Wheat-dogg's World

The biweekly anthology of science bloggers’ best recent work is at The Island of Doubt. Topics range from astronomy to zoology, from the strictly scientific to the strictly political. It’s well worth a look.

Who says scientists can’t write?

Call in the experts. Intelligent Design supporters use the argument that a designer must have organized the universe because (they say) the probability of life arising by random chance is close to zero. William Dembski, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here, has made this argument practically his life’s mission.

Well, the arguments are wrong and so are the premises. Check out this new blog, Good Math, Bad Math, for some clear explanations why Dembski and ID math are wrong.

I submitted another essay, somewhat peripherally related to science, but it got accepted anyway. Sweet. Anyway, Tangled Bank #49 has a plethora of great science related essays by some of the blogosphere’s great science bloggers. ( I am humbled by my inclusion in this august group.) Check it out.

Attention fellow Kentuckians! There will be two interesting talks at the University of Kentucky College of Law. The complete details are at The Panda’s Thumb, but here’s the basics.

On Wednesday the 22nd, a seminar on “Religion, the First Amendment, and the New Supreme Court” at 12:00 noon in the College of Law Courtroom. The public is invited.

On Monday the 27th, a discussion about “Intelligent Design: Question and Controversy in Law and Philosophy,” at 4 pm in the Courtroom. The public is also invited to this one.

William Dembski, one of the leading detractors of evolution, now teaches at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville. He could make an appearance at the second talk, which ought to be interesting, to say the least.

I came across a site today, BetOnIraq.com, which at face value, is very intriguing. The site offers to exchange dollars for Iraqi dinar, ostensibly to bolster the fledgling democracy of Iraq. There is the possibility that dinar will actually be worth something someday, so picking up 100,000 dinar for just $155 could be a lucrative investment (well, more like a wager). Or the 100,000 dinar could end up being just worthless pieces of pretty paper.

A closer look set off some caveat emptor warnings in my brain. Before you rush to buy a fat wad of dinar online, you need to be aware of some red flags on this site, and on similar sites listed below.

The order page is not secured or encrypted. While the site does not accept credit cards, the order page does ask for your name, address, e-mail and phone. Without encryption, that information could be intercepted by a third party, or the site’s database could be hacked.

Also, the site offers no advice about the privacy of your contact information, although the operators do say

By making a purchase you acknowledge that you are not on a watch list, a terrorist, associated with a terrorist organization, conducting terrorist related activity, or involved in illegal money laundering. You agree to allow us to, if necessary, give your name and information to the appropriate government authorities to meet the regulatory requirements of things such as the Patriot Act, OFAC, and the Bank Secrecy Act.

Offered without further comment …
From FoxNews today:

A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any “special event of national significance” away to jail on felony charges if they are caught breaching a security perimeter.

From the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Cindy Sheehan‘s account of her arrest and expulsion from the State of the Union address on Jan. 31:
What Really Happened ….

UPDATE (2/2): Charges against Sheehan have been dropped and the Capitol Police chief admitted his officers were overzealous.

My friend and colleague here at St. Francis, Matt Gatton, has an interesting and compelling hypothesis about the origin of art, specifically cave-wall art. Matt surmises that early artists in caves and other enclosures took advantage of a property of optics — the camera obscura — to create their images of wildlife.

It is now fairly well accepted that European painters of the middle ages and Renaissance used the camera obscura, otherwise known as the “pinhole camera,” for many of their works. Since the pinhole camera flips images upside and left-to-right, careful inspection of some paintings will show rings that should be on the left hand are instead on the right, and so on.

Anyway, Matt has done simulations in the field to test his hypothesis and has developed a convincing case for the early origins of art. Check out his website at www.paleo-camera.com.