Bits of Haiti

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Michael

This is Spartaco (Spartacus) chasing off a meandering goat.

Oh, and that’s the Caribbean in the background.

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Thought of the day

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Michael

If Bush and his ilk could tarnish Kerry as a flip flopper based upon one or two votes, then I don’t see how Romney could ever hope to shake the image he has.

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Pets and your child’s immune system

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Michael

I’ve said time and time again that solid science does not come from individual studies sitting all by their lonesome. Rather, it comes about as a result of a body of evidence. That isn’t to discredit any individual study that may be released, but instead to point out that the very nature of science is to discover and expose and correct for flaws. That cannot possibly be accomplished if one person or group comes up with a finding and everyone says, ‘Oh, good. Let’s just go with that.’ And that brings me to this recent study on children who live with dogs in their first year of life:

The study of nearly 400 children found that dogs were especially protective, and the babies who lived with dogs during their first year were about one-third more likely to be healthy during their first year, compared to babies who didn’t have a pet in the home. Babies with dogs in the home were 44 percent less likely to develop an ear infection, and 29 percent less likely to need antibiotics than their petless peers.

“Children who had dog contacts at home were healthier and had less frequent ear infections and needed fewer courses of antibiotics than children who had no dog contacts,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Eija Bergroth, a pediatrician who worked at Kuopio University Hospital, in Finland, at the time of the study.

There is no reason to doubt the methodology of this study, as far as I know. There is no reason to doubt its integrity. This isn’t a highly complicated paper about kin selection or something of that nature where the logic can get quite counter-intuitive. This is a relatively straight-forward study, by all accounts. However, that does not mean it actually is better to have dogs around infants:

Previous research on pets in the home has suggested that animals, and dogs in particular, may provide some protection against the development of asthma and allergies. But, other studies have found that household pets may increase the number of respiratory infections in children, according to background information in the study.

Yet, on the flip side once again, this doesn’t mean it’s bad to have dogs (unless the child has allergies, of course). What this means is that there are some interesting results, both of which fit well into independent theories. For the previous studies, we know that animals carry plenty of germs and disease, so it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that they tend to transmit that sort of stuff to babies – basic germ theory. However, for this recent study, we also know that the immune system tends to do better when exposed to diverse environments early in life. That gives it a chance to build a working ‘knowledge’ of what it must resist. So which is the correct model?

We don’t yet know.

I personally lean towards it being better to have pets in the home, in part because dogs and cats are linked to greater happiness, which in turn is linked to a healthier body, but I’m not staking a claim to anything one way or another. The scientifically responsible thing to do here is to wait for a more robust body of evidence.

That’s how this whole thing works.

Filed under: Biology, News, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The irony of Freethought Blogs

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Michael

Freethoughtblogs.com is, presumably, promoted as a gathering of blogs which support the free exchange and criticism of ideas. Of course it has its leanings, but sans any legal issues, it is to be expected that such a place would not only allow opinion that parted ways with the local majority, it would embrace it. Unfortunately, expectations are not always met:

I thought Freethought Blogs was a stupid idea when I first heard it, because I knew it would just encourage a groupthink mindset… you know, the kind of thing that we self-proclaimed “free thinkers” generally desire to stay away from.

Thank you, PZ Myers, for proving me right. As if you hadn’t gone downhill enough already during ‘Elevatorgate’.

And this once again shows that for whatever reason, dissent of any kind on topics related to ‘feminism’ – even if it is simply misperceived – turns certain people in the atheist community into raving idiots who just shout past each other.

This is all in reference to the recent addition of Thunderf00t to the community. He is probably most well known for his YouTube videos criticizing creationism and other ill-thought, but when he turned to blogging, he set his sights on talking about Freethought Blogs’ pet issue: feminism. I have no desire to wade into the minutiae of it all – anyone who didn’t already agree with me would probably be a caricature feminist, and everyone knows there’s no arguing with those people – but here’s the gist: A new blogger comes on the scene and takes a contrary view to the established bloggers. In turn, the established bloggers fire back. The new blogger does the same. And ’round and ’round we go. That is, until the 800-lbs gorilla in the room – PZ Myers – steps in and censors the dissent:

That’s right. Someone wrote negatively about feminism and, since he had the power, PZ went about pulling the plug on everything. I would call it pathetic, but that really is far too kind.

I can’t say I’m personally surprised at any of this. PZ originally helped me with my Maloney issue but later completely ignored me when push was coming close to shove. It’s entirely obvious why: He didn’t like that someone was quieting something with which he agreed. That was the linchpin to his initial help – he agreed with my criticism of naturopathy. By the time I was close to being frivolously sued, however, I had spent some time disagreeing with him and criticizing some of his arguments (especially on feminism). He clearly knew this and had no desire to help a person who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him on his favorite issue. He never cared about censorship or the First Amendment. His concern was purely for issues that mattered to him, not any broader principle(s). And now we’re seeing that more clearly than ever: PZ Myers, censorious hack, has taken the steps necessary to censor Thunderf00t for doing no more than holding a different opinion.

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Thought of the day

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Michael

To review: To review: Republicans ruin economy, lose power, intentionally stall the economy, regain some power, continue to intentionally stall the economy, ask for more power.

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Liars. Liars everywhere.

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Michael

To my count, I have come across four major liars in my blogging career. First up is Jack Hudson. He has the be the worst, but he also may be the dumbest. I’m not sure which part of his personality I dislike more. The next is Christopher Maloney. His lies were in the details of his writings and, to his credit, I suspect some of them were just a result of his lack of understanding of how the Internet works. Then we have Michael Hartwell. He’s a recent addition and generally isn’t guilty of being dishonest, but that doesn’t mean he’s really any better. And finally, we have braggart Roxeanne. She has mostly confined herself to misunderstanding and misrepresenting science, (did you know that because condom usage needs to improve even more in order to better combat infection rates, that means condoms are ineffective and we should advocate abstinence-only programs? Crazy, I know), but now she has ventured into plainly liar territory:

There is a reason why children are nine times as likely to be abused by their mother’s boyfriends or new husbands than by their own fathers, and why biological fathers are an impediment to abuse of children. Predators seek out the vulnerable.

Yet California, land of moonbats, decided to make it easier for non-biological “fathers” to access children. The Golden State is considering letting more than two adults have “parent” rights to a child. Now, any normal person knows that this is going to result in a lot of litigation and some serious trauma for the kid (at best) and sexual abuse (at worst), but the Left is more concerned with eliminating traditional family structures than with advancing the well-being of children. What this state has just told paedophiles is that it’s open season on little kids, and if the mother gets creeped out, said paedophile can sue to have visitation with her child. After all, the former boyfriend/ex-stepdad had a “bond” with that lovely young teen, and such a “bond” should be respected by our legal system.

Well. Isn’t that interesting. It’s like she isn’t even trying to spin her lies in a way that is even remotely plausible. Here is the actual purpose of the law:

[Representative Mark] Leno told ABCNews.com that he recognized a “problem” in the legal system in 2011 when an appellate court placed a girl in foster care when her legally married parents — two lesbians — could not care for her.

The child was taken into state custody when one of her mothers was jailed and the nonbiological mother was hospitalized.

The court did not have the authority to appoint the girl’s biological father, with whom she had a relationship, as a legal parent. That third parent could have “benefitted the well-being of the child,” said Leno.

In other words, two people can have a child, marry separate people at some point, and all four individuals can be given custodial rights. And unlike Roxeanne suggests/lies, all the parents would have to agree before anything could move forward. There is no way some ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend couldn’t sue for custody as a result of this law.

This bill would obviously help in same-sex situations, but I think it would more commonly be applied in cases of heterosexual divorce. That’s just basic statistics. (And even if that wasn’t the case, who cares? Gay couples form families, too.) Furthermore, this would do nothing to benefit pedophiles. That argument is patently absurd and hardly deserves a response. Roxeanne isn’t the shiniest penny in the fountain, but I think she’s just barely smart enough to know she was lying.

This is a good law. Plenty of children are in situations where there are three or four parents involved. At certain times, this can cause undue problems as a result of legal restrictions. That is, a clear authority figure with the child’s interest at heart – a biological parent’s spouse, for example – may be denied from caring for the child, such as we see from the article. That isn’t fair to anyone involved and is more a snafu in the law than anything. The only reason to oppose this is stubborn denial of reality.

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Thought of the day

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Michael

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Andy Griffith was a swell guy

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Michael

And now he has died at the age of 86.

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Affordable Care Act: Romney campaign makes a decision

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Michael

Yesterday I wrote about the lack of choice Republicans were (and will continue) to make regarding how they describe the Supreme Court ruling on the individual mandate from the healthcare bill. They want to call it both a tax and a fine, but those are not the same thing – nor, more importantly, do they have the same ideological basis. If they call it a tax, okay. That fits their (false) rhetoric that President Obama has done anything to raise taxes. But if they call it a fine, that is because they believe it is anti-liberty to force people to buy something. The Romney campaign sees this and has made a choice:

A senior adviser to Mitt Romney appeared to undercut a central argument Republicans hope to use between now and the November election against President Obama — that although his signature health care reform law may be constitutional, it amounts to a tax.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown,” Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom was asked whether Romney agreed with last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

“The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that the mandate was a tax,” Fehrnstrom said.

When pressed by host Chuck Todd about whether Romney supported calling the financial burden placed on Americans who choose not to buy health care “a penalty or a fee or a fine” rather than a tax, Fehrnstrom replied: “That’s correct.”

It’s interesting that they want to call Romneycare a penalty – it undermines his argument that he’s all about liberty and freedom and guns and tits – but it’s a clear choice (at least for now – I mean, this is Romney). Now we just have to see if other Republicans will follow suit.

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Higgs boson virtually discovered

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Michael

This is one of the cases where the circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly convincing – the gun has smoke and fingerprints, we saw the murderer buy it, we saw him take it with him, we know he was at the scene, and we know he wanted to pull the trigger, but we didn’t actually see him fire the gun:

To the layman, the Higgs boson is the “God particle” and a key puzzle piece in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe. Physicists around the globe—and perhaps elsewhere, given the size of the universe—have invested billions of dollars in research and have been hunting for the Higgs boson for decades.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) are expected to announce Wednesday that they have proof of its existence, reports The Associated Press.

The Higgs boson appeared 13.7 billion years ago in the chaos of the Big Bang and turned the flying debris into galaxies, stars and planets.

Its formal discovery, according to a broad scientific consensus, would be the greatest advance in knowledge of the universe in decades and a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed, according to the AP…

[S]cientists are in a bit of a quagmire, according to the AP. While they appear to have enough evidence to report the existence of the “God particle,” they still hedge on whether to report “a discovery.” It’s a fine line, indeed, but one that scientists will likely continue to debate.

“I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, ‘It looks like a discovery,'” British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King’s College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s, told The Associated Press. “We’ve discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs.”

I’m actually not sure if my analogy does all this justice. They may be closer than any layman really knows. And since my whole thing is biology, I’m not going to bother trying to dissect it all. I will, however, be ready to post whatever great explanations I do find on this. (I’m look at you, Ethan Siegel.)

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