had lunch with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of my favorite people on earth. (Of course, I told her that I thought she should be profiled at the airport, and we had a good laugh about my “racism.”) What defenders of Islam refuse to acknowledge is that critics of this religion—especially those, like Ayaan, who were once Muslim and are now guilty of apostasy—have security concerns of a sort that critics of Judaism or Christianity haven’t had for centuries. Charges of “Islamophobia” in this context are nothing more than liberal masochism and denial. And the most ominous sign coming from the moderate Muslim community at this moment is that the majority of its members continue to deny that Islam warrants any special concern.
To see how the denial of the obvious has become a new article of faith for secular liberals, consider the response I received from Chris Stedman. In an article published in The Huffington Post, Stedman urged me to visit a mosque with him. This invitation was much celebrated online. Many people appear to believe that the remedy for my bigotry is for me to meet real Muslims—as though I have never met Muslims or doubted for a moment that most Muslims living in America are really nice people. This misses the point entirely.
Stedman’s article is worth reading. It is well written and earnest, and it reveals just how confused my fellow liberals are about Islam. Stedman is a gay, atheist, interfaith activist. As one person wrote on Twitter (@GadSaad)—“Wear a t-shirt stating ‘There is no God and I am Gay’ in Islamic countries and report back on your experiences.” This may seem like a cheap shot. It isn’t.
Consider the following challenge Stedman leveled at me:
An argument I frequently hear from atheists is that if moderate Muslims really exist, they need to speak out more. The problem is that Muslims are speaking out against extremists who cite Islam as their inspiration. Need some examples? There. Are. So. Many. That. I. Can’t. Link. To. Them. All. (But those eleven are a good start.)”
This is a clever way to make the point—just hammer me with links and your readers will conclude that there is abundant evidence for Muslim moderation that I’ve ignored. Well, I clicked the first link and found the following within (I’m not kidding) 45 seconds:
In a section titled “Fatwas & Formal Statements by Muslim Scholars and by Muslim Organizations,” we find Abdullah, Sh. M. Nur, FCNA (U.S.) illuminating the fine points of “minority rights & apostasy” under Islam. After some genuinely misleading commentary on the general message of the Qur’an regarding freedom of belief, we find the following statement about apostasy (which, again, applies to my close friend Ayaan):
There are scholars who distinguish between apostasy on a personal level, which is not punishable by death, and apostasy that is accompanied by what we call today high treason, in which case the punishment is for high treason, not for apostasy.
However, some scholars do not distinguish between the two types. The issue pertains to the way of interpreting texts in the Qur’an and the Hadith that deal with that subject. A detailed answer to this question requires many more pages and Allah willing it will be made available in the future…. [A]nyone has the right to choose to convert to Islam or keep practicing his faith. But once a person converts to Islam, he should practice his faith and never change it. If he changes it, it is a major sin. Whether it is punishable by Islamic law is a debatable matter among Muslim scholars. Some believe he should be punished because they count this crime as betrayal, while others say that if someone changes his faith and does not challenge the Islamic society, they consider it a private matter between him and Allah and it is not punishable by the Islamic faith according to their view. However, both opinions agree that it is a sin punishable by Allah and that it is the worst form of sin.
On a website whose purpose is to bear witness to Muslim moderation, we learn that it is a matter of consensus that an apostate should be killed if he or she speaks publicly against the faith. I’m afraid I knew that already. Do I really need to follow the other 10 links?
Finally, most of my critics seem unable to imagine that the Muslim community in the West could ever be honest about the reality of airport security. For a glimpse of what such honesty might look like, consider the following email I received in response to my last blog post:
Sam,
I’m an attorney in a very large firm here in the U.S. I’ve spent a good deal of my time over the past three years traveling for various cases and the airport has become a second home to me. I’m also constantly profiled. But not just at the airports, in multiple other locations and in various different ways.
When I travel, however, especially by plane, I want to feel safe. I do not want to be treated poorly, but if I absolutely had to choose, I’d opt for poor treatment over death-by-suicide-bomber. Thankfully, I haven’t had to choose and I’ve actually received neither (though there is one incident at the Philly airport I could have done without). The TSA does not harass me, but they do their job properly. To properly do their job, they need to keep an eye out and screen those who represent the most urgent, or at least the most obvious, threats. Because of my name, and my family background if I’m honest, I stand out as a likely candidate. Upon seeing me and placing a face with my name (Aamir Abbasi), my appearance does not scream “terrorist,” but it does not put your concerns to rest—I’m physically capable of being a threat and do not have the demeanor to assure one that I am not a threat.
However, I’m not a threat and I know this perfectly well, as do all my friends and co-workers. But if the authorities don’t take a closer look at me than the elderly woman you have pictured on your blog, they are surely not doing their job well. Based on the few minutes the TSA has to scrutinize me, there really is no way to determine that I am not a terrorist, and as you correctly point out, most terrorists we need to concern ourselves with in the U.S. at this particular time in history are Muslim terrorists.
Profiling is just common sense put into practice. To say otherwise demonstrates nothing more than a deluded view of political correctness. I’m sure your article has not helped with your popularity, but these difficult-to-swallow truths need [to be] advocated by someone. So, thanks.
Aamir Abbasi
I must say, receiving emails like this comes as a relief when my fellow secularists are falling all over themselves for a chance to put their feet in my mouth.
In the May 2012 edition of the New Humanist Podcast, we have interviews with two of the contributors to the May/June issue of New Humanist, plus news of a fantastic night of comedy in association with the Helen Bamber Foundation.
First up is Alom Shaha, author of the forthcoming Young Atheist's Handbook, and cover star of the latest issue of New Humanist (01:15). Speaking to New Humanist editor Caspar Melville, Alom discusses growing up as a Muslim in south London's Bangladeshi community, explains how the death of his parents was the catalyst for becoming open about his loss of faith, and argues that atheist communities need to do more to support non-believers from non-white, minority religious backgrounds.
Next, Caspar speaks to comedian Maureen Younger about the forthcoming comedy benefit show Crying with Laughter (12:36). Held in support of the Helen Bamber Foundation, which fights for the victims of torture and human trafficking, Crying with Laughter features an all-women line-up, including Jo Brand, Jenny Eclair and Shazia Mirza. In the podcast, Maureen discusses the history of the show and the work of the Foundation, as well as the role of women in the often male-dominated world of stand-up comedy. Crying with Laughter takes place on Sunday 20 May at the Charing Cross Theatre in London - see the theatre website for tickets.
Finally, we speak to Georgetown University professor Jacques Berlinerblau, author of the forthcoming How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom (19:20). In the May/June New Humanist, Jacques argues that American secularism is in grave danger, and in the podcast we ask him to explain why he thinks this, tell us who's to blame, and suggest some ways to fix it.
To listen to the podcast, which is just over 35 minutes long, use the player below, subscribe via RSS or email, or download the full file via our podcast page,
where you can also find the full archive of the podcasts we published
during 2008-9. We're also on iTunes - just search for "New Humanist" in
the store and select the podcast subtitled "The podcast for godless
people".
Published by noreply@blogger.com (Paul Sims)
on Fri 04 May 15:22:00
Richard J. Davidson is the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, and Founder and Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has published more than 275 scientific papers, many chapters and reviews, and edited 13 books. He is the author of the new book (with Sharon Begley) The Emotional Life of Your Brain. Richie (as he is known to his friends) has done more to bring the study of mental well-being into the 21st century than anyone I can think of. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about his work.
***
Can you briefly summarize your work up to this point?
The research I summarize in my book The Emotional Life of Your Brain is about emotional styles—differences among people in how they respond to emotional challenges. From quite early on in my career, there were two critical observations that came to form the core of my subsequent life’s work. The first observation is that the most salient characteristic of emotion in people is the fact that each person responds differently to life’s slings and arrows. Each of us is unique in our emotional make-up and this individuality determines why some people are resilient and others vulnerable, why some have high levels of well-being despite objective adversity while others decompensate rapidly in the response to the slightest setback.
The second observation came from the great fortune I had early in my career to be around some remarkable people. They were remarkable not because of their academic or professional achievements, but rather because of their demeanor, really because of their emotional style. These were extremely kind and generous people. They were very attentive, and when I was in their presence I felt as if I was the sole and complete focus of all of their attention. They were people that I found myself wishing to be around more. And I learned that one thing all of these people had in common was a regular practice of meditation. And I asked them if they were like that all of their lives and they assured me they were not, but rather that these qualities had been nurtured and cultivated by their meditative practices.
It wasn’t until many years later that I encountered neuroplasticity and recognized that the mechanisms of neuroplasticity were an organizing framework for understanding how emotional styles could be transformed. While they were quite stable over time in most adults, they could still be changed through systematic practice of specific mental exercises. In a very real and concrete sense, we could change our brains by transforming our minds. And there was no realm more important for that to occur than emotion. For it is so that our emotional styles play an incredibly important role in determining who will be vulnerable to psychopathology and who will not be. Emotional styles are also critical in our physical health. Mental and physical well-being are inextricably linked.
What is the focus of your new book?
In the book I describe 6 emotional styles that are rooted in basic neuroscientific research. The 6 styles are:
1. Resilience: How rapidly or slowly do you recover from adversity?
2. Outlook: How long does positive emotion persist following a joyful event?
3. Social Intuition: How accurate are you in detecting the non-verbal social cues of others?
4. Context: Do you regulate your emotion in a context-sensitive fashion?
5. Self-Awareness: How aware are you of your own bodily signals that constitute emotion?
6. Attention: How focused or scattered in your attention?
I did not decide one day to figure out how many emotional styles there were or to postulate which styles would make sense for humans to have. Rather, each of these styles has arisen inductively from the large corpus of research my colleagues and I have conducted using rigorous neuroscientific methods over the past 30 years. They are not the obvious styles that correspond to well-known personality types such as introversion and extraversion. But, as I explain in my book, they can explain the constituents of commonly found personality types.
The fact that they are grounded in neural systems provides important clues as to how each style affects our emotional behavior and how the styles can also impact downstream bodily systems important for physical health.
How much of a person’s emotional style is conscious?
Many aspects of emotional style are not conscious. They constitute emotional habits that largely proceed in the absence of awareness. For example, most of us are rarely aware of how long negative emotion persists following a stressful event. The self-awareness style underscores the fact that there are many bodily processes that contribute to emotion of which we may be unaware. One important motivation for me in writing this book is to bring into awareness habits of mind that previously were not conscious. By describing the nature of emotional styles and their underlying brain bases, it is my fervent aspiration that it will help others to recognize emotional patterns in themselves and such awareness is the first, and often most important, step in producing change. So if there are aspects of your emotional style that you wish to change, first becoming aware of these components of your mind is a key ingredient to change. In the book, I offer simple questionnaires you can take for each of the 6 emotional styles to give you an idea of where you fall on each of the 6 dimensions. And I also offer simple strategies to change your emotional styles should you wish to do so. These strategies are derived from ancient meditation practices and modern scientific approaches. Together, they constitute what I’ve called “neurally-inspired behavioral interventions”: Interventions that are derived from some understanding of the brain and utilize simple behavioral or mental strategies that offer the prospect of transforming your mind and thereby changing your brain. In the book I show that we can all take more responsibility for our own brains and intentionally shape our brains in a more positive way.
In my experience, the topic of meditation still provokes skepticism among scientists and secularists. Can you describe what you mean by “meditation” and then tell us why you think this practice is relevant to our understanding of the human mind?
One definition of the word “meditation’ in Sanskrit is “familiarization.” And in a key sense the family of mental practices that constitute meditation can be thought of as strategies to familiarize a person with her own mind. Meditation in this sense can help to cleanse the interior lenses of perception so that we can see our own minds with greater clarity. Particularly for those who are students of the mind, this practice can be enormously informative in providing an inner or phenomenological view that is different from that provided by the objective methods of science. In other senses, meditation refers to mental practices that can be used to cultivate attention and emotion regulation. For example, some practices involve focusing attention on breathing and returning the attention to breathing each time a person notices that her mind has wandered. In this way, gradually over time, selective attention can be improved. The term “mindfulness meditation” refers to a form of meditation during which practitioners are instructed to pay attention, on purpose and non-judgmentally. The process of learning to attend nonjudgmentally can gradually transform one’s emotional response to stimuli such that we can learn to simply observe our minds in response to stimuli that might provoke either negative or positive emotion without being swept up in these emotions. This does not mean that our emotional intensity diminishes. It simply means that our emotions do not perseverate. If we encounter an unpleasant situation, we might experience a transient increase in negative emotions but they do not persist beyond the situation.
Scientific research has now established that certain forms of meditation have the types of effects described and underscore their relevance for understanding the human mind. Such work establishes that the mind is more “plastic” than we had assumed in scientific research. By plastic we mean that it is capable of transformation. These findings invite the view that many qualities that we regarded as relatively fixed, such as one’s levels of happiness and well-being, are best regarded as the product of skills that can be enhanced through training.
Much has been written about how insulting and depressing it is, more than a decade after the events of 9/11, to be met by “security theater” at our nation’s airports. The current system appears so inane that one hopes it really is a sham, concealing more-ingenious intrusions into our privacy. The spirit of political correctness hangs over the whole enterprise like the Angel of Death—indeed, more closely than death, or than the actual fear of terrorism. And political correctness requires that TSA employees direct the spotlight of their attention at random—or appear to do so—while making rote use of irrational procedures and dubious technology.
Although I don’t think I look like a jihadi, or like a man pretending not to be one, I do not mean to suggest that a person like me should be exempt from scrutiny. But other travelers fit the profile far less than I do. One glance at these innocents reveals that they are no more likely to be terrorists than walruses in disguise. I make it a point to notice such people while queuing for security at the airport, just to see what sort of treatment they receive at the hands of the TSA.
While leaving JFK last week, I found myself standing in line behind an elderly couple who couldn’t have been less threatening had they been already dead and boarding in their coffins. I would have bet my life that they were not waging jihad. Both appeared to be in their mid-eighties and infirm. The woman rode in a wheelchair attended by an airport employee as her husband struggled to comply with TSA regulations—removing various items from their luggage, arranging them in separate bins, and loading the bins and bags onto the conveyor belt bound for x-ray.
After much preparation, the couple proceeded toward the body scanner, only to encounter resistance. It seems that they had neglected to take off their shoes. A pair of TSA screeners stepped forward to prevent this dangerous breach of security—removing what appeared to be orthopedic footwear from both the woman in the wheelchair and the man now staggering at her side. This imposed obvious stress on two harmless and bewildered people and caused considerable delay for everyone in my line. I turned to see if anyone else was amazed by such a perversion of vigilance. The man behind me, who could have played the villain in a Bollywood film, looked unconcerned.
I have noticed such incongruities before. In fact, my wife and I once accidentally used a bag for carry-on in which I had once stored a handgun—and passed through three airport checkpoints with nearly 75 rounds of 9 mm ammunition. While we were inadvertently smuggling bullets, one TSA screener had the presence of mind to escort a terrified three-year-old away from her parents so that he could remove her sandals (sandals!). Presumably, a scanner that had just missed 2.5 pounds of ammunition would determine whether these objects were the most clever bombs ever wrought. Needless to say, a glance at the girl’s family was all one needed to know that they hadn’t rigged her to explode. (The infuriating scene played out very much like this one.)
Is there nothing we can do to stop this tyranny of fairness? Some semblance of fairness makes sense—and, needless to say, everyone’s bags should be screened, if only because it is possible to put a bomb in someone else’s luggage. But the TSA has a finite amount of attention: Every moment spent frisking the Mormon Tabernacle Choir subtracts from the scrutiny paid to more likely threats. Who could fail to understand this?
Imagine how fatuous it would be to fight a war against the IRA and yet refuse to profile the Irish? And yet this is how we seem to be fighting our war against Islamic terrorism.
Granted, I haven’t had to endure the experience of being continually profiled. No doubt it would be frustrating. But if someone who looked vaguely like Ben Stiller were wanted for crimes against humanity, I would understand if I turned a few heads at the airport. However, if I were forced to wait in line behind a sham search of everyone else, I would surely resent this additional theft of my time.
We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it. And, again, I wouldn’t put someone who looks like me entirely outside the bull’s-eye (after all, what would Adam Gadahn look like if he cleaned himself up?) But there are people who do not stand a chance of being jihadists, and TSA screeners can know this at a glance.
Needless to say, a devout Muslim should be free to show up at the airport dressed like Osama bin Laden, and his wives should be free to wear burqas. But if their goal is simply to travel safely and efficiently, wouldn’t they, too, want a system that notices people like themselves? At a minimum, wouldn’t they want a system that anti-profiles—applying the minimum of attention to people who obviously pose no threat?
Watch some of the TSA screening videos on YouTube—like this one—and then imagine how this infernal stupidity will appear if we ever suffer another terrorist incident involving an airplane.
Addendum (5/1/12):
Many readers found this blog post stunning for its lack of sensitivity. The article has been called “racist,” “dreadful,” “sickening,” “appalling,” “frighteningly ignorant,” etc. by (former) fans who profess to have loved everything I’ve written until this moment. I find this reaction difficult to understand. Of course, anyone who imagines that there is no link between Islam and suicidal terrorism might object to what I’ve written here, but I say far more offensive things about Islam in The End of Faith and in many of my essays and lectures.
In any case, it is simply a fact that, in the year 2012, suicidal terrorism is overwhelmingly a Muslim phenomenon. If you grant this, it follows that applying equal scrutiny to Mennonites would be a dangerous waste of time.
I suspect that it will surprise neither my fans nor my critics that I view the furor over this article to be symptomatic of the very political correctness that I decry in it. However, it seems that when one speaks candidly about the problem of Islam misunderstandings easily multiply. So I’d like to clarify a couple of points here:
1. When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest. It is the charm of political correctness that it blends these sins against reasonableness so seamlessly. We are paying a very high price for this obscurantism—and the price could grow much higher in an instant. We have limited resources, and every moment spent searching a woman like the one pictured above, or the children seen in the linked videos, is a moment in which someone or something else goes unobserved.
2. There is no conflict between what I have written here and “behavioral profiling” or other forms of threat detection. And if we can catch terrorists before they reach the airport, I am all for it. But the methods we use to do this tend to be even more focused and invasive (and, therefore, offensive) than profiling done by the TSA. Many readers who were horrified by my article seem to believe that there is nothing wrong with “gathering intelligence.” One wonders just how they think that is done.
There may be interesting arguments against profiling (or anti-profiling of the sort I recommend here), but I haven’t noticed any amid the torrents of criticism I’ve received thus far. If there is an expert on airline security who wants to set me straight, I am happy to offer this page as a forum.
I forgot to post this column up last year. It’s a fun one: the Department for Communities and Local Government have produced a truly farcical piece of evidence, and promoted it very hard, claiming it as good stats. I noticed the column was missing today, because Private Eye have published on the same report in [...]
James Ball sent me the data for the Russian election vote counts this morning and asked me to test whether it deviates from Benford’s law, a test that can give a hint at whether numbers are the product of fraud. Posted below is my analysis, and also a check for last digit preference, which is [...]
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 9 July 2011 Since I was a teenager, whenever I have a pivotal life event coming – an exam, or an interview – I perform a ritual. I sit cross-legged on the floor, and I imagine an enormous golden beam of energy coming out of my arse. I picture this anal [...]
Here’s an interesting problem with data analysis in general, and so, by extension, data journalism: you have to be careful about assuming that the numbers you’ve got access to… really do reflect the underlying phenomena you’re trying to investigate. Today’s Guardian has a story, “Antidepressant use in England soars“. It’s much more overstated in the [...]
Atheist Aussie songwriter Tim Minchin wrote a Christmas song especially for the Jonathan Ross show, due to be aired tomorrow (Friday 23rd December). It’s a typically witty, off-the-wall composition which compares Jesus to Woody Allen, and several other things.
Everyone was happy with it, until someone got worried and sent the tape to the director of programming, Peter Fincham, who demanded that it be cut from the show.
He did this because he’s scared of the ranty, shit-stirring, right-wing press, and of the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way.
Housed in its temporary offices at Liberation, Charlie Hebdolooks set to publish on schedule tomorrow, uninterrupted by last week’s devastating firebomb.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in support of the satirical weekly on Sunday.
Hebdo demo: Support for the magazine has been strong this time round
The president of SOS Racism was among the supporters, declaring that
In a democracy, the right to blaspheme is absolute.
Editor “Charb” said,
We need a level playing field. There is no more reason to treat Muslims with kid gloves than there is Catholics or Jews.
Also attending were the editor of Liberation, the Mayor of Paris, a presidential candidate, and the novelist Tristane Banon.
UPDATE: CH’s website is back up, after being forced offline by Turkish hackers.
Briefly: I thought this was a pricing error, but it turns out it’s deliberate, so… My book is £2.49 on Kindle for the next week or so. When it’s this cheap you might as well use it to test the Kindle app on your phone (I’m a massive Kindle dork, it helps me get more [...]
The French satirical paper has reacted defiantly to the firebombing of its offices by teaming up with Liberationto produce a special supplement which reproduces the controversial images. The 4-page wraparound was distributed with Thursday’s edition of the daily newspaper.
"Soft sharia": The four-page supplement which accompanied Thursday's Liberation
The staff of Charlie Hebdo insisted on their “right to poke fun”, and the editor, Stephane Charbonnier, said in an article contained in the extra:
We thought the lines had moved and that maybe there would be more respect for our satirical work, our right to mock. Freedom to have a good laugh is as important as freedom of speech.
Liberation‘s editor, Nicolas Demorand, said his paper’s offices were opened to Charlie Hebdo staff as “a basic gesture of solidarity”.
They will also print an extra 175,000 copies of Wednesday’s edition of Charlie Hebdo, as the initial print run of 75,000 sold out quickly.
The offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been firebombed, causing extensive damage, because the latest edition, entitled Charia Hebdo, carried a cartoon of Mohammed on the cover.
Charlie's Law: "100 lashes of the whip if you don't die laughing"
A single petrol bomb was thrown through the window at approximately 3am. There were no injuries.
This is not the first time Charlie Hebdo has been on the receiving end of Muslim rage. MWW covered extensively the protests, and the trial and acquittal of its editor Philippe Val which followed the publication of this special edition:
Too true: "It's hard being loved by idiots" says Mo on the cover of this Feb 2006 edition
A friend linked me to this. I was a sobbing mess within the first minute. I sometimes wonder why I feel such a strong kinship to the LGBT community, and I think it’s because I’ve been through the same thing that many of them have. So I watched this video and I cried, because, as [...]
UPDATE #1: I got my domain back! Many thanks to Kurtis for the pleasant surprise: So I stumbled upon your blog, really liked what I saw, read that you had drama with the domain name owner, bought it, and forwarded it here. It should work again in a matter of seconds. I am an atheist [...]
Chadwell writes: I’m a 16 year old in highschool and I guess my natural cynicism lead me to question the dogma and ignorance of religion. I was a christian but I just figured that why would god send the only salvation to man kind to a single area and practically turn his all-mighty back on [...]
Michael asks: I am 14. I was raised Catholic, and until about a week ago I was a firm believer. But last week I began to think. And the more I thought, the more it didn’t make sense. I’m pretty confident at this point that I don’t believe in God, and I’m pretty sure I’m [...]
Let’s start at the end: how in the name of all that’s reasonable is the Catholic church still in existence? If it were a decent sized country rather than an undemocratic city state, elections or armed revolt would have put paid to it by now. Instead, through the promise of a fictional fiery doom in a hypothetical afterlife, it’s maintained its iron grip on the gullible and superstitious worldwide.
I’ll come clean here. I’m what can best be described as a “secular catholic”. Father’s side was Irish, the whiskey consumption, “for medicinal purposes”, pretty high and no family event complete without someone getting stretchered out after a thump on the nose. Thanks to my mum however, I remained untainted by even a baptism. Score! What I’m saying is that they’re lovely people, but brainwashed by a corrupt, and indeed perverted organisation.
It turns out, that if you live in the UK, you’re going to be contributing around £20 million of your hard earned squids on the pope’s visit. Luckily there’s the iPhone app for that. I mean a facebook group and petitions to sign if you’d rather that dosh went on something useful like say, cancer drugs or decent protection for our boys in Iraq. Works whichever side of the fence you’re on, right? Money better spent.
The deliciously vitriolic Christopher Hitchens had a rather nice piece in Slate magazine under the heading “The pope’s entire career has the stench of evil about it” quoting the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth as saying “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”. Well, yes, but does he wear a dress and a cock-shaped hat?
At this point I’d like to give a shout out to the tenuously incumbent president of Spain, Zapatero, who has been doing his best to roll back the Inquisition and bring Spain kicking and screaming into a twenty-mumbleth century: contraception, abortion all the good stuff we take for granted and THEY don’t want you to have. Top bloke. Deserves our support.
Of course, they can’t help trying to interfere in every little part of our lives to the point where they’d rather take their ball away than actually help children in need. A catholic adoption agency would rather close than allow homosexuals to adopt. Maybe they’re worried the children will catch gay and not reproduce?
And I’ll leave you with some lovely poetry on the subject from Digital Cuttlefishwho has a lot more where this came from!
I thought I saw an atheist
In leather, black, with spikes
Who tore apart a bible (that’s
The sort of thing he likes)
A blasphemous expression, which
The Polish nation fears–
Because he tore some paper, now
A man may serve two years.
I thought I saw a holy man
Whose faith was being tested;
He had to bear the screams of all
The children he’d molested.
With such a dreadful burden, though,
Remained a ray of hope:
The law, at least, acknowledged his
Protection by the Pope.
I thought there might be justice, and
I hoped it would prevail.
The man who tore some paper
Should not have to go to jail.
The man who tore through children–
He, a heartless, soulless shell,
Should be punished by the people–
He does not believe in Hell.
Hello, world! Wow, it’s almost been a year since I closed this blog. I’m writing this partly to see who would still notice anything new on a blog that’s been dead for a year (reveal yourselves, lurkers!), and partly because hey, I’m in a whole new chapter of my life now, and I actually have [...]
Here’s one for you: what would a woo-free winter festival look like? If we take out all that mythology involving assorted supernatural happenings, what are we left with?
For starters, we get to keep the tree and the yule log. Winter feasting is deffo a keeper. You can stuff your turkey (arf) but the rest of it is great, even the sprouts. Goose would work, a crispy something of pork maybe or some Bambi. Just something with leftovers.
I can leave the mass-TV but a good fillum uring digestion is good. A familial forced march in the locale as a morale boost before returning to attack, well, anything else really.
Presents are good, but please, just little trinkets hand-made by starving artisans. Especially photographers.
Me, I’m pissing off and spending three weeks with some Taiwanese Buddhists.
But for you, what’s a keeper for your myth-free Winterval?
If you’re a geek, you know the story. Mandelson goes on holiday with the Geffen of the record companies, comes back and proposes a law that would let him personally, on the fly, make up laws, fine people and put them in jail. Without trial. This has become the Digital Economy Bill. It actually does fuck all for those of us who work in this economy.
The peroxiredoxin active site is highly conserved in all domains of life. Image: Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11088
Say what you will about Bristol Palin, she’s a quick study. It didn’t take her long to master the ways of her elders on the censorious right and decide that personal circumstance and past error needn’t prevent someone from claiming righteous leadership. Uncle Rush must be proud.
And finally, we get to the most ludicrous of them all: Nergal of the death metal band Behemoth is 
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