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The Rational Druid

A rational Druid looks at the world

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Category: Skepticism

Well, I’ve had several ideas mulling around in my head, and I think they’ve reached the point where I’m ready to start actually working on them. I’ve had two ideas for regular articles: a “What if?” column, and a column of “Maple for Mythbusters”. The first column will be articles where I look at different ideas and say “What if this idea were real? What would it mean?” The first one is going to look at homeopathy, and make the assumption that it is real. Starting there, what else do we have to accept, by logic, due to accepting that homeopathy is real. I’m going to look at a different idea for each article. The second column is going to look at different experiments that the Mythbusters have done and see how we can use Maple to do some scientific computations around those experiments. I really like Maple, and I think more people should be supporting a Canadian made product.

These two columns are going to run on alternate weeks, starting with “What if?” this Friday. If you have any ideas for either column, things you’d like to see covered, please let me know.

OK. Just how stupid are Christians? Haiti has been completely devastated. They desperately need food and water, and medical aid. So instead of sending food and water and medical aid, what is being sent? Talking Bibles! This is not the time to be wasting what little capacity there is to get real aid into the country. After we’ve actually rebuilt homes, and gotten people fed and treated their wounds, then sure, go ahead and try to brainwash them. But now, when they are at their most beaten, is not the time to go down and shove this type of garbage down their throats. Unless, deep down somewhere, they know that the only way to get a convert is to pounce on people when they are at their weakest. Bunch of parasites. Can you tell this pisses me off a bit?

I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to the Skeptoid podcast, but Brian Dunning produces it.  You can find it on iTunes and at skeptoid.com.  He has recently produced a video called Here Be Dragons.  This video is an amazing introduction to skeptical thinking, and ways in which thinking can go wrong.  This should be mandatory viewing for everyone.  You can get it from the skeptoid site, or from it’s own site at herebedragons.com.  I hope everyone who reads this goes out and watches this video.

I’ve seen in several places where so-called physicists have declared that the scene in the first Superman movie, in which he flies around the Earth and reverses the flow time, is impossible. This is because they have not thought through his mode of propulsion and the results that derive from that.

First, how does Superman fly? Well, the last time I checked, he didn’t fuel up on bean burritos before going on a trans-atlantic flight. This means that he is not likely expelling and kind of propellantto get his thrust. But, if he doesn’t have anything coming out his back end, then he must not be able to get forward thrust, hence he can’t fly. QED. Not so fast, says the geeky general relativist. He can get an effect that looks like thrust from an outside observer. It’s obvious that he must have some way of manipulating the gravitaional field locally around his body. Whether he has some exotic matter in his cells, or whatever, the details of the mechanism are left out for now. Once you accept the fact that he can manipulate the gravitational field, all of his powers become logical conclusions from this fact. He can fly because he isn’t thrusting himself up, but altering his local gravitational field so that he falls upwards. He can anchor himself to the ground and stop a steaming locomotive because he alters his ADM mass to appear much heavier to an outside observer. He can catch a falling Lois Lane without liquefying her insides by altering her acceleration downwards, once she gets close enough to him to fall into his general relativistic effects.

And, he can make time on the Earth go backwards. By flying around the Earth, he sets up a rotating ring of severely warped spacetime. This sets up closed causal loops that allows him to slip backwards to a point in the Earth’s past. Simple really :-)

The latest episode of Skepticality is out and can be found at www.skepticality.com. Reviews of the new Ben Stein movie, Expelled, are discussed with Dawkins, Shermer and others. If you want to see more about the movie, check out www.expelledexposed.com. I think I may need to see this, if I can avoid throwing something through the TV.

Well, this challenge should have completely destroyed belief in Tantra. The most powerful Tantrik in India was challenged to destroy a skeptic. Of course he was an utter failure. But somehow, I predict that there will be just as much belief in Tantra as before. Check out this write up on it.

The Great Tantra Challenge