Archive for May, 2007
Spotting Design
May 26th
Experimental Archaeology. Photo (cc) Wessex Archaeology.
I wish I was as good an archaeologist as Michael Egnor claims to be. Egnor has recently written on the Antikythera Mechanism from a creationist point of view. To be honest I disagree with some of it, the words mainly, but the spaces and punctuation on the other hand seem sound. Christopher O’Brien has given the words far more attention than they deserve, so if you want a critique of the propositions1 then it’s a great read. What I find difficult is the repeated claim by creationists that you can simply see design.
It’s a common claim. When fundamentalists Cameron and Comfort are notexhorting people to stick banana-shaped objects into their mouths they make claims like: “If you stuck a group of scientists in a room with a painting then, with nothing from the outside world, they would conclude there was a painter.” Now I don’t think they would. I cannot simply see design in complex objects, so are the creationists wrong or am I thick? (more…)
- It took me half an hour to choose that word. Facts as the blog entry makes clear wouldn’t have been the right choice [↩]
The Difference between ‘Above the Horizon’ and ‘In the Sky’
May 20th
[Cross-posted to Revise & Dissent]
Here’s another paper I’ll have to cite, Time-Space Context of Moon-Related Beliefs by Jaak Jaaniste. It’s downloadable as a PDF paper from Folklore: The Electronic Journal of Folklore which I listed yesterday. I’ll have to read it a few times, but there are several ideas in it which are really interesting.
The most salient section for me is found on pages 190-1:
The psychology of seeing causes us to perceive a “half of the skies” above which we lose contact with the horizon to be about 20 degrees (Eelsalu 1996).
Thus – if the moon moves at more than 20 degrees above the horizon, it is simply “in the sky” and its exact position is considered of no importance. And, if the moon moves at less than 5 degrees above the horizon, it is significantly concealed by earthly objects.
This is because I don’t know if urban astronomy was a problem in the ancient world. The reason it might be is that a lot of sites I’m looking at are in urban contexts, even built into the hearts of cities which might have made observing the horizon difficult.
The horizon is important because the height of the horizon will change the day More >
Is the Heart of the Universe is Satanic?
May 20th
The Neurophilosopher points to a weblog with a very special grip on reality.
Blogs4Brownback is a site dedicated to putting Sam Brownback into the Whitehouse. Brownback seems to be an interesting candidate adhering to the motto “A faith isn’t for life, it’s just for Christmas”. He’s moved from Methodism to Catholicism and now, if Blogs4Brownback is to be believed, he’s chasing the Satanist vote.
The clues are fairly blatant. He’s anti-abortion and pro-war clearly to curry favour with his new master who wants to see suffering. The weblog shows him baring his teeth in a satanic grin through a vandalised American flag charred with brimstone. And now he’s arguing that children should be taught that the universe revolves around Satan.
The logic is fairly simple. As Dante made clear Satan lives in the heart of Hades deep in the underworld. Blogs4Brownback add the innovation of perverting Biblical scripture to promote Satan. The Earth, they argue, is fixed and immovable in the Bible, thus the universe revolves around it. Except when it gets pudgy and goes for a run around the Sun. Brownback is also an advocate of intelligent design which is a Satan-friendly form of Creationism.
Ah no, it’s not linked from the Brownback campaign site. Presumably More >
Joy in Small Bits of Pottery
May 18th
I’m experimenting with the Flock browser again to see if that will solve my RSS problem. My previous readers have regularly skipped some weblogs, particularly if those on Blogger. It’s a shame as there’s some interesting posts I’ve been missing.
One is a photo of an Iron Age Pot Sherd at Back Garden Archaeology. What’s interesting is that it appears to be locally made and contemporanous with Roman pottery. That would suggest continuity of settlement. It’s a really nice photo because you can see the many occlusions in the pot, which would make me guess Iron Age. You see some change in assemblages after the Roman occupation because, apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order, the Romans also brought much more stylish pottery.
Samian Ware. Photo (cc) Wessex Archaeology.Now THAT’S a review
May 17th
Photo (cc) Analog Photos.
Phil sent me a link to the Amazon UK page for the new book by Richard Littlejohn. He’s a hack for the Daily Mail, a news organisation that makes Fox News look fair and balanced, so I thought that Phil’s recent trip to Syria had left him with mental trauma. Not so. You’d expect the book to pick up mixed reviews. On the contrary it’s picking up wide acclaim, and masses of five star votes. Here’s a sample of the 5/5 reviews:
No-one else can express such complex right wing views in such a monosyllabic form. To buy only one copy of this book would be a crime.
With this insightful, visionary, and – I am not ashamed to say – celestially inspirational commentary on modern life, Richard Littlejohn has rendered the entire canon of Western literature, philosophy and ethical discourse entirely moot.
Littlejohn’s book is so brilliant that when, as is inevitable in modern Britain, a gay immigrant made an attempt to steal it from my bag it literally burnt his hands and made them dissolve a little bit.
There are those who credit Plato with defining that obscure and fluctuating artefact which has been termed the ‘western mind’. More >
Archaeologists peer inside Silbury Hill
May 14th
The shafts in Silbury Hill are to be re-opened and archaeologists are going to enter the engimatic monument for the first time in around forty years. One of the reasons why Silbury Hill is so enigmatic is that it wasn’t built with any shafts – which is the big problem on the site.
In fact there’s precious little known about Silbury Hill. It’s the biggest prehistoric monument in Europe, being about 30 metres high and 160 metres across. It’s more or less conical, so it looks the same shape from any direction and built from earth.
Would you join a club that would have you as a member?
May 11th
Ash. Photo (cc) Owen Booth.
There’s an interesting piece on the Grauniad’s Comment is Free today (yesterday by the time this goes live). People are campaigning for Hiasl of Austria to be considered comparable to people convicted of drug abuse, drink driving or George W. Bush.* Why would someone want that? They argue Hiasl should have basic human rights. Whether or not he’ll get them is uncertain, not because he’s Guantanamo Bay, his friends haven’t lost their grip on reality. It’s because he’s a chimp. (more…)
Inca Bridges
May 10th
Inca Bridge. Photo (cc) Rutahsa Adventures.
When I wrote the Stonehenge module for the Integrated Sciences course I was reminded of a presentation I’d seen while taking my MPhil, but I couldn’t remember the speaker’s name. It’s John Ochsendorf, as I’ve found out after reading this New York Times story How the Inca Leapt Canyons. Ochsendorf’s work is an example of something where interdisciplinarity is a positive thing rather than a buzzword. In this case his research started at undergraduate level when he looked at Inca bridges.
Bridges are a pretty important part of the Inca road network because so much of the landscape in the Andes is vertical. The Inca bridges were therefore reliable, but to a European eye they were very strange, because the bridges were not built of stone or wood. Instead these were inspired by the first little pig. These were bridges built of grass. (more…)
How the Germans saved Eurovision
May 9th
I thought I’d return to the Eurovision Song Contest as I promised last May. The 2006 contest was entertaining, but as they have been for a long while now the Germans were underappreciated in my opinion. It’s the Germans who have saved Eurovision.
Guildo Horn being a superheroVoting-wise there’s not a lot of hope for the coming contest. There’ll be the usual claims of the Balkan states acting as a bloc to vote each other into the final. The reason for this is the Greece-Cyprus axis. The usual defence that the broadcasters from the two countries offer is that it’s simply that they share the same language, and if Turkey were to enter a Greek song then there’s every chance Cyprus would give twelve points to them. This theory has been tested. Greece entered a dirge, mainly in English into the contest recently and it still got twelve points from Cyprus. There have been some great songs from Greece, but only the band’s mothers – and the Cypriots could say S.A.G.A.P.O. was one of them. What Greece and Cyprus do isn’t different to many other votes cast. It’s simply they were the first to eliminate talent from the voting process and they’re More >
Religious Virulence
May 8th
Someone with virulent guests. Photo (cc) Assbach
My opinions on how religion works in society vary. If there is one constant it’s that they’re invariably too simplistic. Recently I’ve listened to an read a few things that are changing my opinion again. The two I’ll bring up today are a follow-up to Is Religion a Virus? from early last year.
Briefly, I was persuaded by an idea put forward by Ben Cullen in Parasite Ecology and the Evolution of Religion, that vertically transmitted infections tend towards less virulence because their own survival is bound to the success of their host. If you accept the virus model of religion (and I’m not sure I do), then this makes sense. No one is inherently religious, so it would pay for the religion to enable survival long enough to pass along the virus and better still to boost fertility.
Or so I thought. (more…)
