Arguments from Authority

From Zak Attack Productions, I present famous Atheists. According to the Bible these people are fools and do no good...

Isaac Asimov
-Biochemist
-Prolific Science Fiction Writer
-Popularizer of Science

Noam Chomsky
-Professor of Linguistics at MIT
-Created the Theory of generative grammar
-The leading American public intellectual of 2005

Francis Crick
-Co-discovered the sturcture of DNA
-1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

Marie Curie
-1904 Nobel Prize for Physics
-1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Richard Dawkins
-Oxford professor of Biology
-Voted the #1 British intellectual

Daniel Dennett
-Leading Philosopher of the Mind
-Cognitive Scientist
-Evolutionary Biologist

Thomas Edison
-Invented the incandescent light bulb
-among many other things...

Stephen Gould
-Harvard University Professor
-Leading Paleontologist
-Leading Evolutionary Biologist

Massimo Pigliucci
-Ph.D in Botany
-Ph.D in Genetics
-Ph.D in Philosophy
-Professor of Biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook

Steven Pinker
-Professor of Psychology at Harvard
-Director for the Center of Conginitive Neuroscience at MIT
-Time Magazine's top 100 most influential people
-Foreign Policy's top 100 most public intellectuals

Karl Popper
-Most influential philosopher of science in the 20th Century
-Created the concept of "falsifiability"

Carl Sagan
-World Famous Astronomer and Astrobiologist
-Voted one fo the 100 greatest Americans by the Discovery Channel
-1978 Pulitzer Prize Winner

Michael Shermer
-Experimental Psychologist
-Historian of Science
-Founded "Skeptic Magazine"
-Writes for "Scientific American"
-America's leading skeptic

James Watson
-Co-discovered the stucture of DNA
-1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

E.O. Wilson
-Professor of Entomology and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard
-One of America's top 25 most influential people
-Won 2 Pulitzer prizes and the Crafoord Prize

Arthur Miller
-American Playwright

Stephen Hawking
-Theoretical Physicist
-Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge

Ivan Pavlov
-Physiologist, Psychologist, Physician
-Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904


And here are some more "evil doers"....

Susan B. Anthony (Civil Rights Leader)
Lance Armstrong (7 Time Tour De France winner)
Ernest Hemingway (Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner)

Marlon Brando (Academy Award winning Actor)
Jodie Foster (Academy Award winning Actress)
Seth Green (Actor)
Angelina Jolie (Actress)
Bruce Lee (Kung-Fu movie star)

Dave Matthews (Singer and Songwriter)
Ian McKellen (Actor)
Julianne Moore (Actress)
Jack Nicholson (Academy Award winning Actor)
Keanu Reeves (Actor)

Adam Savage (Myth Busters)
Joss Whedon (Director, Producer)
Gene Wilder (Actor)
Hugh Laurie (Actor, House M.D.)
Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad, etc.)

Katharine Hepburn (Actress)
Penn & Teller (World Famous Magicians)
Christopher Reeve (Actor)
Gene Roddenberry (Creator of "Star Trek")
Steven Soderbergh (Academy Award winning director)

Warren Buffett (Donated $37 billion to charity)
Bill Gates (Donated $30 billion dollars to charity)
James Randi (Creator of the JREF and the million dollar Paranormal Challenge)
Charles Schulz (Creator of "Peanutz")
Mark Twain (Writer and Humorist)

Intelligent Design, Bill Maher

A great clip from a 2005 episode of Real Time where Bill goes off on Intelligent Design.

A Secular Christmas

I do not agree with Tom Melchiorre's article, Why I don't Celebrate Christmas, that celebrating Christmas as an atheist is hypocritical. I agree with the fact that it is a Christian based celebration, but I believe that it has grown more and more secular over the years. According to Austin Cline in his article, Evils of a Secular Christmas, the traditional Christmas is itself little more than a hundred years old or so created, in large part, for secular and consumer reasons.

I'm an Atheist and I really enjoy the holiday season. It's a time for spending time with family and friends. It's also a time for self-less giving (a.k.a. PRESENTS!).

There are many secular things that Christmas is associated with. For example the Christmas Tree is a pagan tradition adopted by Christians. Santa and Frosty are two examples of secular traditions that have more airtime than Jesus does.

Here are a list of secular Christmas movies and secular Christmas music.
Bad Santa
A Christmas Story
Elf
Home Alone (1,2, and 3)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000, and 1966)
The Polar Express
The Santa Clause (1,2, and 3)
Frosty the Snow Man
White Christmas
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
The Nightmare before Christmas
T'was the Night Before Christmas
Ice Harvest
Miracle on 34th Street
A Christmas Carol
Holiday Inn
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Raymond Briggs' The Snowman

So as RabidApe would say, I wish believers and non-believers everywhere a Merry Christmas!

A Miracle Once a Month!

I have looked into the claim that a "miracle" (a one in a million chance) will come true for you once a month. I began searching for the stats that back this up. The first website I visited was a Sermon on the Thornhill Baptist Church which stated this:

"Our lives are practically sprinkled with them [miracles]. Someone has looked at the statistics of probability and has figured out that we can realistically expect a miracle to happen to us at least once a month. With all the different events that happen in our lives, the law of averages suggests that every 30 days or so we'll get one of those one in a million moments."

They called it the "law of averages." Further searching found the Scientific American article "Miracle on Probability Street" by Michael Shermer. But in this article Shermer attributes this to the "law of large numbers." So which is it? Or is it both?

The law of averages states is a lay term that actually "reflects bad statistics or wishful thinking rather than any mathematical principle". One example of the law of averages is the belief that a rare occurrence will happen given enough time. For example: "If I send my résumé to enough places, the law of averages says that someone will eventually hire me." According to wikipedia, "This may actually be true assuming nonzero probabilities and the law of averages is simply named in place of the Law of Large Numbers."

So the law of averages is the wrong term for this claim. Sorry Thornhill Baptist Church, your sermon was interesting and well-meaning but you used the wrong mathematical law. What you probably meant to say was, 'the law of large numbers suggests...' So lets take a look at this law.

(...to be continued)

Zicam Dangers

I was at the store about a month ago when I noticed the cold medications in the pharmacy. Having just written an article on "Vitamin C and the Common Cold" and "Airborne," I was interested to see what was on the shelves. I noticed that Zicam had the word "Homeopathic" right on the box!!! Immediately I was concerned that they were marketing complete crap. It's just sitting there on the shelf next to other over-the-counter cold remedies. But before I jumped to any conclusions I did my research.

After I had a rather hostile conversation with my family tonight, I realized that I never wrote the article. I found my family was making claims that Zicam works for them. My brother is taking it because he thinks he may be getting a cold and my mother thinks that it will lessen the effects. So I was determined to re-research a write the article after all.

A quick Google search will pull up the usuall articles like "Homeopathic medicine company fights off Zicam lawsuits." In early 2006 Zicam settled a class action lawsuit with more than 340 people for around $12 million. The product has caused a loss of smell and taste due to it's high levels of zinc.

This was a surprise to me considereing that homeopathy is based on diluting "medicines" to the point that they don't exist anymore. How can there be high levels of zinc in it? I read the back of the box and found that the active ingredients are "Zincum Aceticum 2X, Zincum Gluconicum 1x." This means that the zinc is diulted to 10% of the entire dosage. That is still enough to cause anosmia and hyposmia (perminant loss of smell and taste).

Considering that the FDA has not approved it for safety or efficacy, I would not waste my money or my health experimenting for them.