21st June 2008, 11:19 pm
By David Annis
Article ID: 1233
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Evolution can easily be observed in the laboratory and in the world around us. We can see moths evolve their coloring to match the color of soot that covers their habitat, watch bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance in hospitals, and my favorite variety of grapefruit (that’s Rio Star) was made by scientists who exposed seeds to radiation to increase the mutation rate. In the face of such overwhelming evidence - including knowing the exact DNA changes effecting such change - it is impossible for the creationists to deny evolution with a straight face.
Continue reading ‘Macro-evolution observed in the laboratory’ »
18th June 2008, 09:41 pm
By David Annis
Article ID: 1232
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The French philosopher Blaise Pascal made a famous argument, today called “Pascal’s Wager“. It says: A person cannot prove God’s existence through reason. Since by believing in God you have nothing to lose - and potentially everything to gain - you should behave and believe as if that God exists.
Continue reading ‘Pascal’s Wager: gambling with an immoral god’ »
11th June 2008, 11:33 pm
By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1231
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Intelligent Design has come to Michigan. Michigan is my home state, so this gives me motivation to get off my big fat brain and do some research. And I have a child who will be entering the Michigan school system soon. That gives me motivation to write.
Continue reading ‘Intelligent Design in Michigan’ »
9th June 2008, 11:30 pm
By Rodrigo Neely
Article ID: 1230
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Since becoming a dedicated and pro-active skeptic, I have observed some troubling trends. One is the under-representation of women. I submit that all of my data on this issue is anecdotal. But some of my anecdotes are pretty compelling. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I live, I’m a member of the local skeptic group, the North Texas Skeptics. I’m also the president of a skeptical club at my university. In these two areas I have seen about 1 woman for every 10 men.
Continue reading ‘Women in skepticism’ »
4th June 2008, 10:16 pm
By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1229
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In writing this article, I tried to use ten percent of my brain. I really did. But I got stuck pretty fast on the method of how to actually use only ten percent of my brain. There seem to be many ways to go about it. For example, I could just think this article in my head, and only write down every tenth word. But the results would be incomprehensible. I could decrease my writing quality to 10% of its usual stellar technique. But that would be annoying for any future readers. I could remove 90% of my writing tools, and type this article using only one finger. But that would just slow me down significantly, when I’d be getting the same final result. Wait: I could encode the characters in this article into their base-10 ASCII equivalents. I’d then take the resulting numeric string and increase its value by a factor of 10, then convert the results back from ASCII into plain text. Mathematical perfection. Granted, it would be unreadable mathematical perfection. That’s counterintuitive to the purpose of Digital Bits Skeptic, so maybe that’s not the best idea.
Continue reading ‘The ten percent of the brain myth: a fractional truth’ »
29th May 2008, 09:59 pm
By ScienceReasonRationality.blogspot.com
Article ID: 1228
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Do you want to learn how to knock out an opponent without touching them? How about learning the art of fighting ghosts with the power of “The Force“? Well, here’s your chance! Japan’s Yanagi Ryuken can teach you now. He holds a 10th degree black belt in five traditional martial arts, and his system is based on martial arts like Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu and spiritual paths like Qigong. Yanagi Ryuken supposedly won over 200 Vale Tudo competitions (these are “anything goes” fights, involving unarmed combat and minimal rules). According to the author of the video below, you need 500,000 yen (about $5,000 USD) in order to get a chance to fight with Yanagi Ryuken. However, if you win the fight, Yanagi Ryuken will pay you back double: 1,000,000 yen ($10,000 USD)! Good deal, right?
Continue reading ‘The “Bullshido” of martial arts and no-touch knockouts’ »
19th May 2008, 10:35 pm
By David Annis
Article ID: 1226
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In the late 1850s, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace introduced the world to the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is a scientific hypothesis that describes how species descended from a common ancestor, diversifying to produce the myriad species that we see today.
Continue reading ‘Evolution makes testable predictions’ »
15th May 2008, 04:54 pm
By Sebastian J
Article ID: 1225
Introduction
If you visit religious or sceptical debate forums, then you may have come across terms such as “negative atheism” or “weak atheism”. Likewise, you may have read some Internet personality profess that she does not deny the existence of God; instead, she does not believe that God exists or that she lacks a belief in God. You may have asked yourself: “What the heck is the difference?!” Well, casually speaking, there is often no difference between denying a proposition and not believing a proposition. In fact, we often use the positions of denial and not believing a proposition as saying one and the same thing. Alas, this usage is not an accurate reflection of contemporary belief logic. The purpose of this article is to help explain why. I also examine some criticisms of negative atheism, and appropriate responses.
Continue reading ‘A primer on negative (weak) atheism’ »
12th May 2008, 08:48 pm
By M Parrott
Article ID: 1224
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Homeopathy finds its origins in the 18th century with a German named Samuel Hahnemann (we won’t address the honour of his doctorate). This was a time when blood-letting, leeches, mercury and arsenic were utilised in medical practice. Mr. Hahnemann’s idea was to create a less-harsh form of medicine straying away from the dangerous medicines of the day. This seems a good idea. A shame it doesn’t work. We’ll come back to him later.
Continue reading ‘Homeopathy: Diluted and deluded’ »
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