That’s not a bad thing though, because I lurv this song by The Monkees. Thanks Lee-Ann.

Daydream Believer

Cheer up, Sleepy Jean.
Oh, what can it mean.
To a daydream believer
And a homecoming queen.

Okay that was back in 2008. Here’s some more [Infographic source: Less Wrong].

Do you think that scientific literacy has improved since then? I only managed to dig up some statistics as recent as 2010. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone with more recent figures, but it shows that things don’t get any better – only a 2% improvement for the question about tomatoe genes. [Table source: Discover, The Loom]

I have probably unfairly singled out the USA, but the above table reveals that the levels of scientific literacy are not that much better in other parts of the world. I sincerely hope that more recent statistics show a drastic improvement, but somehow I doubt it. And that’s worrying for the future of this planet.

Bamyan – Statue of Buddah *Author: Marco Bonavoglia

Iconoclasm (noun)

(1) a challenge to or overturning of traditional beliefs, customs, and values

(2) the destruction of religious images used in worship, or opposition to their use in worship. [Encarta]

There are two sides to iconoclasm – the good and the bad, but I’m going to suggest a third characteristic – ugly, which is also bad, and should be viewed as such by all sane people.

Good Iconoclasm

Challenging established beliefs, customs, traditions and values is good. It is the act of embracing new knowledge. Scientific discovery is dependent upon confronting old ideas and beliefs and leads to technological innovation, which overall is good for the progress and advancement of the human race. Skepticism and critical thinking are the natural by-products of good iconoclasm, or is it the other way around?

The reason why we don’t have people suspected of witchcraft being regularly burned at the stake is because of good iconoclasm. But isolated incidences still occur in some parts of the world; the parts that resist change to new ideas. However things are significantly better in the modern era.

Bad Iconoclasm

The wanton destruction of religious artefacts, including those of archeological significance is barbaric, backward and symptomatic of a retarded mindset. In recent years there have been several incidences of the senseless destruction of these objects. The bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban and the desecration of tombs in the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu by Islamists, come to mind. However, history is littered with the malicious destruction of places of worship and religious artefacts, by various proponents of the world’s religions.

Off course it is not only religious fundamentalists who carry out these senseless acts of devastation. Other bizarre ideological beliefs whether political or social, have also been the prime motivator for the same inane act of destruction.

Ugly Iconoclasm

I don’t suppose this category actually exists, but I’m going to stick my neck out and propose it by providing an example.

Nohmul is a Mayan archeological site in the Yucatan Peninsula near Belize. Recently a pyramid dating to around 250 BCE was found to have been almost completely destroyed by building contractors, who were using the gravel and limestone content for constructing a nearby road. The owner of the excavation equipment was revealed to be a local politician, although it has not been proved that he ordered the destruction of the pyramid.

A Boston University Professor who had worked on many archeological sites in the area commented that “bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize.”

This type of iconoclasm is rooted in greed. Defacing priceless treasures of our human heritage to make a quick buck.

So there you have it; my word of the week…

As I’ve mentioned previously, guitar riffs drive me wild. The riffs at the beginning and end has a striking resemblance to Jimi Hendrix/Stevie Ray Vaughn’s rendition of Little Wing.

Yellow Ledbetter never featured on any of Pearl Jam’s studio albums. It was an outtake from their debut album 10, and was released as a B-side on the released single Jeremy. It did however feature on a B-sides and Rarities album, and their Greatest Hits album.

And it seems that nobody really knows precisely, the lyrics to the song. Lead singer Eddie Vedder is known to change the lyrics at nearly every live performance. Vedder once jokingly replied in response to a question from a live audience, “Wait…you mean there’s lyrics?”

Not surprisingly this lyrical ambiguity has stirred up some ingenuity in elucidation by others – the famous misheard lyrics videos. Catch a load of this:

Since then I’ve taken to reading random facts on a variety of subjects, and Wikipedia proved helpful with its Random Article functionality. [I do recommend cross-checking Wikipedia articles with other resources as they may not be entirely factual given that it is user-generated]

Today I came across this feature on Tidal Locking which was pretty interesting. You only ever see one side of the moon all the time because it is tidally locked with Earth. Look closely at the gif on the left and you’ll see this phenomena in operation. Notice how only one side of the moon is always presented to Earth while rotating around it, even though the moon is also rotating on its axis.

I suppose this is how the term “dark side of the moon” originated, since that side is not visible to Earthlings due to tidal locking. For a more in-depth explanation on the physics and mechanics of tidal locking, check out Wikipedia, the YouTube videos available online.

What would happen should the Earth become tidally locked with the sun? Well, in short, we’ll all be fooked as it will wreak havoc with our weather and just about everything else.

I am posting the YouTube video here, so if you’ve got two hours to throw away, knock yourself out. The debate was between well-known cosmologist Professor Lawrence Krauss and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, who is styled as an author, lecturer and intellectual activist. The topic of debate was Islam or Atheism – Which Makes More Sense?

Need I point out who represented what point of view?

The points raised on both sides during the debate were not that important – I, and I’m sure those of you who listen to these kinds of debates will have heard them before in some form or the other. What really sustained my attention for two hours was the manner in which the debate was conducted, some of the strategies used, the seeming inability of the adjudicator Timothy Yusuf Chambers (a former Irish Catholic priest, converted to Islam) to affect any sort of control over the two protagonists, and an amusing event involving an outraged Muslim woman during the Q&A session, which I’ll come back to later.

While Hamza Tzortzis came clearly prepared with a lengthy written opening remark which he was at pains to point out was based on deductive logic, it was absolute rubbish. No doubt Lawrence thought so too and made it quite plain in his opening address. Deductive logic is all well and good, but if your conclusions are based on faulty premises, then it’s all just bullshit.

Professor Krauss on the other hand just winged his way through his opening statement, and chose to engage frequently with Tzortzis in and off the cuff manner. There was something I found disturbing about this though; Krauss often came across as rude, near-insulting and somewhat arrogant. But everything he said, made sense and was scientifically correct. To his credit, Tzortzis in the face of this onslaught of scientific reasoning tinged with rudeness, held it together remarkably well.

Krauss’s approach to the debate was of importance, and he even clarified that he preferred discourse to the strict and limiting formal debate format. The term he used was “chat,”  because he explained that it allows more room for people to explore, and gain knowledge, rather than just throwing rigid ideas at each other. There is much merit in this.

After watching this and other debates, it has dawned on me how debate about such opposing ideas as atheism and religion have improved over the years. It used to be that religious apologists would simply quote from religious text and other dogmatic theological literature and demand that it be accepted as unadulterated truth. And it used to be that simply asserting things without having to provide proof or evidence was common. Now, apologists prepare more thoroughly using logic and even science. Alas, logic and science used incorrectly, even disingenuously, will never trump the scientific method.

And now we come to that amusing incident. During the Q&A session a clearly irate, albeit foolish woman decided to use the opportunity to complain about some guy who had entered the debate late, and decided to sit at the rear of the hall next to a group of girls of which the complainant was a member. She was quite adamant that her values as a Muslim woman was violated by this latecomer who according to her, should have chosen to sit elsewhere with other men, because she had clearly distanced herself from the men in the audience as was required of her belief system.

Krauss pointed out quite nonchalantly that the debate was clearly advertised as a non-segregated event, and she should have chosen to watch the debate on YouTube, rather than demand deference to her quaint beliefs.

Quite so, Professor Krauss, quite so.

And so who was the winner? I’ll leave you to decide, but for me, science always wins.

It’s another year away from home, so I’ve been listening to some Mother’s Day compilations online today and thought I’d put together one of my own. Here’s my tribute to all the moms out there.

The White Stripes – I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart

Afro Celt Sound System – Mother

John Lennon – Mother

The Shirelles – Mamma Said

Pink Floyd – Mother

That last one by Pink Floyd is rather cynical, but since I love this song and the band, I hope most mothers will indulge me.

The ANC’s ability to stumble to new lows of depravity never ceases to amaze me. We watch and listen helplessly as on a daily basis they either blatantly deny their acts of corruption, nepotism and gross incompetence, excuse them by drawing out the race card or blaming their failings on apartheid.

This week Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced that they will be establishing their “own government school in order to improve skills, ethics and professionalism in the public sector.” As reported in this online website:

This school will educate, train, professionalise and develop a highly capable, skilled, socially and committed public service cadreship with a sense of national duty and a common culture and ethos.

Note her own use of the term “cadreship.” If this is not an open admission that the ruling government deploys their own ANC cronies to cram public service positions, I don’t know what is. It is also a further admission that the cadres they have already deployed into key public administrative posts, have failed and require the skills which they have identified, and which they have previously denied not having.

While we have established and reputable institutes that produce trained (theoretically at least) people of all race groups, not to mention already skilled and experienced people from the business sector, the ANC will not recruit them, simply because they are intent on acquiring “yes men” who will toe the Party line first. To the ANC, service delivery has always been of secondary importance. The Party comes first.

And so now the taxpayer will have to foot the bill for this unnecessary extravagance in support of ongoing cronyism.

One can only hope that the pass mark for these cadres will not be 30%, as is the current norm in our ANC designed education system.

Some time back I posted a blog about my peculiar eating habits. Here’s another.

I love cheese, but not on foods most people love… like burgers. I can’t stand cheese slices in my burgers. Don’t know why; just find it revolting. I prefer my cheese whole, on its own with wine or as a snack on crackers. I often cut up a block of cheese into little bite-sized cubes with a sprinkling of pepper on top to be enjoyed while watching sport; accompanied by some alcoholic beverage of course.

Th firmer the cheese, the better. I can handle anything with the consistency of a brie, but anything that spreads like mayo is a definite no-no.

I avoid any salad with sprinklings of feta in it. But on pizza, give me loads of it, with mozzarella thrown in too.

I hate omelette with cheese in it. Just the other morning I really felt bad having the girls make one separately for me without any cheese. I did assent to the avocado, although I’d never eaten it in a ommelette before. Wasn’t too bad, but I won’t be making it a habit.

I do like a steak with cheese sauce on the side, but will not touch a cheddar-melt steak. Crazy right?

Can’t think of any more aversions to cheese, so I’ll just leave it right there. Hopefully I won’t find any new ones.