- British science minister claims sixth sense – From Steve.
- Canadian science minister is a chiropractor
- Losing the bit picture: How religion maay control visual attention – Research article from Question Authority.
- Urban legend pet peeve – Amanda at Pandagon reasons that people have sex all the time.
Well, its good to see that Canada isn’t the only country with a sinister-minister of woo. It sure is comforting at the bottom of the stoopids.
And by good, I mean really, really bad. And by comforting, I mean WHAT THE FRIGGIN HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???
*ahem* Pardon me.
There must be a typo in the headline. Are you sure he isn’t the British Secretary of PSEUDO-science? :-D
One of the comments in the article about the British minister deserves to win Comment of the Year:
Re: Urban Legend –
People have sex all the time? Who are these people, and where can I meet them? :-P
I’m with Expatria.
Unfortunately Pandagon fell for the urban legend that people are getting laid 1-2x per week.
@mxracer652: I think it is an urban legend that aniversery celebrations end with sex. My sex life died when I accepted my wife’s marriage proposal. I’m as celibate as the ideal catholic priest.
@Expatria: Perhaps a “Boinking Skeptically” event is in order?
@Andrés Diplotti: WHEN? WHERE? DETAILS I NEED DETAILS!
@Andrés Diplotti: Holy fucking shit.
I’m sorry, but the stupid burned so much on that one that it deserved 2 swears.
@Andrés Diplotti: Yes, all this sad and terrifying news of woo-ish Science Ministers warrants it, I think.
The visual attention article is quite interesting.
Science Minister thinks he can see the future, that sure would have been a handy skill to have, given the state of the UK economy, 1 year ago. Is anyone even suprised any more that politicians in general (but members of the house of lords in particular) are either corrupt shysters or senile buffoons?
Sex thing. PostWW2 there was a baby boom when demobed sqaudies came home after 6 years of fighting the war and en masse decided to settle down (basically 6 years of births all arrived at once in 1946/47)
There was also a mini baby boom in the early 70’s during the 3 day week when the government turned of the electricity 4 days a week and turned it off at 8pm the other 3 days. Without TV people had to make their own entertainment…
@writerdd:
I have oftened wondered if something like that was literally true – that the religious may actually see the world somewhat differently, not because of a superstition or mysterious force, but because of an actual physical change in the brain.
@Andrés Diplotti:
I don’t make a big deal out of it, because i’m a skeptic and I don’t have any proof this really happened, but this kind of stuff happens to me sometimes, its been happening a lot recently. The best way I can describe it is a deja vu feeling, but remember that you had a dream about it. I’m not sure if it. Its never about anything important, just random events For example the last one I remember was just my girlfriend a friend of mine, and I eating pizza in a local pizza place.
I really hope this isn’t a trend in electing horribly mismatched people to science positions in government. Any word on who Barack is thinking about. I’ve heard it before and I completely agree that Phil Plait would make an amazing science advisor.
@QuestionAuthority:
I’ve often wondered that too. And it raises a bunch of other interesting questions:
Do converts away from religion maintain those changes?
Are these changes beneficial in some environments? Might some cultural memes have evolved as a way to modify our brain development?
What other cultural phenomena might induce changes in perception? Does growing up in a democracy make you think differently, for example?
The most important thing, which comes out in the discussion in the paper, is that this is a first result, not a general conclusion. Still, fascinating stuff.
Here’s an hypothesis:
I think we dream all sorts of crap but generally forget most of it. Then if something in real life vaguely resembles something we dreamt recently it can trigger a memory of that particular dream and bingo, we think we have second sight.
Tricky to test, though.