Central Valley Skeptics

http://www.dailybreeze.com/editorial/ci_9782339

I was going to open a free will thread (and maybe I still will) but I couldn’t resist posting this editorial by my former pastor, Paul Viggiano of Branch of Hope OPC in Torrance, CA.  It’s unabashedly Christian but go ahead and blast away.

I’m not sure what McCain’s position will be on this, but here’s an article detailing Obama’s plan to change Bush’s faith office. His plan is to change it to the “Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships” in order to give secular non-profit groups equal footing in helping their communities. Here’s the article I found this in.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080701/pl_politico/11462;_ylt=AgTceXhbJVvcR96vpkAWkIVsnwcF

Thoughts?

Can these things be reconsiled? In this tread I wish to discuss this point. I hope you all will watch this 20 min video broken in two parts. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fGkFuHIu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvX_mD5weM&feature=related

Last night, while trying to fall asleep, I found Destination Truth on the Sci-Fi Channel website. As I scanned through the episode list, I noticed that it seemed to be a Ghost Hunters for cryptozoology. I decided to watch the episode on the Yeti, figuring to get a lot of garbage and no evidence.

To my surprise, though the show was certainly sensationalized (after all, how would you keep up the 7.5 ratings if it weren’t), the Yeti episode wasn’t PURE garbage. Josh Gates, the lead “investigator” (supposedly a trained archaeologist) wrapped up this episode by discounting most of his own evidence as inadequate. For example, they saw an IR heat signature of an individual climbing up a hill. Gates, though excited at the time, later admitted that it was probably one of his Sherpas running to get supplies that he’d seen. They also found a “footprint” which, if it was faked, was pretty well faked, in that they had dirt piles around the toes indicating that the motion had been heel to toe. They had it evaluated by a supposed footprint expert Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Professor of Anthropology and Anatomy, whose credentials and reliability I am unable to assess, who seemed excited by the find and was unable to write it off as anything “known”.

Cryptozology is always at least a little interesting because, unlike other fringe and pseudo sciences, there is always a semi-decent chance that a previously unknown organism really does exist. I haven’t watched any of the other episodes yet to determine whether or not he seems to be finding a larger-than-should-be-expected amount of evidence for these legendary creatures, so I don’t know whether or not to take his footprint at all seriously. While it was certainly not scientific, it certainly did a better job of trying to legitimatize themselves over other similar shows. So how about it folks, anyone want to have a go at this show and/or Cryptology’s in general?

Update: I saw another episode where they actually did a paranormal investigation (which is outside their usual “thing”) and got a good laugh out of it. I think the natives on the island were having a good joke at the expense of the investigators, based on the number of times they kept moving the investigators away from the site to “appease the spirits”. I suspect they were putting people in place to make sounds and what have you and used this as a diversion.

I think now would be a good time to clear up some issues which we the CVS group seems to constantly have to explain , most of us, our position on human evolution. What is really cool about evolution is that being a primate man can never escape his biological, physical past. You know when you were moving that table backwards and fell on your behind with a smack of excruciating pain. Ouch you just landed on your tail bone. That is right men and women are born with remnants, insert Christian theology here, of a once used tail. I understand that in rare cases people are born with protruding tails. Wow is not evolution cool in that some of us just can not shake that tail off. This brings us to the topic of the monkeys the apes the chimps and yes at the end man.

Boy it is so hard some times in being a evolutionist free thinking skeptic. You know when we try to have an intelligent objective conversation about the origins of man with a closed myopic brian washed person who is spreading the word of god. Usually the standard reaction is that I did not, man, come from monkeys or apes. This person would say that he was created in all his glory and therefore us skeptics are nothing but lost souls aimlessly wandering around. Actually the truth is that monkeys, apes, chimpanzees and man are all primates. Some evolutionist will disagree and object in classifying humans as apes and guess what too bad. All monkeys are primates and they are not apes. Almost all monkeys have a tail which helps them navigate through the trees. Also when a monkey hits the ground they move on all fours. An ape is a primate and not a type of monkey. Examples of apes chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos. These four are considered the ” great apes.” I do not know why but gibbons are apes yet they are not ” great” ones. These great apes are the most mentally advanced animals on the planet, on land, just short of humans. A chimpanzee is a type of ape and therefore not a monkey. The DNA of chimpanzees is the closest to humans than any other living creature on the planet. What I find amazing is that humans and the great apes fall into the same family Hominidae. From how I am understanding it, humans actually share a subfamily with gorillas and chimps, Homininae. This is really a lot to stew on in a primate kind of way. Humans and apes both have a coccyx bone which is the tail that got lost down road of evolution and life. 

Imagine that one small point in history millions of years ago when humans decided to climb down from the ” tree” and get up from hobbling on all fours. It was at that point in the history of mankind that he seen the world through his eyes a brave new world. From there on man would never relent in seeking  better, faster, deadlier ways of controlling and exploiting the planet and his fellow man. Man is born such an intelligent creature that his eyes will be the same size all through out his life. Man’s brain is so large that when we are born we barely fit our heads through the birth canal. We are one of the few mammals who are born totally helpless. We have to be carried for months before we can ever walk on our own. This is in direct contrast with most of the other mammals who have to get up and start moving with the herd as soon as they are born. If they do not do this then it is lunch time in the wild kingdom. I believe that it is important to carry on this human condition of intelligence and this is what the CVS is all about. What can I say but there is a ”  whole lot of shaken going on.” Looking forward to seeing everyone today. 

This is a claim I’ve heard more than once lately, that the separation of church and state is not actually in the constitution. I found this website: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_reli.html

and I’d like to hear other peoples’ thoughts/interpretations/responses regarding this issue.

I often project myself into other’s point of view, or at least try to. In order to try to gain a better grasp of the subject. In this particular case my friend Ted and I were discussing human evolution when he posed this question to me. “What do people who deny evolution make of the hominids?”

In the following moments I realized my response would only set up a strawman. So I tried to think of how I would argue against the hominid evidence for human evolution if I didn’t have to use that silly logic and reason thing. <—This is a strawman (just showing you what not to do : )

*The best things we could come up with is that you could use some of the references in some holy doctrine that reefer to humans and angles mating.

*Claim that those species (and subsequently all hominids) are unrelated  to humans. You could say the closer relative are human and the less not, insinuating the consensus is wrong.

*Claim an intelligent agent only made it seam as if the hominids are humans evolutionary tree, for a non-specified reason. 

*Invoke postmodernism.

Anybody have any they want to add? I would be very interested in an at least semi-erect argument.

I have a near zoo at my house. 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 savannah monitor, 1 rattlesnake, and the catalyst to this post my chinchilla Tweak. Tweak developed a bald spot consistent with the symptoms of ring worm. I had a hard time finding a vet that would treat him. I finally found one called the Veterinary Medical Association or VMA. While I was in the waiting room I noticed something curious. They have a chiropractor on staff. So I asked the Dr. why. He informed me that they do chiropractic work on dogs on the weekend. Under farther questioning he told me the only use the activator a small device which exerts a force comparable to taping your finger on the table as oppose to spinal manipulation. He also said the used homeopathic treatments, however under more questioning he did not seem to even understand what homeopathy even was. The reason the gave for the chiropractic working on the k-9’s was that they don’t have preconceived notions about chiropractic working or not, and they “just feel better”. So needless to say I am going to try to get an interview, and plan to make this my article for the next newsletter. I have a real problem with praying on peoples emotions for money. Oh yea Tweak’s diagnosis is not in we are waiting for the cultures. 

Well, our filters are working reasonably well, but I just deleted 75 spam messages from the approval section. If I accidentally deleted your comments (and apparently Zack deleted one of RC’s) then I apologize in advance. We seem to be getting bombarded this weekend. I hope this isn’t going to get worse.

Well, we’ve had over 200 spam comments hit moderation in the last 24 hours, so I’m going to require that everyone be registered to comment, at least for a little while.  Maybe that will kill the flow for a short time.

As a skeptic I am very quick to point out bias when I see it. I am writing an article for our upcoming newsletter and I am finding it hard to overcome my bias that organic food is mostly bullshit. Article after article, study after study I find positive results of organic food to be very flaw and inconclusive. Has anyone dealt with this in other areas of research? I don’t want to dismiss data because of my own bias, but how do I balance that with a healthy level of skepticism?