Splendid Elles

Imagine you’re reading your feeds, when you see a blog post about you. I’ve recently been seeing blog posts about me pop up all over the place, most recently from BadAstronomy.

From what I can tell, it’s mostly because I’m a teenage freethinker. Now, I am quite flattered and all, and I can understand why people find this such a remarkable phenomenon, but I know that I’m not the only one out there. Right?

I don’t hear crickets… oh. There they are now.

Just kidding. I know you’re out there. Maybe you run a blog just like me. Maybe you’re not outspoken because of anti-intellectual peer pressure. So… I’m ripping off of the Out Campaign and making a “Scarlet F” because I thought that that would be amusing.

Now, if you are a high school freethinker/skeptic/atheist/intellectual/all-around-cool-person (or know of one), I want to know about you. Leave a comment here, or send me an e-mail. If you have a blog or website, I’d be happy to give you linkage. I’m thinking of maybe doing a special section in my blog with links to high school freethinkers or something so that we can exchange ideas with each other, help each other out, be friends, have fun, etc.

In the meantime, check out the Center for Inquiry Campus Outreach site.

I didn’t mean it, Phil. I admire you and all but…

While poking around the intertoobs a few days ago, I found a remarkable blog by a young woman. She volunteers at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, an excellent place where you can learn all about reality (and where “my” black hole show was created).

Sadly, this young woman also sees creationists giving tours and lying about said reality. Her blog post on this subject is truly worth reading. It would be considered well-written and thoughtful by anyone.

So imagine my surprise when I found out, coincidentally just now, that she’s only 14.

Fourteen! Amazing. I foresee a very bright future ahead of this young lady.

Actually, I’m not 14. I just turned 15 in March. Sorry for the confusion. Just had to fix that error.

You’re still awesome, Phil!

Today I got done with my final exams for my college classes, was hanging around, when I heard that MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) was doing some sort of lecture on campus. I figured, why not? Maybe they had some evidence that would shake my view of the world… Eh… maybe not. At the very least, I should be open minded, right?

So I went. It was a lecture by a Native American named Rainbow Eagle.

Before I continue, I feel I need to make the following disclaimer, because I’ll essentially be calling the man an ignunt fool.

Rainbow Eagle, you have a great personality. You are a very nice person. Very friendly. Humble. And you have a really awesome name. I wish I’d been named something like… Rainbow Jelly Fish… or… Sparkling Eagle.

So, we saw a video of some guy speaking in Spanish (with English voice-overs) about how apparently their belief (which has allegedly been verified by science) is that humans were planted here some 12,000 years ago by aliens. That’s 6,000 more years than the young earth creationists think we’ve been here. Not too bad.

And then, the guy in the video started talking about… wait for it… wait for it…

Quantum Mechanics!

What a surprise. And you know those words that New Age gurus use so much when talking about quantum mechanics? Vibration, frequency, energy? Yup. All those words were there.

See, we can only experience certain frequencies, but some people can experience other frequencies, and therefore see into parallel universes.

…!

When the video ended, I asked “is our species the only species to have been ‘planted’ here?” Seems like a good question to ask. Why would only humans be planted?

He was very confused by the question. He asked me “do you mean, are we the only specie to have been planted here?”

…!

This takes both scientific and grammatical ignorance. He didn’t really have an answer for that, anyway.

And it moved on…

He said that there were four races originally planted here. Not only that, but these original races were different colours. Native Americans used to be red. Blacks used to be blue. Asians used to be green. And whites used to be… transparent. That’s right. Transparent.

No. I have no idea how he knows this.

Rainbow Eagle presented us with three theories of the origin of humans.

1. Aliens put us here to mine gold for them, until we rebelled. So, they genetically programmed us with loyalty to them so that we’d think of them as gods.
2. Aliens came and helped humans develop technology, so we worshiped them because we thought that that was a very nice thing to do.
3. Evolution.

I have no idea how he came up with 1 and 2, but he said that number 3 was right out. Well what do you expect? His understanding of evolution was that it is “Man-to-ape. Somehow an ape stood up, lost its hair, got more brainpower, or whatever all that technical stuff is.” No, we shared a common ancestor with the apes. That common ancestor may have been very ape-like. He’s completely leaving out mutation and natural selection in this over-simplified “explanation”.

“Now we know what the problem with evolution is.”

Some woman in the room piped up, “missing link!”

Here I was thinking I was just in a room full of UFO enthusiasts. When did I end up in a room full of cdesign proponentsists?

Missing links. A perfectly valid argument… if used before the 1920s.

I raised my hand again. I’m pretty sure I was starting to annoy the people in the room because I was talking about (gasp!) actual science!

“What about Homo erectus, Australopithicus afarensis, Homo neanderthalensis?”

“Well, those show that there was an evolutionary trail leading up to us, but then you suddenly have fully formed humans out of nowhere!”

…!

“Why do we share 99% of our genome with the chimps?”

No answer.

After this lecture, he told me that he would try to fit it all together to fit his theories. This is part of the scientific method. When new evidence arises, you see if you can modify your theories to fit it. If not, you have to accept that your theory, no matter how fond you are of it, is useless and it’s back to the drawing board.

But something tells me that he’s just going to cling to it. I mean, what’s more attractive than having your ancestors come from the stars?

How about this…

Way, way, way back when, a self-replicating molecule formed. And just because certain configurations of self-replicating molecules were better at making more copies of themselves than others, selection pressure was applied to it to create a remarkable diversity of wonderful life. Among these lifeforms are humans like you, and me, who were able to write poetry, music, make art. But even better, we are able to think and create science to accurately understand how we came to be.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Robert Darwin

Purposefully left title-less.

Alright, alright… I wasn’t thinking at all when I wrote a post and titled it “Creationists Are Pure Evil.” I have since renamed it to My Thoughts on Creationism. Why? One too many people, this time, George Paul Davis III, have missed the point of the post because of the title. Please read the post (and not by title only) before reading the rest so that this all makes more sense.

Angry? No. Amused? A little. However, it’s not the creationists who are amusing — it’s people who get so angry over this stuff. I think it’s funny because the anger seems baseless and programmed rather than genuine.

The first thing a person should do upon feeling “angry” about this is to ask him/herself why they feel that way.

Are you angry because the children do not get to choose what they are taught in their system of education? If that is the case, then I return that question back to you. Do your children choose the curriculum they are given in their own system of education? I was never asked about the curriculum given to me as a child.

I was given several doses of misinformation during my education. In public school, I was taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America as he was trying to prove that the Earth was round. The idea that Christopher Columbus would have had to prove the shape of the Earth to anyone in his time is, of course, nothing more than romantic fancy presented to children in elementary school as a fact (at least, it was taught as a fact in my day — Second Grade/1986). I was also given a set story about things like the Revolutionary War only to grow up and discover that different countries often have very different histories that are used to explain single events (i.e., the British explanation of the Revolutionary War and the American “victory” is quite different). Few people are “angry” over these bits of misinformation, so why is misinformation about dinosaurs so aggravating?

My guess, then, would be that people are not actually angry about the fact that these children do not get to choose whether or not they are given facts as education. Other than that, I don’t really see what exists in this situation that would conjure “anger.”

The worst that will happen to these kids is that they will grow up having been given false information about the origin of species. They’ll grow up thinking that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that men rode dinosaurs, and that lions are meant to eat grass. Big deal. Since when is being wrong such a tragedy? Who here has never lost an argument? These kids will face bigger issues as they grow up – this crap will be the least of their worries.

Even in making that statement, I am overlooking not only my personal experiences with this subject matter, but the confession of the museum scientist in the clip. He was raised to think as a Creationist, yet he does not. I was similarly raised, and I don’t follow the assumptions made by “Creation Science,” either. These kids will have the ability to choose what they believe when they’re older and are exposed to more materials.

Why, then, would this situation create so much “anger?” Religion. Religion has become a hot-topic for people. There is a kind of Retro-Inquisition going on, right now. Religion makes certain people angry – even when they aren’t directly affected by it.

It’s true that I don’t really expect much from the human animal and think that most of these kids will not become enlightened by science as they mature into adults. Rather, I think they will simply adhere to the easiest option – to stick to what one already “knows.”

Easy options are amongst the human being’s favorite type. It’s easy to accept information without proper contemplation, so people do it. For instance, your anger over this particular subject suggests that you blame Creation, an abstract concept created by HUMANS, for certain evils in the world. That’s just naïve.

Religion, and Creation through it, is just a story. It isn’t evil, it isn’t good, it isn’t anything without a human being’s manipulation to create, change or control it. In other words, “religion doesn’t kill people — people do.” You can’t be angry that these children are being given Creation as education without being angry at Creation as a concept. It doesn’t make sense to be angry at abstract concepts, but it does make sense to be angry at people who use them to do evil. What evil is being done here? Some kids are being made wrong. Is that really evil? They won’t grow up to be archeologists. It’s hard to find work as an archeologist, anyway. Thinking that the Flintstones is a documentary won’t prevent these kids from accomplishing great things. You can think that the Grand Canyon was made in a weekend and still be a successful and talented medical doctor – I’ve seen it.

If you are angry at Creation and Religion – or so it seems — because they can potentially cause evil, then you must also be angry at the concept of home-schooling for making this kind of an education possible. Further, you should be angry at the concept that individuals are allowed to make decisions for their own children, because it enables concepts like home-schooling which in-turn enables insane curriculums wherein children are taught Creation as a fact. If you are angry at these concepts then you must also be angry at an innumerable number of abstract concepts in order to make any logical sense as a human being.

Religion is not evil, it’s just silly. People are evil. Teaching kids that snakes can talk is not evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate children into sexual situations is evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate people into committing mass murder/suicide is evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate people into giving him/her free money is just a jerk. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate movies stars into believing that they are possessed by alien ghosts so they will give him/her lots of free money, I must begrudgingly admit, is kind of talented.

You’re not angry. You’re bored.

Thanks

Ah… “The first thing a person should do upon feeling “angry” about this is to ask him/herself why they feel that way.” For those of you that read the post, you will notice that the entire post was explaining why I felt angry.

No, the point of the post was not that I think that creationism/creationists are evil. I get annoyed with because it distorts the truth. For those of you who read it by title only, I will tell you what the content of the post actually was.

I talked about how much I love science. I talked about how passionate I am about what is true. That is why it broke my heart so much to see it distorted. That is why it made me so very upset. I’m sorry that you can’t understand that I’m not bored, but that I’m passionate.

Even if you can not understand that passion, do you believe that people have a right to know the truth? Do we not despise totalitarian governments that control information, thus brain-washing the people? Why doesn’t this apply to children who’s parents control the information they are fed?

But, yes. A lot of fault falls upon me because I wasn’t thinking when I chose the post title. If I learned anything from The Selfish Gene it was that people pay little attention to content and more to titles. Is this because of laziness, or genuine mistakes? I can understand how titles will make people pre-disposed to read things that aren’t really there. Perhaps it is my fault that people did not understand the post if they actually did read it.

Finally, the elusive question is answered… What delicacy do they eat in the Pleiades sector?

Tapioca.

So say people who believe that some of their ancestors came from the Pleiades sector.

It’s really depressing to me because I myself am an avid fan of Stargate and I hate to see the show that I love abused in this way… of course… Stargate does have a lot of New Age tosh now and I haven’t been able to watch it in a while for that reason.

Anyway, these people are not alone in thinking that one of their ancestors did it with an alien. There are loads of lunatics out there who believe that they are “star children”, or humans who think they have alien DNA.

But anyway, I would not like to show that it is competely impossible for anybody to be a star child.

In biology, a population of animals becomes defined as a species when they don’t interbreed with other species and produce fertile offspring. That’s here on Earth where everything has a common ancestor. Let’s humour the star children for a little bit and say that life evolved elsewhere (fairly possible for now), has DNA just like ours (more far-fetched), found a means of interstellar travel (progressively getting more far-fetched but there are ways)… What are the chances that their DNA is so similar that they can produce fertile offspring?

Eating tapioca in their sector doesn’t sound so far-fetched anymore.

I have the most pointless English assignment ever. I have to write a survival manual, due tomorrow, for a foreign and hostile environment. I have a lot of personal experiences being stranded in a foreign and hostile environment!

It’s not so much that I can’t do technical writing, but I have a very short period of time to do a lot of research so that my information is factual and I don’t get points docked, and it’s not even worth that many points. Half the websites she gave us links to do research on are from loonies who think that the world is about to end.

Survival Risk Quotient: 63
Captain Dave’s Survival Risk Quotient, is updated regularly and attempts to rank how close we are to an all-out global disaster, also know as TEOTWAWKI, or “the end of the world as we know it.” 100 is T EOTWAWKI, 50 is an average threat level and 0 is a peaceful world with no threats, or what it would have been like for Adam and Eve without the Serpent.

From: Captain Dave’s Survival Center and Preparedness Resource

Alright… other than the “TEOTWAWKI” stuff, I found some useful stuff, but this assignment is going under the assumption that we’re not paranoid dooms-day sayers who are planning on having the world devolve into chaos.

So, to save me from the pointless tedium, I’m taking a break and writing a survival guide for the Bible Belt for my own personal amusement.

1. Don’t put your faith in the governments of the Bible Belt. The South has always had a strong tendency to not respect the constitution. Luckily, the South didn’t win the Civil War and still is part of the Union. If they do pass a legislation allowing the teaching of religion creationism in science classrooms, you might be able to take it to the Supreme Court and win.
2. Forget freedom of speech. Putting a Darwin fish on your car sends a beacon to rednecks that you and your car should be vandalized.
3. Be careful with words over five letters long. Rednecks have a highly limited vocabulary.
4. Go to church. Even if you just listen to your iPod in the back to minimize the mind-numbing drivel, you don’t want the community thinking you’re not one of them.
5. Obtain a Romulan disruptor. Let’s see them use a pitchfork against that!
6. Make an escape plan for all areas of the town. If all of the above fail, you’ll need it in case they decide to revive the practice of lynching.

My dearest apologies to the dozen or so people living there who are reasonable.

Back to tedium for me…

Oh, it really isn’t that hard at all. The only person you really need to fool is yourself, and that’s more than easy to do. According to “Psychic Journey”, you just need to follow four easy steps!

1. Be open to psychic energy
2. Expect psychic energy
3. Trust psychic energy
4. Act on psychic energy

I won’t really go into the details of all four steps, but to do number one…

Being open to psychic guidance means acknowledging psychic events when they occur rather than minimising or dismissing their significance, as you may have done in the past. It’s the first step on the pathway of psychic development. It’s a shift that will make your experience different from that of a closed-minded person and that will allow your life to be assisted by your psychic abilities.

Mmm… yes… simple translation: kill your skepticism or you won’t be psychic.

Well, no duh. The whole point of skepticism is seeking other explanations for phenomena than psychic energy, and setting up tests so that you can rule out anything else.

If you’re expecting psychic energy, you’re just all the more open to confirmation bias (noticing all the hits you get and ignoring the misses).

If you trust and act on psychic energy… well… let me put it this way. My English teacher had a dream about all of us doing stacks of goal-setting (aka, busy work) in class and decided that you should always do what your dreams tell you to do. I just love busy work. I just hope she doesn’t get a dream with me getting an F in her class.

And, if you decide to give Psychic Journey the benefit of the doubt anyway, against all reason, you can purchase a book that will make you believe falsely that you’re psychic for a cool 40 pounds (that’s about $80).

Or, I can implore you to trust your skepticism and you can save $80 for free. Woot!

Intrigued by the Pharyngula post, I took a look at CrevoScope.

You have “will” which you can spend on either researching in the “library” (you click on something that says “read about science” and then you don’t read about science and you gain knowledge), or researching in the “church” (you click on something that says “study” and then you don’t learn anything about the Bible and you gain knowledge). Then, when you feel you have enough knowledge, you debate people.

It doesn’t really matter how much personal intellect you have when it comes to “winning” in the game. This is the way my second “debate” went after I’d spent most of my “will” in the “library”.

You turn toward your_mom_was_an_ape and say “How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?”
your_mom_was_an_ape replies to your argument with “Well… um… all that matters is that he did!”
Elles smiles with victory.

your_mom_was_an_ape says his own argument: “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”
You think for a moment and say “Scientists say that we evolved from chimps, not monkeys! I guess that God of yours didn’t decide to give you a brain so you could realise this, huh?”
your_mom_was_an_ape nods, enjoying seeing his opponent make a complete fool of himself.

Once again, you challenge your opponent: “How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?”
your_mom_was_an_ape replies to your argument with “Well… um… all that matters is that he did!”
Elles smiles with victory.

Elles wins the debate!
You gain 10 exp points

Huh?

I’ve been noticing Scientology ads everywhere from the Rational Response Squad website, to Urban Dictionary. The irony was that I was looking up the word “failboat” when I noticed it. If I weren’t so dumb as to not know how to take a screen shot, it would have been a perfect Kodak moment. I found ads for Scientology next to the definition of failboat to be as appropriate as the title of Astrology for Dummies.

Well… more like tomorrow early morning, but according to SpaceWeather.com, the eta Aquarid meteor shower is tonight.

Take it from a student of astronomy, if you really want to see something spectacular, get as far away from the city lights as possible. Me? I’m just going to be in my backyard tomorrow morning, and laughing at all the people who got up even earlier and wasted gas money on driving out all the way…

Kidding. If you really want to do that, I’m sure you’ll have much more fun than I will but I have school.

What I think you really ought to do is get up a few hours before sunrise, make yourself some tea or coffee or a root beer float, get a lawn chair, and look up. Do it at least once before you die.