Hiatus

Dear Modern Synthesis:

I am terribly sorry for being entirely too preoccupied to post for a week. Oh well; life happens.

Let's get down to business:

Today's featured artist:

Morgan Blair, from Brooklyn, NY

visit Morgan's wildly colorful website,

here

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And we have a quote for today:

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

 
- Isaac Asimov

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A couple of worth-while articles to read and consider: 

Reduced Brain Size of Homo floresiensis Hints at Her Likely Ancestors

this is from Anthropology.net

...And, for the record, brains tend to UTTERLY DISINTEGRATE over time (sometimes, the brain case is filled in with minerals, a process called petrification, but this does not happen often.)

Using cranial cavity volume as a general estimate of brain size is legitimate, but theorizing over compositional elements like an expanded neocortex, and comparing these theoretical measurements with those of other extant primate species, is bad science. It can't really be proven or dis-proven. 

However, these fellows' study makes an interesting case for using new investigative scientific techniques to re-examing evolutionary and phylogenetic relationships.

This article comes complete with abstract, summarized conclusion, and additional scientific criticism and commentary. ENJOY!

Spinster Aunt Begins Post with "I", Tells Anecdote

from IBlameThePatriarchy

I Blame The Patriarchy is the patriarchy-blaming blog that has been advancing the radical feminist views of Jill Psmith and/or Twisty Faster, a gentleman farmer and spinster aunt doing the butt-dance in Cottonmouth County, Texas since 2004.

This hilarious article is (mostly) about the hideousness of chanting and brainwashing that comes along with organized religion; in this case, it just happens to be Christianity (imagine that). 

here's an excerpt:

I recently blew out a lobe laughing a cold, ulcerated laugh. It happened yesterday, when my sibling Tidy told me a sad tale of Christian insanity, which tale I now relate to you, right after I bore you with some background details.

For reasons that, to my surprise, turned out to be none of my goddam business, Tidy has started sending my niece Rotel to one of those honky upper-middle-class god-affiliated schools where the kids wear uniforms and attend mandatory “chapel” sessions. For the past few months I have been nervously eyeballing the child, ever alert for signs that the faithy godbag indoctrination has begun to take, so that I might countermand that moron crap with an auntly intervention of Question Authority-ism. So far it’s been all clear, which is why it was quite a jolt when, during a recent babysitting gig, young Rotel broke into song, and the song she broke into was not “Fried Ham, Fried Ham, Cheese and Baloney,” but a horrifying ditty about dewdrops of mercy and Jesus and how he is the “light of the world.” The goopy dewdroppy Jesosity blew my mind. There was only one possible response.

“Holy shit!” I said...    read on...

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To end the post, let's finish with a comic, via XKCD

 

and here's a classic LOLZ example:

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That's all, today!

wildcoyote