SpinnyNuNu

If what I see from atheists on social media is any indication, it seems that most atheists are quite optimistic about the demise of religion. Many seem to think that we probably won't see anything we...

Judah Samet was late, four minutes late to be exact, on Oct. 27, 2018, as he headed to the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Pittsburgh neighborhood called Squirrel Hill.

The hospital president, who is Jewish and a member of Tree of Life synagogue, said it was a proud moment.

The term is much in the news recently, applied frequently to the political realm.  I've looked it up a number of times in the past and decided I would only remember it if I created a blogpost.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's belief.

The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in the 1938 stage play Gaslight, known as Angel Street in the United States, and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944. In the story, a husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The original title stems from the dimming of the gas lights in the house that happened when the husband was using the gas lights in the flat above while searching for the jewels belonging to a woman whom he had murdered. The wife correctly notices the dimming lights and discusses it with her husband, but he insists that she merely imagined a change in the level of illumination.

The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's perception of reality...

In a less ignorant world, this sort of rhetoric wouldn't work.

President Donald Trump condemned political violence and also criticized the media Friday at a political rally.

In the battle for control of Congress, the race for California’s 4th Congressional District is a heated one in the foothills and mountains east of Sacramento.

A Texas man was sentenced to life in prison without parole for sexually assaulting a toddler whose mother tried to explain away the child's severe injuries as a dog attack

This horse nuzzling a cat might be one of the most adorable animal pairings ever caught on camera.

The pastor said the Supreme Court justice should be killed for saying there are problems with the Constitution.

My favorite fossil is the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx lithographica, for several reasons. First, it is straight-up a beautiful fossil, well-preserved, and just a natural work of art. But this is no object of human creativity – it is also a wonderful transitional fossil, catching evolution in the act of transforming theropod dinosaurs into birds. There is a cast of the Berlin specimen at the Peabody museum in New Haven, and it is capable of capturing my attention even in the middle of the hall of dinosaurs.

Recently I was able to visit the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London – where they have the original fossils of the first Archaeopteryx specimen found in 1861 (before the Berlin specimen), making it the type specimen. It too is beautiful, showing both the plate and the counterplate – the limestone that contains the fossil was cracked open, revealing impressions and fossils on both sides.

You can clearly see the feather impressions surrounding what at first looks like a small theropod dinosaur. On closer inspection, however, there are bird-like features as well, but retaining things like teeth and a long bony tail not seen in birds. Again – a dramatic transitional fossil, clearly connecting birds to what are now called non-avian dinosaurs (because birds are dinosaurs).

Creationists have long tried to argue that Archaeopteryx is not transitional, just a weird bird, but the evidence is undeniable. It has as close to halfway features between walking theropods and modern birds as you can get. But to be clear, Archaeopteryx is not on the direct line to birds. It is a side branch from a period in time when small feathered dinosaurs were undergoing adaptive radiation, only one branch of which would lead to modern birds. This is always going to be the case, however, and does not diminish the transitional significance of this species. Also, in recent decades a number of feathered dinosaurs have been discovered, fleshing out much of the evolutionary pathways between theropods and birds.

So some creationists have resorted to another tactic – claiming the specimen is a forgery. Famously, astronomer Fred Hoyle argued that the London specimen was a fraud, and in 1986 even published an entire book to make this case. This became another famous example of why scientists should not step so boldly out of their area of expertise. It was also epic bad timing – right on the cusp of a wave of discoveries of feathered dinosaurs, including further Archaeopteryx specimens.

Creationists will also point to Piltdown man as an example of an established fraud, and use that to somehow bolster the case that any other fossil that is particularly compelling evidence for the branching descent of evolution is also a fraud. But this example shoots their own argument in the foot.

Piltdown man was questioned as a possible mistake (if not a fraud) when it was discovered. It had the peculiar feature of all the bony parts that would connect the human-like skull to the ape-like jaw being warn away. Further, Piltdown became increasingly out of step with other human fossils, because it was based on false assumptions about the path of human evolution. Eventually evolutionary biologists took a closer look at the actual bones (rather than just casts) and when they did easily confirmed the hoax.

The various specimens of Archaeopteryx are very different. First – they confirm each other. Piltdown was a one-off (if you include Piltdown I and II as one collection, all found by the same person, Dawson, at roughly the same time and location). No later finds showed the same features as Piltdown.

In contrast, the London specimen was later confirmed by the Berlin specimen. There are now 12 separate specimens of Archaeopteryx (although one is probably of a closely related genus). They all date to the upper Jurassic. Further, the bigger evolutionary picture has since been confirmed by many feathered dinosaur specimens from the same time period showing various stages of feather and bird evolution. The very fact that theropod dinosaurs in general have been shown to be feathered is confirmatory. This is all the opposite of what happened with Piltdown.

Further, as new techniques were developed the Piltdown specimens were shown to be a fraud. Recent analysis of the bones, including DNA analysis and careful morphological analysis, demonstrates that the ape bones came from a single orangutan specimen, while the human bones came from 2 or more specimens. Further, details of the forgery show consistent techniques used, meaning there was likely a single hoaxer, with a skill level appropriate for Dawson (who was almost certainly the hoaxer in this case).

The bigger point here is that forgers creating physical evidence, like fossils, cannot possibly account for later technological developments. Dawson could not conceive of our eventual ability to extract tiny amounts of DNA from very old bones.

Likewise, any alleged forger in 1861 could not possibly have anticipated modern techniques for analyzing fossils. When Hoyle made his outrageous accusations in 1985 the NHM reexamined their specimen. They found:

Microscopic investigations showed that hairline cracks in the feathers, invisible in the SLR images, could be matched up on the part and counterpart. Likewise, the branching of manganese crystals running through the rock.

The two halves of the fossil match up, including tiny cracks in the feather impressions. This would be impossible to fake today, let alone in 1861 before modern microscopes. A 19th century forger would not even think they had to make their fake work at the microscopic level. Hoyle should have stuck with astronomy, now his legacy includes shameful pseudoscience.

Recently the NHM has done another even more high-tech analysis. They have laser-scanned their specimen, creating an extremely detailed digital copy of the fossil. In many ways this is superior to the specimen itself, because the digital copy can be studied and manipulated in ways that cannot be done with a slab of rock.

What the researchers specifically did was take the two halves of the fossil and digitally put them back together. They found that the two halves match perfectly. This is a level of precision that would be impossible to fake.

The only reasonable conclusion based on all the evidence is that the various Archaeopteryx specimens are genuine. This means there were half-bird – half-theropod creatures flying around during the late Jurassic. I cannot emphasize enough what stunning evidence this is for the fact of common descent. Creationists have nothing left but mindless denial.

The NHM plans on laser scanning all their most precious fossils, and it’s likely this technique will be used more generally in paleontology. In fact you can already take VR tours of some museums, although they are still very limited at this time. I hope within a few years anyone with a good VR headset could tour museums around the world in great detail. I still prefer seeing the actual specimens, but a VR tour is better than no tour at all, and can have several advantages.

First – you can spend as much time as you want at any specimen, without waiting in line or holding up other viewers. Second, you can manipulate the specimen – zoom in, spin it around, play with it. Animations can show how the bones fit together, fill in missing pieces, and provide other educational information. High definition laser scans can be used not just for tourists, but also by scientists doing serious anatomical analysis. It can also be used as a basis for 3D printing, if you want a copy for display.

Laser scanning technology is good for more than just proving the fossils were not faked – but that is a nice side benefit.

 

Prominent on the Secretary bird:


Top photo via the San Diego Zoo.  Eyelash photo via.

NBC News' Megyn Kelly apologized to her colleagues after questioning why dressing up in blackface on Halloween is considered wrong.

Both parents were charged with two counts of felony child neglect.

“I don’t think Andrew would be here today if it wasn’t for the actions of Ashley,” a doctor says.

The Honduras native, who fled to the U.S. 13 years ago fearing for his life after witnessing a friend's murder, will likely be kidnapped and killed if he's deported, his attorney says.

"Let's face it, making things for kids is so fun!"

The cereal is returning following a voluntary recall after salmonella infected 100 people in 33 states.

We have so many questions about this particular workout.

From testimony given in March by David Helsel, the superintendent of the Blue Mountain School District, in Pennsylvania, at a meeting of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives education committee:

Our district has been training staff and students in an armed-intruder defense plan. Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket full of river stone. If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks. And they will be stoned...

Obviously the teachers have pepper spray. The rocks are just for students. We used to have them huddle underneath desks. We’ve learned from Virginia Tech: the gentleman that did it went to a shooting range a week before and put the targets on the ground because he knew students were going to be under the desks...

From the October issue of Harper's.   There's a bit more at the link, and it has a better title ("Schoolhouse Rocks").

An asbestos-removal crew discovered the remains.

The comment marked the first time President Trump has directly associated himself with the political ideology, which has long defined his outlook and the protectionist trade policies he has implemented in an effort to boost domestic manufacturing.

And her earrings were borrowed from another royal family member.

After he was arrested, the man told officers that the president of the United States "says it's OK to grab women by their private parts."

"At the end of the day, ya'll are trying to blame me when I'm just an innocent bystander."

"This is why no one takes you seriously," one Twitter user responded.

A group of Facebook users reportedly discussed planning a children's get-together to spread the highly contagious disease.

"[The caller] reported that he believed the gun was not loaded..."

The star says she encourages her daughters to question the stories they're reading.

Christian Dior | ‘Ligne Vivante’ | c. 1953
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Dior’s 1953 Vivante collection featured this voluminous powder blue silk taffeta gown worn by the American socialite, Elizabeth Firestone.
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#historicalfashion #fashion #fashiondesign #fashionhistory #historyoffashion #vintagefashion #vintage #defunctfashion #couture #dior #christiandior #denverartmuseum @denverartmuseum #1950sfashion
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