Basslines to Baselines

This previwe for Joel Surnow’s “The 1/2 Hour News Hour” looks hysterically weak.

The “conservative” answer to the Daily Show spirals into unintentional self parody so quickly I feel like I’m watching something created by - not in response to - Jon Stewart.

Before they take this crap live let’s hope they’ll figure out that satire is about exploiting current events, not about trying desperately to cut-down Barack Obama. What makes the Daily Show work is the format is mocking the news first, and – since Stewart took over for Kilborn – politics and everything else second. Wait, I take that back, let’s hope they don’t forget it out and get canned after four episodes.

Since my friend Carl lent me Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion my mind has been primed for delving deeper into evolutionary theory. Last week I had the good fortune of finding myself at the Bell Museum’s Café Scientifique lecture/discussion series (held at the immaculate Varsity Theatre); the topic: Evolutionary Biology. The idea behind these events is to engage the public with scientific researchers in an informal way. A superb idea.
For a full report on the event I suggest Greg Laden’s blogpost. Suffice to say I had a blast. After the event Carl (who invited me in the first place) and I ran into the panelists and organizers at the Kitty Kat Club, which offered another layer of interaction to understand this volatile topic. I enjoyed it most when the discussion looked at the historical, social, political, and - to a lesser extent - philosophical, aspects of the topic. While I did learn new stuff about evolution, it was thankfully a discussion that did not get too technical.
To boil it down, the reoccurring theme was the evident divide between public understanding and scientific understanding. The mere fact that something in the vicinity of over 50% of the American population believes that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old (in accordance to a literal reading of the Bible) is somewhat of a shock. Of course put in perspective this is understandable, and needs to be understood or we’re kind of fucked.
A tangential Google search lead me to – of all people – Scott Adam’s blogpost about the subject of Intelligent Design and he offers a smart(-light-on-the-)ass point of view about why the public is not convinced by evolution. It’s a little more than coincidental that Adam’s post is in response to a blogpost by PZ Myers (I apologize for initially misspelling it: Meyers), one of the more outspoken panelists at the Café.
Myer’s could be the poster-child for scientists who should be shoed away whenever a layperson wants to know something about science. Don’t get me wrong, what little I know about the man I can say he’s well intentioned and is – above all else – intellectually genuine. But he’s got no tact, absolutely none for the uninitiated. To put it another way, scientists seem to lack the kind of communication skills needed to present science to the public – and who can blame them they probably should be doing other things. And yet we need this now more than ever.

How can we bridge this gap? Dilbert might be a good start.

It’s hard to find a hint of anger in Sam Harris’ voice when he and Reza Aslan debate ‘Religion and Reason’ as broadcast on CSPAN’s BookTV. ( web / real video )

Whereas some of Harris’ debate partners can get a little sandpapery, puffing-out-their-chests trying and insulating their battered agurments with poor logic and weak statements propped up with self-important attitude. At least that’s what happened with Dennis Prager and Harris did a four-round exchange about faith for Jewcy.com.

To be fair, Sam Harris is not a gentle human being, but he’s not cruel either; at least not outside of the bounds of a healthy intellectual debate. He has the simple advantage of having impeccable rhetoric and reasoning.

Which leads to the question, does faith stand a chance against reason in any debate? Keep in mind that I don’t think that intellectual debates are the be-all-end-all of truth, just one useful tool for exploring an issue.

While grabbing a muffin at NCC today I happened across a flyer from a group called The Center for Food Safety concerning products made from and by cloned animals. I was a little more than shocked – and yet, not really – to read that the FDA is in the process of allowing the use of cloned animals in commerical products.

The FDA is taking public input on the matter till April 4th. After checking out a handful of the sources provided by CFS fact sheet it seemed smart to send a letter to the FDA (one of those auto-activist deals) to register my concern. The issues of genetical engineering are highly volitaile, but the CFS’ contentions about the dubious safety of these practices for animals and humans seem enough to advocate the postponement of commerical use.

Once the safety of the animal, consumer – and hey, why not the ecosystem too?! – are no longer lingering question marks it maybe be practical to allow cloning in the future, but I have low expectations that such developments will be implemented in a way that is holistically sustainable. I’ll still be eating my organic food thank you very much.

Marijuana Legalization – especially in the United States – is a matter of human rights.

After listening to this lecture by Eric Schlosser, I’m reminded of how any law-abiding rational citizen should be able to understand that marijuana is not a threat to society. The U.S. ‘War on Drugs’ is probably of the most wasteful expenditures of public money that I can think of – not only in the time & energy expended by ‘enforcing’ the often excessive measures, but also the cost to those who are penalized for the victimless crime of affecting their biochemistry in a reasonably safe way. The hypocrisy is staggering when you consider the facts.

In light of this I have made the conscious decision to add Schlosser’s book, Reefer Madness, to my reading list; Fast Food Nation was excellent so I anticapte another intruiging read.

Oh and in case you’re wondering… after trying pot on numerous occasions I can say I never really enjoyed it once. Those who know me already know how much I dislike being around smoking, of any kind. To put it bluntly I think marijuana smells funky, tastes like dirt, and is a little boring AND YET I cannot imagine why the government attempts to prevent people from using it. It takes no stoned-paranoia to see the ingrained, morally-bankrupt prejiduce that feeds this policy.

Topic Global Warming, is it real, what could the effects be
I tune in while a clip from ‘’An Inconvenient Truth” plays, following, the panel of experts try to spit out 100 words in the 45–60 seconds Larry will allow.
Talking Head One (worked in some capacity for the Weather Channel, also wrote a book about climate change) She stated that an overall change in climate will have definite changes for life on earth, though resisted being detailed – lacking doom & gloom I sense near palpable disappointment from Larry.
Head Two (Bill Nye Science Guy, serving on some committee for concerned science folk) more or less corroborated with the clip; as he gave straightforward scientific explanations Larry kept pouncing on the ends of his sentences demanding “whats that mean?”, “is that bad?”, “global warming, better or worse than plague of genetically enhanced Super Locusts?”
3 (geology professor from MIT) mumbled in monotone without saying much else than the global temperature rise wasn’t (or won’t?) be a full degree but is (will?) be more like a tenth which mwa-mwa-mwa; clearly the token skeptic, failing to actually get a point across – only One Tenth!
Number Four (some economist/optimistic-free-market-apologist) His main point was that the cost to react to the possibility of global climate change isn’t worth it, because it will be offset by the possibility of the future economic power of the world’s poor and their ability to cope with the environmental effects with their own capital. Therefore because poor people should be able to throw their own money dealing with their displacement we shouldn’t need to change our own pollution friendly market.

What I Learned
The Global Warming issue – seemingly far too complex to cover in the blanket statements Larry King likes to throw around – is somehow further convoluted by a show/man that is helping to lower the level of discourse each and every news day. Populist commentators used to ennoble their audiences minds, not slice and dice every thought into fast-food-sound-bite-thougts. Or at least I imagine that, for instance, the ideal of a character like Edward R. Murrow actual belongs to the real history of American broadcasting. I like to believe it.