Personal - 8

Shane Killian, jestingly classifying himself as a researcher in the area of bogosity, brings it to the point when he criticizes creationists: “These people don’t even know what the theory of evolution is, and yet they’re pretending to tell you all about it.”

In the first part of a series of YouTube videos he responds to a video titled “Evolution vs. Creation”. He analyzes its content and exposes the most relevant bogus arguments. The remaining arguments are so severe lies that it doesn’t make sense to comment them at all. Here I give a summary of what he’s showing:

Kent Hovind, who has been uncovered to having got his Doctor degree from a diploma mill, promises to give $250,000 to any person that finds any proof for evolution. But his definition of evolution is wrong: It does neither have anything to do with (or without) god, nor with the forming of the universe, nor with the development of our solar system, nor with the creation of life. The analyzed video claims that evolution is not a theory, but a model. But a theory is a model. The bogus video claims that evolution is not observed and tested and that it is about how life first appeared. But evolution does not describe how life appeared, and it is being observed and even used extensively in practice, such as in the development of medicines or in the defeating of the cholera agent. Then the bogus video misquotes Charles Darwin and shows that he was concerned about the small number of fossil intermediate links between species. But they detain his own explanation that the fossil record is extremely imperfect because it’s a rare event. “No intermediate fossils have ever been found.”—“Bogus!” Killian lists a number of fossil indermediate models. Creationists claim that intermediate models are no complete species. But, of course, every lifeform is always a species by itself, and of course there is no fossil evidence of an incomplete organism. Actually, every lifeform is an intermediate species. There are enough intermediate links found between ape and man, and creationists pinpoint to those missing links with yet no fossil evidence. And it doesn’t make sense at all to focus on the fossil record. There are other and more reliable (e.g., genetical) methods today which creationists simply don’t know, and if they knew them, they couldn’t criticize them as easily.

Part two continues with topics that don’t have anything to do with evolution anymore: First, it’s about the Big Bang. Creationists in their despair try to cite scientists incompletely: Hawking allowed to suppose a creator, but what they detain is that Hawking immediately showed that there might be no place for such. Then it clearly comes out: They don’t know what the Big Bang is. They think that something exploded and produced order; their imagination compares to an exploding terrorist bomb forming a wristwatch from the material in its surrounding. But the Big Bang is much more complicated: It was an explosion of space and time and contained very different physics than our average universe. Creationists don’t know anything about quantum mechanics or relativity theory—how should they. Then it turns out that creationists also don’t even seem to have any idea of basic physics or chemistry at all: They don’t know why there’s physical and chemical diversity in our solar system, although everything consists of the same chemical elements. And they don’t know why planets don’t all spin in the same direction. They indeed use their ignorance to santinize their claims. And they think this has something to do with the theory of the Big Bang. Then there is the argument of fine-tuning the physical parameters. They claim that life is impossible when the value of physical constants is varied. But this is not true. Calculations show that stars still can form, still live long enough and life still can form under variations of physical parameters.

Astronomer Phil Plait says that he fights creationists because their god is so small: Our universe is bigger, more beautiful, more worth of study and older than anything that they’re willing to accept.

But the problem is: We’re preaching to the wrong people. It doesn’t make sense to preach to educated people. We have to reach the unknowing, who are easily captured by bogus arguments.

Gestern bin ich beim Drüberzappen kurz auf MTV bei der Sendung “Pimp my ride” hängengeblieben, in der dokumentiert wird, wie klapprige Karren ausgesuchter Bewerber professionell und stylisch aufgemotzt werden. Moderiert wird das ganze von irgend so einem schwarzen Rapper – zumindest glaube ich, dass er einer ist, weil er so Gangsta-mäßig rüberkommt. Gesprochen wird US English, deutsche Untertitel werden eingeblendet.

Hängengeblieben bin ich deshalb, weil eine der Karren offenbar einen Biodieselmotor verpasst bekommen hat. Es folgte eine kuriose Aufklärung bzw. fast schon Rechtfertigung gegenüber den zusehenden Autonarren, warum Biodiesel (“Baiodiesel”) so cool sei. Im Gangsta-Style erklärt der Schwarze, dass der Treibstoff aus nachwachsenden Ressourcen hergestellt werde, und dass er ganz ohne schädliche Abgase und solch stuff sei. Er gräbt sich aus einem Haufen Rapspflanzensamen aus. Dann zeigt er wie sie gepresst werden, um das Rapsöl zu gewinnen. Ob das bereits Biodiesel sei? Natürlich nicht, man. Erst durch eine Art von Raffinieren werde das Öl zum Treibstoff. Er betont den entsprechenden Fachausdruck silbenweise, das Wort wird eingeblendet und dabei silbenweise durch Bindestriche getrennt, was sich allerdings mit dem deutschen Untertitel überlappt, der eine ungleich lautende Übersetzung ebenfalls silbenweise auftrennt – im Endeffekt hab ich keines der Worte mitbekommen.

Biodiesel, so schildert der Moderator, bedeute allerdings nicht automatisch weniger Leistung. Um dies zu demonstrieren, tritt ein Biodieselflitzer gegen einen “herkömmlichen” Lamborghini Baujahr 2007 an. Am Ende der Rennstrecke gewinnt der Ökoflitzer unter Jubel. Biodiesel rules! Und es gebe Biodiesel ja ohnehin schon an fast jeder Tankstelle in den Ju-es-ey.

Aber das Beste kommt noch, denn es wird klar, warum MTV das ökologische Argument gar so sehr auswälzt: Als Gast erscheint niemand geringerer als Arnold Schwarzenegger. Zuerst zeigt er sich allgemein angetan von dem Gefährt und fragt scheinbar beiläufig nach dem Motor. Er gibt sich überrascht und ist natürlich begeistert, dass es sich um einen Biodiesel handelt, und er erzählt, dass er selbst auf einen solchen umgestiegen sei. Der einzige Nachteil sei, dass es während der Fahrt ständig nach Pommes rieche und man deswegen leicht Hunger bekäme. Als er erfährt, dass die Sitzbezüge aus Hanf seien, klärt er scherzhaft auf, dass Hanf in Kalifornien verboten sei. Und es möge bitte niemand auf die Idee kommen, etwas vom Bezug abzutrennen und zu rauchen. Die schwarzen Mechaniker amüsieren sich, als hätte er etwas ausgesprochen, was sie sich sowieso schon die ganze Zeit gedacht hatten. Dann muss Arnie aber wieder weiter.

Ich frage mich, von wessen Seite die Initiative eigentlich ausging: Wollte Schwarzenegger die Autonarren zu mehr Ökologie bekehren und hat sich dieser Sendung aufgedrängt, oder ist Biodiesel sowieso schon Mode, und MTV hat Schwarzenegger zu sich eingeladen, um dem entsprechend Gewicht zu verleihen? Jedenfalls ist es interessant zu sehen, dass die Amis doch endlich bzgl. Klimaschutz aufzuwachen scheinen.

Two days ago, the aspiring Austrian rock band Excuse Me Moses did a short illegal rock concert off an updriven truck at Stephansplatz in Vienna as PR for their new album “1st Last Will”. Numerous fans and a handful of journalists had been informed in advance, and many surprised tourists watched their performance. The band managed to play two and a half songs until the police turned off their generator. In the evening they had their album presentation in Vienna’s Birdland club. Here’s a video from yesterday’s TV news (in German); you can see me cheering e.g. in second 12 on the right half of the screen (black shirt).

The Boss RC-2 Loop Station is a compact pedal for recording loop phrases with an electric guitar. The pedal has two bigger brothers: The RC-20XL Phrase Recorder and the spacious RC-50 Loop Station. The RC-2 is ideal for practicing and composing. It has 33 different drum patterns available and can store 11 phrases with a sum of at most 16 minutes. You can tap in the tempo of the drum patterns and even the speed of recorded phrases without changing their pitch! The pedal has an AUX IN to record phrases from an external playback device. This makes it possible to e.g. slow down guitar solos you want to learn. In this case you can use the AUTO recording mode that doesn’t start recording before an audio signal is received. Recordings can be overdubbed arbitrary times, and there’s an undo and redo function for the most recent overdub. Playback can be switched from loop to one-shot, making it possible to trigger recorded samples during a performance.

Boss must have put much brain power into the usability design of that pedal to make it possible for musicians to have a reasonable recording workflow available by just using two knobs, a single button and a single footswitch. I don’t want to go into detail here, but rather show what a typical workflow could look like (without an external footswitch):

Now I remember why I rarely go to the movies.

POTC (the first part) was a rather amusing film. But POTC2 was a lame sequel (like they usually are), and POTC3 was trash (like they usually are, see Terminator III). POTC3 takes long and is boring. It is impossible to follow the complex story line. Some scenes have awesome effects, like the world going upside down at sunset. But then there are only weird scenes, like the slapstick marriage during a saber battle. Not recommended, not even as a popcorn movie.

Five murder mystery TV shows with blondes in the lead and starting with “C”: C.S.I., Criminal Intent, The Closer, Close To Home, Cold Case.

No wonder I’m confused. And I always thought that TV is only for people with an IQ < 3.