Friday, August 31, 2007

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

I love this little piece of nonsense tossed around by the religious right (and left of course). The fact is, it's true. Yup, just because you have no evidence for something does not mean that you actually have proof that something does not really exist. I have no proof of god, but I can't say he doesn't exist. Or can I?

Let's use a simple little analogy. I have no proof that there isn't buried treasure in my backyard, but I can't say that means that there is no buried treasure in my backyard. Fair enough I believe, but what do we do about this little nugget of truth? Well, we do what any right-minded person would do; we dig for the treasure! We keep digging...and digging...and so on, until the backyard looks as if it were under attack by thousands of dogs trying to track down dinosaur bones (depending upon how deeply we dig of course).

Now, at this point I still have no evidence for treasure; I probably have evidence for one hell of a landscaping bill though. So what do I do? Well, absence of evidence is not evidence for absence! So let's keep digging!

How long do you think you would dig before you began to reach a conclusion that, based upon the assessment of my backyard, the probability of finding treasure was reaching zero. Let's also briefly touch on the Theory of Limits (calculus guys). The probability won't be zero, since you could always argue that the little patch in the corner could hide the treasure, but we're damn close to zero.

Christianity has had about 2,000 years to provide evidence of the existence of their god (well, one those gods anyway since they can't seem to agree on him/her). I'm not talking philosophy here, I'm talking about empirical evidence. I could wax philosophical all day about the logical presence of the treasure in my backyard, but what does that really amount to? Now if I found a doubloon in the flower bed....hmmm, evidence! I could formulate an hypothesis, test it, then reach a conclusion!

Religion has utterly failed to provide a single shred of substantiated evidence for the existence of a god. Does this disprove his existence? Not at all. But given all of that time, the Theory of Limits comes to mind; the probability of god is greatly reaching zero. How long would you dig in your backyard for treasure absent any evidence for it? My advice? If you found yourself in a hole, I would recommend you stop digging. The universe is a beautiful, amazing place. Don't fuck it up with superstition.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I love lesbians

The Biblical objection to homosexuality is hypocritical, because those who condemn it do not condemn just as vigorously other prohibited behaviors such as wearing clothing made of two kinds of material (Lev. 19: 19), trimming or shaving sideburns (Lev. 19: 27), getting tattoos (Lev. 19: 28), and charging interest (Deut. 23: 19-20). People who condemn homosexuality do so not because the Bible tells them to, but, ultimately, because they want to. People who condemn others should first examine the morality of their own judgments.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

crackpot gets his due demerits

worth reading when it comes to stupid lawsuits....

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Monday, August 13, 2007

Morgantown, WV: Loser sues McDonald's over cheese

http://www.dailymail.com/story/News/2007081043/Man-says-hold-the-cheese-claims-McDonalds-didnt-sues-for-10-million/

Well, it's official, Morgantown is home to at least three morons. Apparently this idiot Jeremy something or other has a severe allergic reaction to cheese. Ok, no worries, so one would expect he would be very diligent about not ingesting said food, yes? Hmm, apparently not. The moron bit into a Quarter Pounder with cheese. But hey, that article clearly says he took five specific precautionary steps by asking the folks at McDonald's, and afterall, the word of a minimum wage earner at Mickie D's is just fine, right? Surprise surprise, ends up that ol' Jeremy ended up in the hospital with about $1400 worth of medical bills.

Hey dipshit, next time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING HAMBURGER! If you're really deathly allergic to cheese, it may be a good idea to check first. This guy should go to jail just for being a fucking idiot and wasting the time of those involved with this debacle.

Bad astronomy's response to the "error in GISS warming data" article.

Phil Plait demystifies the arguments, and takes a closer look at the numbers.

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Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Bad Astronomer vs the creationist on the TX state board of education.

More on Doug McLeroy, the know-nothing creationist appointed by Gov. Rick Perry who heads the TX state board of education.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

And now, the Netherlands is subject to the nonsense and evil of creationism

Dr. Phil Plait gives his take on the expansion of the nonsensical ideology that is creationism. Anything Dr. Phil writes is worth at least two reads, so all of those concerned, esp. you in the Netherlands, read up and understand the parasite which is among you.

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Courtesy of Sgt. Zim at badastronomy.com

Christian logic (that part is mine):

A lazy dog is a slow pup
A slope up is an inclined plane
An ink-lined plane is a sheet of writing paper

The Real Cost of Space Exploration

Ever wonder how much money is spent on NASA compared to the rest of the federal budget? Bad Astronomer Phil Plait makes it real simple.

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Monday, August 6, 2007

South Carolina public funds supporting religious private schools.

State lawmakers shot down a request for extra financial help for low-income students who will attend South Carolina’s public colleges and universities. Meanwhile, they approved $2.5 million to help low-income students attend Bob Jones University, where it is school policy to forbid interracial dating they teach creationism instead of evolution.

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Friday, August 3, 2007

Just an update

It's been just over a week since Derick died; not much really going on there I guess. Death is pretty final, unless you're one of those ignorant religious zealots who insist in life after death. Too bad you're wrong. It was all I could do at the funeral last Sunday to not throw a rock at the preacher and the "amen!" chanters behind me. He's not up in heaven playing his saxophone; he's in a box, buried in the ground. He's dead. Your wonderful god gave him cancer, made him suffer for two years, then ended his life at 28. Give me a fucking break; I don't want to hear your nonsense. My friend of over a decade is dead. It's a lot to deal with.

I'm going to talk about my consulting business. I need to market, but it just costs so much, so I've got a two pronged approach right now. Today I sent out 240 postcard mailers to small businesses (less than 50 employees) within a 20 mile radius of my home office. You can usually expect 2 to 5 per cent response rate on these, so we'll see how it goes. My next step is to actually hire a sales rep, commission only, and have them pick up some business for me. The mailers won't go out for up to ten days, so I've got some time to get my website finalized and uploaded. I've already informed my receptionist in Canada and my accountant in Iowa; I'm excited to see how this works out for me, if at all. I'm expecting no more than a dozen calls at best, but we'll see what leads I get.

The sales person ad will cost about $150 for a week, but would be worth it if I can find someone with a technology background who is personable enough to pick up customers. Honestly, at my rates, a single job would more than pay for the ad and the sales commission. Plus I've got some money coming in for a few jobs I did this week, probably a grand or so. I'll just dump that into the corporate account and reinvest it.

My idea for a coral reef shop somewhat fell through; I had a company in Florida interested in investing in the company, but they want to control it or require that I produce 60% of the startup costs. Uh, yeah, right, forget that. I looked at angel investors as well, but those were a no go as well since you have to pay them back. Kinda misleading terms, huh? But they didn't want any control of the company, so I may discuss this with them at some point.

Otherwise things are pretty stable. My last two PhD courses are going well. I'm enrolled in Management Consulting and also in Advanced Multivariate Analysis (statistics from hell, if I believed in hell). So far I've nailed every single stats problem dead on; at this level, that's saying something, so I'm gonna brag some. The consulting course is mostly just reading some articles and books about how to consult, such as styles and focus. I'm learning quite a bit from Dr. McNaughton, who is a managerial consultant. He certainly knows the ropes, and his PhD says he knows the material as well.

That's it for today. I'm going to relax some this weekend and work on the business. Plus, have some forensics work to do on a hard drive, so later.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Another Bush flunkie at NASA

NASA’s bad news just keeps on rollin’.Another Bush/Cheney/Rove flunkie has been given a sweet job at NASA.

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Phase of the Moon has no effect on humanly efforts.

Nurses, cops, doctors — they all swear that things get crazy around a full Moon. However, study after study shows that is simply not the case

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