The false dilemma of the "Gum Game" - Abstinence and sex education.

I’m getting so tired of conservative religious black and white thinking. I have friends and strangers both tell me that what I call a system of rational thinking will inevitably lead to horrors. The popular belief is that if anyone gives immorality an inch, it will take a yard. And then they define what is or is not immoral.

Recently a county in Maryland halted a faith-based abstinence only education program that was taught in high schools there. They halted the program because part of the lesson contained the “gum game”, where students were asked to chew the same piece of gum. This was in an attempt to show that students would succumb to peer pressure, even when they were sharing mouth germs in gum. The sharing was strictly voluntary, and I assume that students with bleeding gums were excluded. The germs were no different than those you get while kissing.

One of the parents of a Montgomery County student was overcome by the ‘ick’ factor and complained, resulting in the halting of all abstinence only education from groups who used this game. Of course the religious crowd who believes they have a divine right to tell you and me how to live has bemoaned throwing the baby out with the bathwater – they acknowledge the game is unsanitary and shouldn’t be used, (even though it didn’t bother them for the last 9 years) but say they should still be allowed to teach abstinence.

The gum game analogy shows the weakness of black and white religious thinking. The message is supposed to be, “You wouldn’t share gum germs with everyone in the class, so why would you share sex with everyone in the class?”

The gum game analogy doesn’t follow the analogy to other possible, equally valid conclusions. Perhaps an individual could vigorously chew his or her own gum – as Dr. Joycelyn Elders famously suggested. Perhaps we could share gum when it is wrapped inside a protective, disposable plastic envelope. Yes, it won’t taste the same, and won’t be quite as fun, but it is sure better than sharing germs with an unknown person. Besides, I'm sure someone would invent flavored plastic envelopes with intriguing shapes and textures.

Perhaps we should get to know the person we are sharing the gum with, wait a while, learn to ask detailed background questions, talk to their friends and family, until you feel you can trust they haven’t been sharing gum with other people. Perhaps we can start a program of voluntarily and frequently testing the gum for germs.

You can see that I don’t have a very high opinion of this analogy. And my opinion of religious based sex education is also pretty low – it is a sort of oxymoron in the same vein as “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”. Faith-based sex education teaches nothing about sex, instead sex is defined as a boogeyman and students are warned away. Everyone is supposed to grow up to become the mythical Television married couple. Loving, devoted mother and father who sleep in separate beds and never ever mention sex. Kids are supposed to find out about sex the old fashioned way – on the street or behind the shed with the bra section of the JC Penney catalog.


I have no problem telling kids to wait to have sex. A lot of young adults, even high school graduates, are not emotionally mature enough to handle a sexual relationship without the risk of incurring emotional, psychological damage. Some of the most vulnerable young adults don’t realize that they are vulnerable – and they need the strength and the encouragement of being told that it is okay to wait.

But the urge to mate is hormonal, and it is a formidable force for young people. The reality is that many will not be able to wait. The opportunity will present itself. Young people are likely to make poor decisions and to not foresee consequences to their actions. We can lay the foundations to protect young people even in these situations, by giving them the tools to evaluate their partners, by providing ways to protect themselves when they are awash in a tidal wave of hormones.

Carrying a condom isn’t a license to have sex anymore than wearing a seatbelt is a license to crash. You give a young person a helmet; you don’t forbid him to skateboard.

And speaking from experience, under the right conditions sharing gum is not only okay, it’s a lot of fun.

Flatland the movie! Yippee!

I can’t believe it, the 1884 book “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” is going to be a movie, and although it's just an educational movie, it looks like it is going to be pretty good!

The story of “Flatland” is that of a two dimensional world, and is narrated by a square as he explains life without a third dimension. The book is written by Edwin A. Abbott who lived in London during the Victorian period. Like other great Victorian era text it can be read on multiple levels, and at the same time it carries a lot of Victorian era baggage; such as the natural thought of naturally inferior classes of people, and of course the writing can be a bit stuffy.

But the book reads so well! Abbott’s description of the Square’s first encounter with the three dimensional Sphere is a wonder of analogy. The Sphere can see inside the Square, examine the Square’s “guts” so to speak. It reminds me of a Science Fiction book I once read where 4th dimensional aliens preformed ‘surgery’ on 3 dimensional humans without the need to break the skin – they just ‘reached’ inside through another dimension.

You can order the book “Flatland” through Amazon, or you can read it online for free from Project Gutenbert. The trailer for “Flatland the Movie” looks great, and it seems that the movie is going to be fairly true to the book (although it looks as if females are not represented by lines.)

If you are into geometry, mathematics, or are just a geek like me, you’ll enjoy the book. I read it first when I was in my early 20’s, but I think I would have enjoyed it just as much in my teens.

A reply to Daniel J. Lewis

A few days ago Daniel J. Lewis, a spokesperson for the group Answers in Genesis, stopped by PZ Myer’s Pharyngula blog in order to defend creationism on his own behalf, not in his capacity as an AIG spokesperson.

I really didn’t think this was a good place for Mr. Lewis to make this attempt because any blog is an asynchronous media, and Pharyngula has a LOT of readers – Mr. Lewis was quickly buried under reader comments.

However, my comment about the hatefulness of an Answers in Genesis campaign brought Mr. Lewis to comment in my blog. I’ll reproduce that here, along with my answer.

Mr. Lewis, I’ll trust that you’ll forgive me for bringing your comment into my blog proper, but I believe this would be a better place for me to address it.

You can read my original AIG blog entry here. Here is Mr. Lewis' response:

Many people thought that message did not communicate properly, so it was revised for what actually made "the press." I can't find a link to it, but it said something like, "If God doesn't matter to him, then why would you?"

The basic point being that biblical Christianity teaches Christians to love each other and to love their enemies. Very few (if any) other religions teach to love your enemy.

But a culture based on evolution is one that would naturally embrace survival of the fittest. And the extreme of that thinking, is that if I can increase my chances of survival or improve my living by killing you, then I am justified.

Also, a culture based on evolution has no absolute basis for morality. Sure, we create governments to uphold laws. But what if we agree that it's acceptable to kill anyone who doesn't have blue eyes? If the nation agreed on this law, would it be acceptable? This is basically Nazi Germany. They agreed that Jews should be eliminated from society, and Hitler even based this on survival of the fittest.

So the flip side is that we were created special by God. And if He created us, then He has authority to give us an absolute morality.

P.S. Thanks for your input on Pharyngula, and inviting me here to answer your question.

Mr. Lewis, this is not how I see the world at all. You have said some things that are not only in error, but are also hurtfully abusive, and I don’t think you’ve even realized this.

The declaration that “Very few (if any) other religions teach to love your enemy” is demonstrably incorrect even with a simple Google search. Not only do other religions, religious figures, and philosophers teach “love your enemy” but several, such as Jainism, Taoism, and Buddhism, have done so before Jesus is supposed to have said this. Islam also teaches “love your enemy” in both the Quran and the Hadith.

I’ll also point out that many influential members of these religions, including Christianity, seem to have a hard time living up to “Love your enemy.”

You said:

But a culture based on evolution is one that would naturally embrace survival of the fittest. And the extreme of that thinking, is that if I can increase my chances of survival or improve my living by killing you, then I am justified.

This is an incorrect premise. First, you’ve mixed up the science of biological evolution with the pseudoscientific belief in Social Darwinism, and in this statement you’ve also included your own beliefs that evolution is false, and that biological evolution would have a negative affect on altruism.

Secondly, your view of the “extreme” of evolution is only partly correct, but I can understand why you think it is right. Even before television existed there have been sound bites; Herbert Spenser coined the term “Survival of the Fittest” which together with Lord Tennyson’s poem, “In Memoriam A.H.H” with the line “Nature, red in tooth and claw” it is no wonder that the popular understanding of Darwin’s theory has been solely based on violence.

The simple truth is that species are sometimes violent and sometimes they cooperate – and even thinking of nature on those simple terms doesn’t tell the whole story because species evolved complex behaviors to maximize the survival of said species. You missed the basic definition of the theory of evolution.

You then compounded your error by using your confusion of Social Darwinism as the basis for your own view of legal system of enforced godless morality – and equated this to Nazis.

Mr. Lewis, I should call, “Godwin’s Law” and stop here. From my point of view you have obliquely equated me with a Nazi, and have declared me to be an enemy deserving of ‘love’ – which I see as the very special “separate but equal” Christian definition of love. I think I’m being generous here – Dominionist or Zionist Christians might say, “Separate, and not quite as privileged.” From your blog, I see you are a Dominionist Christian.

I find it ironic that your belief in an infinite God seems to have limited your worldview. From your blog I see that you interpret the Bible literally, and believe that the world is merely thousands of years old. You said that you,

…also covered a couple basic science examples that confirm the Bible’s history and oppose the world’s teachings of millions of years.

Even when teaching a lie, you can’t bring yourself to imagine 4.7 billion years – and must instead argue against the more easily grasped dishonesty of ‘mere’ millions of years. Your infinite God seems very small to me.


Let me explain to you how I see the world.

I see a massive, awe-inspiring universe that has existed for billions of years, much longer than I can comprehend, with natural properties that allow the formation of greater complexities. We are all “star-stuff” as Carl Sagan has called us, and I feel amazement and wonder at this at a very visceral level. (I would use the word, ‘spiritual’ here, but it’s been taken.)

I see life based on biological systems so complex that scientists are only starting to understand them after countless millions of man-hours of work. Current indications are that at some point in the next century (or two) humans will have a complete understanding of our own biology. (Disclaimer - error margin of +/- 150 years.)

And I see humankind, who has spent most of our existence trying to understand nature, and failing until we hit upon the trick of a method that we call ‘science’. Unfortunately, older make-shift religious methods of understanding nature are still in effect because they give comforting and easy to understand answers.

A religious ethical system is attractive because it is easy to codify. It is based upon black and white absolutes that require little thought. As an additional bonus, it also abrogates any feelings of guilt for religious followers. If you have followed the will of your God there is no reason to feel guilty; you have washed your hands in the tradition of Pontius Pilate.

Religious based ethical systems have few checks or balances, and are rigid and unchanging. Moderate Christians have become more ethical than radical Christians in spite of Biblical ethics, not because of them.


Nature does not have an ethical system, but species have evolved methods of maximizing returns though cooperation within a species, and even through cooperation across species lines. This sort of evolved economics is one of several survival traits that have become basic nature in most humans. Humans are intelligent, and can use their intelligence to learn how to improve on these evolved morals. For example, the science of game theory is being explored for an applied understanding of ethical systems.


A human ethical system should focus on humans – both as individuals and as a species – in the here and now while at the same time keeping an eye on the future of the human species.

An ethical system that focuses on humans instead of the supernatural is based on suffering, sympathy, empathy, and the benefits of cooperation; both for the individual and for all humans. To quote Sam Harris:

It is, of course, taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs. The problem, however, is that much of what people believe in the name of religion is intrinsically divisive, unreasonable and incompatible with genuine morality. One of the worst things about religion is that it tends to separate questions of right and wrong from the living reality of human and animal suffering. Consequently, religious people will devote immense energy to so-called moral problems—such as gay marriage—where no real suffering is at issue, and they will happily contribute to the surplus of human misery if it serves their religious beliefs.

Gary Kern said it eloquently in “The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist”:

We have evolved the ability to empathize, to share the motivations and feelings of those around us. From this, we have gained the ability to sympathize with the plight of others, to understand what may be causing them distress or pain, and to wish, for their sake, that their suffering would stop. Armed with this sympathy, we act in a moral way to prevent the distress and suffering of others. Our opinions on what constitutes a moral course of action may differ, but the underlying sympathy is the same.

I’ll be the first to admit that some humans seem to lack the trait of empathy for others . I’ll easily admit that most (or even all) humans seem unable to constantly and consistently act in a perfectly moral manner. I’ll also point out that there are many morally ambiguous problems. Any ethical system must be designed with this in mind. Current black and white religion-based ethical systems are inflexible, and demonstrably break down when they encounter many moral problems.

Humankind is only now starting to explore systems of ethics related to a natural understanding of moral behavior of the human species. Research into ‘natural’ ethics has been opposed for centuries by religion. Attempts to explore science based on natural, as opposed to supernatural, laws have often been cut short as researchers were labeled ‘heretic’ or ‘blasphemer’. Death or threats of death and torture tend to have a chilling effect on scientific progress.

Religion has a lot of practice at vilifying any threatening philosophy – which is the first step toward oppression.

And oppression is what you have advocated, oh-so-gently, in my blog Mr. Lewis.

You argue, without research, without proof, and with a false understanding of evolution, that a theory of how a natural process works will unerringly lead to the horrors of Hitler, who by the way was quite able to use Catholicism to help him accomplish his goals. It would have been smarter to equate your strawman with the Atheistic Stalin, and just as incorrect because he also followed a dogma.

Perhaps the converse has never occurred to you; that an ethical philosophy based on the relief of human suffering without the recourse to a supernatural god may be superior to an ethical philosophy based on a supernatural afterlife centered on the glorification of a fictional being.


I won’t call “Godwin’s Law” Mr. Lewis, because I really don’t think you would equate me with Nazis on purpose. I think you are basically a good person, and have been led astray by your beliefs.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

-Steven Weinberg

Uploading your brain - Transhuman / Post Human technology

I guess it was inevitable; after watching both Pixar’s “Cars” and 20th Century Fox’s “Robots” I started thinking about the coming technological singularity and humanity’s upgrade to ‘post human’.

Transhumanism is one of those concepts that are almost pseudoscience – what Michael Shermer might call ‘borderland science’. It is based upon the idea of using technology to augment a human, an idea that is as old as Mary Shelley’s writings – and just as scary as Frankenstein’s monster.

Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge wrote about an, “intelligence explosion” which would happen when artificial intelligence technology got to the point where the AI could start designing its own upgrades. At that point AIs would become more intelligent in a sort of uncontrolled feedback loop explosion. Vinge called this point “the Singularity.”

MIT educated engineer and inventor Raymond Kurzweil wrote an essay in 2001 called, “The Law of Accelerating Returns” in which he projects a timeline based somewhat on Moore’s Law and looks at its implications. Moore’s Law is not really a law, more of an observation that about once every 18 months (give or take 6 months) computing power doubles. Scientists wonder if this rate is sustainable – especially after we get to the point where circuits are so small that the effects of Quantum Physics render current electronics theories useless. Kurzweil hypothesizes that new technology will be invented to take over when current technology reaches a fundamental limit – and perhaps he has something with this. Quantum computing may possibly take the place of electronics-based computing.

The major implication of advancing toward a technological singularity, according to Kurzweil, is that it may be possible to become immortal. Kurzweil thinks of immortality as maintaining an augmented human body with nanobots, sort of like a Star Trek ‘Borg’, (but without the look of a robotic Dominatrix.)

Author and ‘futurologist’ Ian Pearson also talks about the upcoming technological advances in Artificial Intelligence, and has gone so far as to suggest that our minds might be uploaded into a piece of hardware. He also talks about intelligent yogurt, but I’m not sure if it was of the strawberry and banana kind, or the plain vanilla type.


I’ve got a couple of problems with transitioning all of Humanity into better hardware. Some parts of a future upgrade are attractive, like the not ceasing to exist part, but other parts I worry about. Like the fact that many of our emotions have glandular components. Will we still shed tears when we grieve? And is it really love if you can’t feel your heart skip a beat? Samantha Bee asked Kurzweil if we will be able to have sex with robots; that question has already been answered affirmatively by the porn industry (batteries not included) – the real question is if we, as future robots, will have sex with each other? Perhaps the question will become moot upon the passing of biological urges.

I don’t believe that emotion will disappear – I just think that it could become divorced from its biological components – and in so doing it would become ‘alien’ to our current way of thinking.

I have a problem with ‘uploading your mind’ into a computer. The problem is that you are not uploading yourself, you are instead copying yourself. If I upload a floppy disk onto my hard drive, the software may run faster, but the original floppy disk doesn’t disappear. The floppy disk is then put away into a drawer, discarded, erased and re-used, or more likely these days it is seen as archaic and thrown away. As soon as you upload yourself into a computer, the flesh and blood ‘you’ becomes superfluous, ready for discard. This would be disconcerting, to say the least, to the ‘you’ that still inhabited the flesh and blood body about to be discarded!

This is where Kurzweil’s idea of nanorobotics becomes more attractive – instead of copying our intelligence into a computer; we could instead over a period of time upgrade our human bodies until they become a computer. This follows nature’s current method of replacing cells in a human body. Human bodies replace all of their cells several times over a lifetime, and the mind continues unbroken during these cell changes.

Perhaps there will come a time when the software of the Mind becomes complex enough to view its physical body at a different level, and instead see it as a sort of housing. If we reach this point we will then be able to transfer our intelligence to a new housing without the same qualms as uploading from our brains. Instead of ‘copied’ intelligences, we’ll become capable of ‘cut and paste’. (We can then store our previous body, or perhaps sell it on Ebay.)


I have a major problem with all of these predictions. The people talking about Transhumanism or ‘post humans’ are well educated, they are also Science Fiction authors, or work at predicting the future of technological trends. The singularity is forecast to happen between 2020 and 2075 – so it is possible that I may see it in my lifetime. Your kids, and certainly your grandkids will see it happen.

If it happens.

Predictions of the future are notoriously unreliable. I’m the first to admit that current technology is pretty amazing – but I also have to lament that past predictions have not come true. Where are our hover cars? Why aren’t we living on the Moon or on Mars? “2001, A Space Odyssey” is already 5 years past-due, and we still haven’t achieved the technology that was installed in the spaceship Discovery One. During the Golden Age of Science Fiction stories were placed in the magical year of 2000, where we all owned our own space suits, and we vacationed on Venus.

These predictions are merely this, predictions. Some predictions, like flying cars and personal space craft, are as yet still unworkable. Other predictions such as giant college-campus-sized computers didn’t turn out as we thought they would, miniaturization and quantities of scale have put supercomputers on everyone’s desktop. Other advances are so far out that they were not even written about in the Golden Age of Science Fiction – the Internet was a surprise.

Predicting the future is a hobby burdened with disappointments. Long-range forecasts are about as accurate as long-range weather forecasts, we can say with certainty that it WILL rain next year, but we can’t say for sure if the rain will ruin our 4th of July Barbeque. We can say for certain that there WILL be major advances in technology, but we can’t say for sure what this will imply for humans.

Perhaps technological immortality will become available for humans – and perhaps not. I think that it’s too early to say for sure. Perhaps we will become post-humans, and perhaps we will instead become slaves to, or extinct because of our cybernetic overlords. Right now it is all just a ‘borderland science’ and as such I won’t worry about it much.

Hmm… I think I’ll watch Bicentennial Man again, and I really wanted to catch up with what’s going on with brain-machine interfaces.

Inflatible Spaceships may be the new Budget Suite

I’m starting to take a look at Bigelow Aerospace, a private space firm started by hotel entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow. You may know Mr. Bigelow through his hotel chain, “Budget Suites of America.”

Bigelow Aerospace has been able to do something fairly unique. As a private company they have been able to put into orbit a prototypical, functional space station. Granted, Genesis 1 is just a 1/3 scale model of the modules that will eventually make up a real space tourist hotel, but it seems to be demonstrating that concept of an inflatable space station is valid.

Yes, it’s inflatable. Genesis 1, like future Bigelow Aerospace space station models, is designed to be delivered into orbit in a ‘packed’ form that will automatically inflate upon deployment into orbit. The technology seems to be valid because it depends on puncture resistant fabric.

Bigelow has offered to let Earthlings to include trinkets, mementos, or other knick knacks to be sent into space as ‘cargo’ of these space stations. Genesis 1 even has internal cameras that will allow you to watch this mess of trinkets whirl around the interior. Genesis II is due for launch in January 2007, and Bigelow is again offering to allow people to purchase space for their items.

This looks interesting, possibly even promising. Bigelow doesn’t know a thing about space, electronics, or computers, but he’s good at getting things organized and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. Maybe as a hotel owner he senses money as a hotel for space tourists. If he is successful then despite his lack of actual technical know-how he may become as famous as the Wright brothers.

I really want to like Mr. Bigelow, but he makes it very difficult.

Besides space exploration, Bigelow also believes in the paranormal, and in UFOs. Since he is the kind of guy who isn’t afraid to spend his money on what he believes, he founded the National Institute for Discovery Science as a way to study the paranormal and extraterrestrial. The NIDS has fallen on hard times lately, but Bigelow still seems determined to believe in alien visitors.

This so reminds me of Sir Isaac Newton, celebrated for his contributions to mathematics, optics and physics. His theories of gravity and motion are still required for any modern physics student. But at the same time, Newton was a bit wacky. He believed in Alchemy, and wrote more on religion than he did on any of his famous scientific pursuits.

Mr. Bigelow, if he is lucky, may be someday remembered as an important contributor to space habitats. If he is unlucky he’ll be remembered as the kook who went to space to look for ET.

Richard Feynman

Before biologist Dr. Richard Dawkins became an outspoken critic of religion, another scientist had made it plain that he thought religion was bunk.

Dr. Richard Feynman, Nobel prize winner, (and my favorite role model) was perhaps the most influential scientist for a whole generation of new scientists. Feynman was a physicist, but foremost he was a teacher who loved teaching. New generations of physics majors dig up his lectures to read or listen to.

At a guest lecture that he gave at the University of Washington, Feynman said:

Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.

In his speech on Cargo Cults, he speaks about having the scientific integrity to test the world as it is, honestly, without basing your tests on the supernatural, without lying to anyone, including yourself, actively or by omission. It’s a very powerful speech.

Here I’ve found something neat. The Vega Science Trust has videos of Dr. Feynman teaching physics to non-scientists. These are just regular people, and Dr. Feynman makes his lecture not only understandable, but also fascinating. It’s magical to watch, he is such a charismatic speaker. And when you’re done you will have learned something.

The Nutty Professor - Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and Telephone Telepathy.

According to Wikipedia Dr. Sheldrake once taught biology at Cambridge University before moving to India and joining a Hindu hermitage with mystic Swami Dayananda. Afterwards he moved back to London and late last year he was appointed to the Perrott-Warwick Scholarship for psychical research and parapsychology by the otherwise excellent Trinity College of Cambridge. Oddly enough, searching the Trinity College website turns up no mention of Dr. Sheldrake or the Perrott-Warwick scholarship, or any mention of psychical or parapsychological research.

Dr. Sheldrake is lately in the news for his announcement about Telephone Telepathy at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He presented to attendants at this meeting his evidence that people know who is calling them when the phone rings. According to the Yahoo news article:

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.
"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected,"
...
However, his sample was small on both trials -- just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50 for the email -- and only four subjects were actually filmed in the phone study and five in the email, prompting some skepticism.
Undeterred, Sheldrake -- who believes in the interconnectedness of all minds within a social grouping -- said that he was extending his experiments to see if the phenomenon also worked for mobile phone text messages.

Notice that Dr. Sheldrake didn't address the problem of a too small sample size for his experiment, and instead immediately widened the experiment to include different tests. This is not a sign of good science! This isn't the first time Dr. Sheldrake has been accused of making unwarranted claims based on improper methodology. CSICOP took Dr. Sheldrake to task and debunked his Psychic Staring Effect experiment - where he claimed to show that people could tell, better than random chance, when someone was staring at them.

Dr. Sheldrake also wrote a book called, "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals" (Amazon link) In this book he attempts to show that dogs can somehow psychically 'tell' when their owners are coming home. The methodology described by Dr. Sheldrake shows that he didn't even attempt to create a 'double blind' experiment, where neither owners, dogs, nor observers knew when the owner was coming home. Instead he allowed the owners of these dogs to record the observations of their pets. He again used a very small sample size.

Dr. Sheldrake meets several of the seven warning signs of bogus science published by Dr. Robert Park. (I quoted this list before in my Steorn blog entry.)

• Instead of publishing to peer-reviewed media, Dr. Sheldrake writes popular books and makes claims and announcements pitched to the media.
• His results are based on a small sample size, which is at the very limit of detection of effects.
• He bases some of his conclusions on anecdotal evidence (for example, allowing a dog's owner to record their observations.)
• He claims that Quantum Theory can explain psychic phenomena, which is a proposed new law of nature since Quantum Theory describes the subatomic, not macroscopic, universe.
• He works in some isolation, well outside the mainstream science community.

Dr. Sheldrake does seem to consider himself somewhat of a skeptic, and is published at the Skeptical Investigations website. This isn't really unusual since the website is actually registered to Dr. Sheldrake. According to Dr. Robert Carroll, author of Skeptic's Dictionary, Skeptical Investigations only seems skeptical about skeptics who don't agree with the authors on their website. Authors on this website, according to Dr. Carroll, believe that science should be redefined so that it includes the paranormal and the supernatural.

What I find most interesting about Dr. Sheldrake's supposed skepticism is his refusal to cooperate with noted skeptic James Randi in Randi's Million Dollar Challenge. Instead of cooperation, Dr. Sheldrake has instead decided to belittle Mr. Randi, and has in Randi's words,

... expressed his fear about associating serious scientific research with a reward of this sort. Well, it's hardly unusual for a monetary prize to be offered to the first person to demonstrate some phenomenon or solve some problem in science. Does the name Alfred Nobel sound familiar?

I've got news for Dr. Sheldrake, I actually DO know who is calling me on my cell phone almost every time it rings. My success rate approaches 90 percent. It's called 'Caller ID', which is based on engineering and technology, which is in turn based upon science.

Science works - pseudoscience doesn't work.

Testing the Counterfeit Money Detector Pen by DriMark

Crooks have been copying money ever since its invention. Ancient gold coins were faked by filling them with lead; counterfeits as simple as a slug were used to defeat older vending machines; and these days fake money is made using printing presses or laser printers.

The ability to detect counterfeit bills is a valuable skill to learn by anyone who handles money on a regular basis. To encourage this skill the Secret Service prints a pamphlet called Know Your Money (viewable online) that describes how to detect counterfeit bills. The guide assumes that the person receiving a bill will pay attention to the details of the bill. Of course experience also helps; sometimes a counterfeit bill just doesn’t ‘feel’ or ‘look’ right.

Machines also exist that will assist in sorting legitimate bills from fake, but these machines are not perfect. The best detection of counterfeit money is still a person who is familiar with currency and pays attention.


And then there is the Counterfeit Money Detector Pen.

This pen, made and patented by DriMark Products, seems to instantly determine the validity of paper currency using a process that is mysterious to most users. A cashier merely marks a bill with this pen, and if the mark is yellowish, amber or clear then the currency is valid. If the mark turns dark brown or black then the currency is phony.

Cashiers take great comfort in this patented process. I’ve seen clerks at the local corner market use these pens on ten-dollar bills. I’ve seen cashiers at my credit union use these pens to check hundred dollar bills. And I’ve noticed that in all cases that when the pen is used the attendant instantly trusts the results.

Let me restate that. It is possible that an inexperienced cashier, or one who is in a hurry, will accept counterfeit money as authentic if it passes the ‘pen test,’ even if that currency would clearly be detectable as counterfeit to another person who took the time to examine it. Most cashiers seem to have a blind faith in these pens.


How does the pen work?

As I mentioned, this pen is patented. The patent number is 5,063,163 , and can be seen online at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. According to the patent claims, this pen contains a testing solution comprised of one of several different chemical recipes. The active ingredient is Iodine, and the remainder is one of several solvents.

The patent claims that this solution will detect, “…illegitimate paper currency by detecting the starch content therein in excess of the genuine currency.” It does this using a known reaction between Iodine and starch, called an ‘Iodine Test’.

The Iodine Test is a standard chemical method of detecting starch. Simply stated Iodine reacts with starch to produce a deep blue-black color. (Here is another link for those interested in the chemistry of the Iodine Test.) The test solution in the DriMark pen is naturally a light golden-brown or yellowish color, but when mixed with starch the color changes dramatically to a dark black.

One of the ways that the United States Mint has tried to combat counterfeited bills is to use distinctive paper. Standard paper, like the kind used in a copy machine, is composed of wood cellulose bound together with starch-based glue. Paper used in currency is composed of cotton or linen fabric that has been beaten and cooked to create fine fibers. The process causes the fibers to interlock naturally without the requirement of a starch binding material which makes for a very strong, high quality paper. Paper used for United States currency has other additions, such as tiny red and blue fibers and a plastic / metallic strip embedded in it. Due to the method of manufacture, paper currency will not disintegrate or weaken substantially when wet.

There is very little, if any, starch in American currency.

James Randi has tried to tell people that these pens give a false sense of comfort to those who trust them over all other means of counterfeit detection. He hasn’t had much success in his attempt at education, and I can sympathize. I have also tried to explain to my credit union tellers that they should learn how to use their senses to discover counterfeits. I’m still trying, patiently, to educate.

Mr. Randi isn’t as patient as I am, so to make his point he sometimes withdraws money from his bank, coats it with spray starch, and then returns it. (Presumably he banks at a higher quality establishment than I do, because his tellers don’t seem to check the bills with a counterfeit detector pen.)


Skeptical testing of spray starch on money

I love to read James Randi’s weekly Swift Commentary because I learn so much from him. Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve taken from Randi and other skeptics is that as a skeptic I’m NOT required to blindly believe what they say. I’m allowed and encouraged to find competing opinions, do my own research, or even perform my own experiments. So in this vein I decided to run my own experiment on the counterfeit detection pen.


My questions:

1. Will DriMark’s Counterfeit Detection Pen respond properly to paper currency and standard computer paper?
2. Is there another sort of paper that would be detected as ‘currency’ by the pen?
3. Randi coats money with spray starch to fool the pen – does that work?
4. If I find a non-currency paper that fools the pen, can I spray it with starch so that it will then read as ‘counterfeit’?
5. I’ve read that hairspray would defeat the pen and cause it to indicate non-currency paper is valid currency. Is this true? Can I cause starch-soaked currency to read as valid?

Materials

1. DriMark Counterfeit Detector Pen with adhesive holder! (It was cheaper than purchasing 3 to a package.) Patent number 5,063,163 is proudly printed on the bottom of the package.
   
2. Dollar bills. I used four singles instead of twenties, fifties or hundreds for two reasons. First, I’ll be writing on these bills with a counterfeit detection pen, and I don’t want a cashier to refuse my money because they think it’s funny. Second, I’m not so rich that I can play with hundred dollar bills!
3. Starch. I could have used a powder starch and mixed it with water, but who needs that hassle? I used Niagara spray starch because I’m familiar with it from using it every week for ten years while I was in the Air Force.
4. Hair Spray. After a lot of thought I made the scientific decision to use Suave unscented with Extra Hold. (Luckily I happened to have a supply of this in my bathroom!)
5. Computer paper, coffee filters, paper towels. Other sorts of paper to experiment on, and to use to clean up my mess afterwards.
6. One domestic felines, absolutely required as an impartial observer and judge. My feline owner, a Mr. Samuel Francisco, (aka Cisco) was gracious enough to volunteer his services.

Method

1. Test the pen to make sure it can tell the difference between good money and computer paper. This initial check also serves to prove that the pen is working as advertised. I applied the pen to one of the dollar bills and to a sheet of computer paper (folded in half).
2. Apply spray starch to the next dollar bill in an attempt to make it read as fake. Apply hairspray to the folded computer paper in an attempt to make it read as real. I used an evaporative rotary oscillator to facilitate in the drying of these sprays.
3. After drying, test the results by re-applying the counterfeit money detector pen to both the dollar and to the computer paper.
4. Using the counterfeit money detector pen, test a single coffee filter paper from the package of Brew Rite bargain filters that I found in my cupboard.
5. Spray another coffee filter paper with starch and allow to dry on the evaporative rotary oscillator.
6. Using the counterfeit money detector pen, test the coffee filter sprayed with starch to determine if it registers as counterfeit or real.
7. Using the dollar bill sprayed with starch from item (2) above, spray this bill with hairspray and allow it to dry.
8. Test the bill with the counterfeit money detector pen to determine if it registers as fake or real.

(Left) Testing the coffee filter




(Right)
Evaporative Rotary
Oscillator.
Not every lab has such high tech equipment!













Results

1. Writing on money is legal as long as I don’t make it ‘unfit for circulation’ according to title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Still I find myself reluctant to write on it, so helpfully I write, “Not Fake” to put any receiving cashiers at ease. Writing on computer paper is easy except I have a minor bit of writer’s block, so I just give a friendly ‘Hi!’ The pen works as expected – the computer paper is fake money, and the dollar bill is real money.
2. After spraying the bill with starch and the computer paper with hairspray I again test them both with the counterfeit detector pen. As predicted by James Randi, the second dollar bill now reads as counterfeit. The pen now indicates that the hairsprayed computer paper is genuine currency.
3. I then tested a coffee filter with the counterfeit pen. The coffee filter is apparently made completely out of genuine American currency paper because the pen indicates that it is NOT counterfeit.
   
4. I sprayed a new coffee filter with starch and allowed it to dry on the evaporator. Afterwards I tested it with the counterfeit detector pen and found that the coffee filter now (correctly) reads as counterfeit paper. I have no idea what starch will do to my morning cup of coffee, but I’ll bet it isn’t anything good!
5. At this point my neutral feline observer decided to preform a randoml quality control inspection while I worked, so I very carefully sprayed the previously starched bill with hair spray under his scrutiny.
6. The starched dollar bill, sprayed with hairspray, is now very shiny in the camera flash, but obviously NOT a counterfeit!

(Note that I used the word 'skeptic' with a comforting smily face on the dollar bill instead of the word 'fake' or 'counterfeit'. No sense in making cashiers nervous!)
















Here is a bill that was sprayed with starch, then with hairspray. It 'failed' and registered as counterfeit after being sprayed with starch, and then it 'passed' and registers as real money after being sprayed with hairspray.

This treatment results in a bill that has become 'slick' in feel, and somewhat glossy in photos.

The 'Skeptic' and smily face became a bit smeared after the application of hair spray. Perhaps I used a bit much?










Mr. Samuel Francisco inspects the experiment and gives it his qualified approval before demanding his payment in tinned cubed chicken bits.


Notes:

• During this test I accidentally marked one of the paper towels with the counterfeit detector pen, and found out that it was also apparently composed of genuine currency. I did not test these paper towels with starch or hairspray because I learned during cleanup that the starch made them very soggy.
• At first I used the spray on, rub dry method of drying the dollar bills after applying starch, but the first bill I tried this on indicated as ‘not counterfeit’ after rubbing with a paper towel. It is my assumption that I didn’t allow enough time for the starch to soak into the bill. All further bills were allowed to dry without interference. The rubbed bill was removed from the experiment.

Discussion:

As you can see from the pictures, under normal circumstances the counterfeit detector pen is able to tell the difference between computer paper and currency. It is NOT able to tell the difference between coffee filters and real money. (Or paper towels either.)

The counterfeit detector pen will indicate that money sprayed with starch is counterfeit. This is due to the reaction between the iodine in the pen and the starch on the paper. The computer paper sprayed with hairspray is detected as genuine currency because the hairspray creates a barrier between the iodine in the pen and the starch that is used as a binding agent in the paper.

Some types of paper do not contain starch as a binding agent. Since starch is dissolvable in water, I guess it would be bad for coffee filters or paper towels to be held together with something that would cause them to fall apart during their normal usage. It may also be possible that starch would adversely affect the quality of coffee if it were added during the coffee-making process.

Adding starch to coffee filter paper makes it register as counterfeit because the iodine in the detector pen reacts to the added starch.

A dollar bill coated with starch and then sprayed with hair spray will be detected as genuine currency by the pen due to the hairspray barrier between the iodine in the pen and the starch on the bill.

As a side affect, spraying bills with starch makes them feel a little more 'slick' to my fingers. Spraying them with hairspray makes them feel more 'fuzzy'. Under a camera flash they become very reflective, but look normal under regular lighting.


Conclusion:

A few weeks ago I made the mistake of leaving my wallet in my pants, which then went through the wash. Luckily I don’t use starch in my wash anymore. (I did when I was in the military.) If you do use starch in your wash, and happen to wash an extra twenty, fifty or hundred dollar bill in your pocket, then you are in danger of having that bill flagged as ‘counterfeit’ by DriMark’s pen. Luckily, you can make your bill ‘good’ again by merely spraying it with hairspray!

Counterfeiters who use a laser printer to print fake bills on computer paper could make all their bills acceptable to cashiers who rely on DriMark’s pen by adding a coating of hairspray.


In my opinion, counterfeit money detection pens are a scam because DriMark can overcharge the user for inexpensive iodine. The price of these pens is much higher than the price of an equivalent amount of iodine.

I purchased this pen for $4 from Office Depot. According to the patent, the counterfeit detector pen is composed of 0.5 to 2.0% iodine. An eight ounce bottle of 10% iodine solution is $12 from Walgreens. If diluted to the proper consistency I predict that the bottle of iodine will be in use long after four DriMark pens have evaporated to uselessness.

I believe that counterfeit money detection pens are a dangerous scam due to the blind faith that most cashiers have in their ability to detect phony money. Counterfeiters who take the time to create funny money will certainly take the time to defeat these pens. I would guess that counterfeiters actively look for cashiers who rely on these pens because these cashiers are an 'easy target' for disposing of fake bills.

Abstinence works every time it's used - which isn't often.

I know a very religious person who once told me that he didn't believe in teaching 'safe sex'. To him, it meant teaching promiscuity. My understanding of his position on this matter is that he refuses to teach his children about condoms, birth control, and sexual responsibilities.

His method of teaching his children about sex included teaching them about sexually transmitted diseases, and abstinence until marriage. I rather doubt that he defined sex to his kids - which would allow his kids to use President Clinton's definition of sex.

I asked him what he proposed to do about the spread of AIDS in the world - his answer is that abstinence works every time it's used.

I agree completely.

The problem is that kids who pledge abstinence until marriage tend to 'forget' in the heat of the moment, and suddenly find out that they are ill prepared to cope.

The Harvard School of Public Health just posted a press release about an analysis of data taken from a premarital sex survey. The official publication is in the June edition of American Journal of Public Health, a peer-reviewed science journal. I've found some of the statements in the press release very interesting.

• Adolescents who sign a virginity pledge and then go on to have premarital sex are likely to disavow having signed such a pledge.
• Adolescents who have already had sex and then decide to sign a virginity pledge are likely to lie about their earlier sexual history.
• Adolescents who have signed a virginity pledge after having been sexually active will underestimate the risk of sexually transmitted diseases from their previous sexual behavior. They tend to believe that they are no longer a risk of carrying STDs. Since these adolescents on average had at least two sexual partners before signing a pledge, their belief of being STD free is unfounded, and perhaps dangerous to future sexual partners.
• The majority of Adolescents who make a virginity pledge recant their vows within a year.

The conclusion seems to be that you can't trust adolescents to accurately self-report their history of sexual intercourse. And you can't trust adolescents to maintain their virginity pledges.

Ronald Regan coined the phrase, "Trust, but verify." Perhaps we should coin a phrase in the same vein, "Sign a virginity pledge, but carry a fresh condom in your wallet anyway."

Perhaps it could save a kid's life.

The future is already here

"The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."
- William Gibson

One of the things I love about my job is the exposure I get to new, emerging technologies. It's always exciting trying to predict what will be the next big technological hit. Will the next new technology become the equivalent of the microwave oven, the cell phone, or the Internet? Or will a promising technology fall by the wayside like consumer digital audiotape, or Betamax?

New technology has already drastically changed lives around the world. Consider the cell phone. In America, the cell phone was a luxury item at first. People questioned its usefulness because the American phone system infrastructure was so ubiquitous that anyone who wanted a phone in their home could get one installed much cheaper than buying a cell phone.

But in China, Korea, and Thailand, a cell phone is a necessity. Phone companies there did not have the ability to install the same sort of wired phone system that existed in America. When I was stationed in Korea, I vividly recall that phone lines were draped over rooftops in crowded neighborhoods because there was no place to install a telephone pole. Apartment buildings were just too close together. In many cases, power poles had to be installed right in the street, causing a minor traffic hazard in older neighborhoods.

The cell phone for these countries allowed people to get a good, reliable connection without the hassle and cost of a wired phone.

The Internet is another example. Here in America, it has drastically changed the way that we shop, communicate, learn, and entertain ourselves. Billions of dollars a year flow through the Internet. It is no wonder that major corporations are now fighting to gain control of this media.

Another technological breakthrough is the microwave oven. It has changed the way that the whole world cooks.


I like to think about possible technologies that will have the greatest impact on humanity. There have been many simple technologies in history that have changed the world dramatically. For example, the stirrup revolutionized warfare, bringing about the era of the armored knight, which was brought finally to an end by the English longbow, the crossbow, and finally the gun.

What new technology could again change the world dramatically? What does the world need?

First, the world needs clean water, for our crops and for us. Farmers and people who get their water from wells are concerned about water, but most Americans take clean water for granted. In other countries, such as Africa, clean water is difficult to acquire. A technological breakthrough here would be an inexpensive method of generating a lot of clean water quickly. Current methods are either cheap and slow, or extremely expensive and fast.

Next, the world needs a better battery. Generating energy is easy - but storing that energy is difficult. The problems for any energy storage system include charge and discharge rates, along with energy density.

Chemical batteries are inefficient, slow, and they really don't like to be recharged. Capacitors are efficient and fast, and don't mind charging and discharging, but their energy density is very small. Flywheels are inefficient and can't be made small. Fuels, such as gasoline or hydrogen, have excellent energy density, but must be converted to electricity through processes that leave dangerous waste products; not to mention that they cannot be 'recharged'.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the input / output methods for computers. I still use a full-sized keyboard and 21-inch monitor to access a computer that could be squeezed into a brick the size of a cell phone. As our computers shrink further, there will come a time when they will be the size of a button or smaller. We need a better way to access these computers, or we will stay tied to bulky systems.

I would also love to see a better way to leave the Earth and start exploring space. Currently the price to get into space is in the thousands of dollars per pound. It isn't worth sending people into space as yet. Economically, it makes more sense to only send robots. If there was a method of launching vehicles into space at a cost of dollars, or even cents per pound, I believe there would be a great rush to the 'new frontier' of space. Yes, I do realize that there are problems of bone loss and radiation in space, but I believe these problems are solvable - and that cheap exploration would be key to solving them.

These problems sound unsolvable don't they? The interesting thing is that they are not. The invention of the carbon nanotube has lead to experiments with super capacitors that are showing promise of replacing batteries. Carbon nanotubes are also the proposed material for use in a space elevator.

Experiments are being preformed with brain-machine interfaces that may solve the computer input problem (and make quadriplegics walk again too!) The Army already uses a video system that beams images directly into the eye with no need for a computer monitor.

The hardest problem to solve, the one with the least headway, is the problem of cheap, clean water. But there are ideas and experiments here too.

We hear about new technology all the time, and then it seems to fade away. That doesn't mean that it is gone. If it's a good idea, it will return after a time, better developed, more compact, and cheaper. This is what engineers do; improve things through progressively better designs.

New technology isn't evenly distributed, as William Gibson said. Who knows when you'll be able to write in your blog and surf the Internet without need of a keyboard or monitor? Perhaps never for you, perhaps your kids or grandkids may be the ones to benefit from new technology. It takes a long time for new things to seep into common use.

After all, the first Microwave oven was built in 1947 and cost thousands of dollars. What a difference from the $38.95 Wal-Mart model that is evenly distributed (in America at least) today.

Dover School Board Lies to defend Intelligent Design - and loses.

From the CNN news story:

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

Lied. They. Lied.

Doesn't this say everything about the Religious Agenda to gain power in America? I know I've mentioned the Wedge Strategy before, and the Arlington Group.

What is it going to take for everyone to realize that religious leaders are not interested in protecting their flock - but instead are interested in retaining their power over their flocks?

Yes, I agree that there are religious leaders who are truly compassionate and altruistic. In fact, I believe these people are the majority - they lead little churches filled with the local community.

But I want to point out that it is that same community that keeps them 'honest'. A small church can easily remove its pastor if the flock decides he or she is unworthy. It behooves even the preacher of the smallest church to live up to the ethical standards of his community because he earns his livelihood at their forbearance.

A religious leader may have the best of intentions, but it all boils down to the fact that their flock has put them in a position of power over them. Power tends to corrupt.

When a religious leader reaches the level of Pat Robertson, or James Dobson, or even the level of a big-city mega-church, it becomes impossible to 'fire' the minister for being ethically radical. This is especially true if the leader actually established that organization from nothing.


A population that rejects religion as illogical or fantastical is a threat to leaders who gain their power through religion. The Wedge Strategy is an attempt to counteract what was seen as increasing encroachment of secular principles in our society.

Science is seen as a threat to religion since it tends to overcome religious training by objectively discovering the fundamental principles of nature. The attempt by religious radicals to inject Intelligent Design into basic science is nothing more than an attempt to not only stay in power, but to increase the power held by religion.

In order to attain their goals, the religious right will lie. They. Will. Lie. As was proved in this trial. And what is worse, the religious right will not see a lie as a sin if the lie is told to save someone's soul. They believe that by lying, they are preventing a greater wrong.

But all they are really doing is being self-serving, whether they are aware of this fact or not.

Black or White, The Highway Ring of Evolution.

Remember the Michael Jackson 1992 video “Black or White”? (If not, you can see the video online from this link. You'll need to have the free Quicktime player installed on your computer.)

During the video there is a sequence where a headshot of a singer is transformed in stages to that of a completely different singer. This process is called Morphing, and in this song it is done to several singers in a row.

Go take a look at the video – the actual morphing starts about halfway through the video – so you can skip ahead if you like.

There is a point during each morph where it’s impossible to tell if you’re looking at singer A or singer B – but the process happens so quickly that you don’t bother to label the intermediate stages of the process – you just wait until you can put the new singer into a neat pigeon hole.


Shades of gray

Richard Dawkins, in the chapter “Gaps in the Mind” from his book “A Devil’s Chaplin”, (you can read the original article here) speaks about how people like to see things clearly defined – in “Black or White” so to speak. People do not see that there is often an infinite series of gradually darkening grays that progress from white to black.

You can apply this blind spot to evolution - just as you don’t label each intermediate stage of the morphing process in Michael Jackson’s video, science does not easily label each stage of the morphing process between the stages of evolution of a species.

Michael Jackson’s video, like all American television, is displayed at 30 images per second. Each ‘morph’ from singer to singer takes perhaps 4 seconds – or 120 images. If you were watching this video on DVD, and your DVD player ‘hiccupped’ and skipped an image somewhere during the morphing process, you wouldn’t suddenly claim that the morph no longer made sense, or that it was no longer valid. There are still plenty of images displayed in a row for you to tell what is going on.

In Video Security (my current specialty) it is known that you don’t need very many images in a row to get a good sense of what is going on. A mere 2 images per second makes for a very jerky video, but provides more than enough information for a viewer to follow the action. In the “Black or White” video, if only 8 images were shown as one singer morphed into another, you would still understand quite clearly what had happened. The other images can disappear without destroying your overall knowledge of what happened.


Evolution deniers will often use specious arguments based on their own “Black or White” theories of how they believe evolution (doesn’t) work. For example – they say that no one has ever observed evolution in action, they say that there is a lack of ‘intermediate fossils’, and that if a new species arose from a parent species the new species would die off due to a lack of a mate, due to it being too different from it’s parents.

It’s easy to see where evolution deniers get their polarized thinking. Since their theories are usually based upon religion, instead of science, they must use the same “Black or White” thinking that they apply to God. Either God exists, or he doesn’t.


Ease on down the highway

Dawkins uses the analogy of a “Human Chain,” where a long line of people stand hand in hand, to show the flaw in “Black or White” thinking. I’m going to blatantly steal this analogy and update it for American readers.

Let’s start our human chain in Indianapolis, Indiana, where North Post Road meets Interstate 70. We will form the chain on the eastbound lane of I-70, heading for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (See the route - it's about a 6 hour drive.)

A cute little girl stands on the empty highway here, facing north. Her right hand is outstretched, and is held by her mother’s left hand.

The little girl's mother is also facing north. Mom’s right hand is clasped by Grandmother’s left hand and Grandmother’s right hand is clasped by Great-Grandmother’s left hand.

We play some games with this. First, we use Mother – Daughter relationships instead of Father – Son. It makes it easier to tell who was born from whom. Second, each daughter’s mother is brought out of time and space to stand on Interstate Highway 70 with all of her other relatives.

Each woman takes up about one yard of space.

So lets follow these daughters east on I-70 and see what happens.

• In a mere 500 feet, about a tenth of a mile, we come to Year 1 AD – Biblical ages. Caesar Augustus is the Roman Emperor.
• At almost four-tenths of a mile we come to the year 8,000 BC – Agriculture is a fairly new invention for the mother of this era.
• At almost 2 miles down the road we come to about 40,000 years ago – over 3000 generations. Flint tools are in vogue now.
• Just after the 6-mile mark, or 130,000 years ago, we see Madam Homo sapiens first use a stone ax.
• At 154 miles down I-70 from our starting point, or 2.5 million years ago, mom first starts using stone tools. Mom, and her stone tools, stand on I-70 near road US-23 in Columbus Ohio. This mom is known formally as Miss Australopithecus afarensis – but you can call her Lucy for short.

Finally, somewhere between Cambridge Ohio, and Washington Pennsylvania, near the state border, stands a very special mother. We will call her Mrs. Matriarch.

Instead of standing on the eastbound lane of I-70, Mrs. Matriarch stands on the highway-dividing median, facing west.

Mrs. Matriarch’s left hand clasps the right hand of her daughter, the line of daughters and granddaughters on the eastbound lane leading to our cute little girl back in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Mrs. Matriarch’s right hand clasps the left hand of a second daughter. This daughter stands on the westbound lane of I-70, and is facing south, instead of north – looking into the face of her sister.

These two daughters look like each other. Like any children, they look like their mother. Like any children, there are genetic differences – but these differences are inconsequential.

Mrs. Matriarch has a granddaughter on the westbound lane of I-70, and a great-granddaughter, and a great-great, and so on and so on. Each generation of daughters on the westbound lane face south, looking into the faces of their ever-increasingly distant cousins as they proceed west on I-70.

If we proceed all the way back to Indianapolis, Indiana, we come back to our starting place – the eastbound lane of I-70 still contains the original cute little girl that we started out with in the beginning, and she's still facing north. In the westbound lane of I-70 we see a distantly related cousin to the little girl – the relationship is through Mrs. Matriarch, over 500,000 generations east on I-70.

This cousin, facing south and gazing into the eyes of the little girl, is a modern chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the little girl are bound together by interlinked generations on the highway.

This wonderful analogy makes it glaringly obvious that there is no ‘black or white’ – there is never a handclasp on this chain where you can point and say, “This little girl is Human, and her mother is not.” There may be groups of women with similar features that you can point to and assign a category, such as Homo erectus, but it’s impossible to find the handclasp that seperates H. erectus and H. sapiens.


A woman takes a powder

What about the lack of intermediate fossils? What if a woman on this highway suddenly decided to run off to "powder her nose" so to speak? Her Mother and Daughter patiently wait for her to come back, leaving an empty space for her return.

If you were walking down the line doing an inspection, you would see that she’s missing, but you could also see that genetically it makes no difference. The missing girl’s mother and daughter are obviously of the same bloodline – there is no need to suspect that a completely different bloodline jumped in here.

What if we randomly chose a one-mile segment of the highway, passed out pink slips and told those women that “their services were no longer needed.” 1760 generations of women are sent home – a period that spans almost 21 thousand years.

21 Thousand years seems like a long time – but if you apply it to modern Humans you see that it doesn’t make much of a difference. H. sapiens emerged around 100 thousand years ago. 21 thousand years ago H. sapiens were using flint blades to hunt, creating cave art, using language, and advancing their culture. These humans would look very similar to us today – they would be so genetically similar that a person from 21 thousand years ago could easily have children with a contemporary human.

We could throw out a 4-mile section of the highway just as easily, creating an 83 thousand year gap. And still we could easily prove a relationship between the two women on either side of this gap. The women on either side of the gap are still so genetically similar that they could successfully mate with the same man.

Only when we create a gap of 24 miles or more do we start making gaps that cannot easily be bridged by genetics – 24 miles is half a million years or more than 40 thousand generations. But even across this gap there is enough genetic similarity that a mating should produce a genetic ‘mule’. There is more than enough genetic similarity to easily deduce that the women at the ends of this gap are related.

In paleontology there are such gaps in Human evolution – no gap in this highway of mothers and daughters is so great that it becomes impossible to tell who is the next woman on the highway.

Evolution deniers who point out the lack of intermediate fossils – gaps in the highway – have not opened their eyes. There is plenty of evidence.

When someone says that a new species arising from an old species would die off due to the lack of a mate it is evidence of simplistic ‘Black or White’ thinking – this is a fatal flaw in our infinitely shaded world. There is no place on our highway where a daughter is genetically incompatible with her peers.


Lord of the Ring Species

If I haven’t bored you enough, let’s put to rest one more tired canard voiced by Evolution deniers. They often say that no one has ever observed evolution – so it doesn’t happen.

I could pose the question here that if evolution isn’t ongoing, why do we need increasingly stronger antibiotics? Why doesn’t plain old penicillin work on every bug anymore? If you don’t believe in evolution, I guess that means you’ll give up your flu shots too, right? You should put your money, or in this case, your life, where your theology is.

But the stuff that happens under a microscope isn’t readily observable by the common person. (Well, not until someone dies from flesh-eating bacteria.)

Dawkins, in “A Devil’s Chaplin,” mentions a ‘ring species’. He uses the classic example of the Larus Gulls, but I’ll use a more local (to me) example of the Ensatina salamander currently living in a distribution around California’s central valley.

Salamanders prefer cooler weather, with a moist environment. The California central valley is a very hot, dry environment and creates an impassible barrier to this species.

Charles Brown gives an excellent explanation of this salamander ring species on his web site – you can go there for details. I will only point out in my graphic that the six subspecies of Ensatina salamander live in a ‘ring’ around the valley. At every place in this ring, each subspecies is able to breed with adjacent species in the ring, all the way around except where the ring breaks just to the east of San Diego. Here, eschscholtzi and klauberi meet with each other and can NOT breed! Careful study has shown these two salamander subspecies of Ensatina are different species from each other, by definition.

A ring of salamander relatives genetically connect these two groups together just as surely as the little girl on highway I-70 in our example is connected to the chimpanzee in the westbound lane of the same highway. The ends of this ring cannot breed together just as a Human cannot breed with a chimp – but these rings are connected together just the same.

Here we observe speciation in action – something that Evolution deniers say can’t happen, is happening RIGHT NOW. And not only here – there are other examples of ring species.

The only difference between a ring species and our highway example is all links of a ring species are alive.


In conclusion - another joke at the expense of Michael Jackson.

On a more personal note to evolution deniers - no matter how hard you try, you can't frame Evolution in terms of "Black or White".

Now beat it.