Wikipedia & 72 Virgins

Found this NYT story, Courts Turn to Wikipedia, on hardocp.com:

More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)

Of Steve Martin's 72 virgins these are my favourite:

Virgin No. 8: Can we cuddle first?

Virgin No. 17: “Do it”? Meaning what?

Virgin No. 18: I’m saving myself for Jesus. (now THAT would be funny!)

Virgin No. 29: Well, I’m a virgin, but my hand isn’t.

Virgin No. 35: By the way, here in Heaven “virgin” has a slightly different meaning. It means “chatty.”

Virgin No. 45: When you’re done, you should really check out how cool this ceiling is.

Virgin No. 70: My name is Mother Teresa.

Animals in the Womb

Much cuter than I would have imagined. See the article for a few more.

(6 months out of 24)

(12 months out of 24)

Hyperinflation

The Wikipedia article has lots of amazing examples:

Inflation 1923-24: A German woman feeding a stove with currency notes, which burn longer than the amount of firewood they can buy.

The Lesser of Two [Catholic] Evils

According to CNN:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain's leading cardinal said on Tuesday the Catholic church may be forced to close down its adoption agencies if the government insists they consider placing children with gay couples.

I doubt that any number of studies showing that gay parents don't make kids gay would convince these people that it's better for the kids than foster homes. I guess their good intentions count for something, but this is backwards and paranoid.

[Cardinal Douchebag] said it would be "an unnecessary tragedy if legislation forced the closure of these adoption services."

Is he referring to papal legislation? Ah, then I couldn't agree more.

Explanatory Power of Belief

Came across a neat paper called "Explanations Versus Applications: The Explanatory Power of Valuable Beliefs" while reorganising my hard drive.

Method
Eighty interested Harvard undergraduates received a questionnaire informing them that this study was investigating people’s religious beliefs. Those in the applications condition were then asked to list either 3 or 10 observations that God can explain, whereas those in the explanations condition were asked to list either 3 or 10 observations that can explain God’s behavior.

When finished, participants answered four questions about their religious beliefs:

• ‘‘What is the general importance of God in your life?’’
• ‘‘How important is God to you on a daily basis?’’
• ‘‘How confident are you that God exists?’’ and
• ‘‘To what extent do you feel you have a personal relationship with God?’’

One result of their study is described in the graph below. Basically, by reflecting on why you hold a particular belief, you undermine your own perceived value of that belief. They note that people who were asked to list 10 explanations for God could usually only think of 4-5 items and this actually reinforced their belief slightly.

Finally, this research suggests that the ultimately valuable belief (a) explains everything and (b) is explained by nothing. Few beliefs can manage this feat, but those associated with science and religion are the most common contenders. We think it is no accident that Western theology has historically depicted God as the ‘‘unmoved First Mover.’’ Both science and religion seek primary causes that can explain higher-level observations, albeit through different methods. It is of little surprise, given our findings, that believers in science and believers in religion so often come into direct conflict. What these experiments suggest is that at least some of this conflict can be attributed to the psychological mechanisms that create valuable beliefs. What these valuable beliefs share, our research suggests, is not simply their perceived truth, but their power as explanations.

The Penis is Evil

From the sci-fi 'classic' Zardos:

Zardoz: The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth... and kill!

Yes, that's Sean Connery, and he wears it for the whole movie.

In 2004 the magazine Total Film described Connery's costume (consisting of a ponytail wig, leather knee boots, and a loincloth which bears a strong resemblance to a giant orange nappy or diaper) as the number 1 "dumbest decision in movie history".

My Preciousssss...

Shermer @ TED2006

If you've got 17 minutes to kill, check out this talk by Michael Shermer about both pseudo-scientific beliefs and our powers of observation. The bits on religious and alien sightings was good:

Religious iconography, discovered by a Tennessee baker in 1996. He charged $5 a head to come and see the Nun Bun, until he got a cease-and-desist order from Mother Theresa's lawyer.

The Virgin Mary in Clearwater, Florida. We actually went to see this one. A lot of the faithful had come to be there, in wheelchairs and crutches and so on. We went down to investigate. All these candles, so many thousands of candles people had lit in tribute to this. So we walked around to the backside and turns out that, anywhere there was a sprinkler head and a palm tree, you get a Virgin Mary. Here's a Virgin Mary on the backside (which they started to wipe off).

The details of the "Quadro2000 Dowser Rod" are also hilarious. But the most interesting segment was where he challenges your powers of observation (I was way off on my count with the basketballs, and the Stairway to Heaven bit is hilarious).

Minsky on Sci-Fi

Marvin Minsky in the latest Discover:

[Science fiction] is about the only thing I read. General fiction is pretty much about the ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.

I think he's underestimating just how much fun it is to read about people screwing their lives up, though.

P.S. Happy New Year!!