This…actually explains the popularity of Darwinism.

http://www.icr.org/article/7400/

“Our brains use 2,000 to 5,000 so-called Intellectual Deficiency (ID) genes, according to Crabtree’s estimate. Geneticists routinely identify specific mutations in ID genes as the causes of various types of mental retardation and similar intellectual syndromes that arise during imperfections in brain development.3 Proper human intelligence requires at least one clean copy of every ID gene.4 Like a missing wooden slat in a very long rope bridge, a mutant ID gene challenges the brain to carefully “step over” the gap on its way to developing the biological infrastructure for healthy intelligence.

Each new generation accrues about 60 new mutations to the gene-coding DNA regions of the human genome. Crabtree applied this rate to calculate that “every 20-50 generations we should sustain a mutation in one copy of one of our many ID genes.” As a result, “in the past 3000 years then (~120 generations), each of us should have accumulated at the very least 2.5-6 mutations in ID genes.” Accordingly, the human intellect “perhaps reached a peak 2000-6000 years ago.”1″

Here’s another article with a similar theme.  I would point out two things about this.  One, whether or not the human brain is deteriorating genetically, modern humans’ reliance on machines to help with their thinking may have something to do with intellectual capacity.  We are no longer required to exercise our memory and thinking skills as rigorously as our forebears who did not have super-fast computational devices.  Two, the argument that Genesis was written so that “primative man” could understand it is unpersuasive, based on these findings.

Some people….

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/dupage-county-roselle-sexual-abuse-peacock-206997171.html

God and omnipotence/omniscience

“Can an all-powerful and all-knowing being invent a problem so difficult that he doesn’t know the solution?”

“This effort fares no better. We’re still talking about triangular circles.This is pitting God’s omnipotence and omniscience against each other, but omniscience can be seen as just a special case of omnipotence. Being all-knowing is exersicing [sic] one’s omnipotence over knowledge; an all-powerful being can already solve every problem.And the problem mentioned in the question is self-contradictory. It is a problem that cannot be solved by a being that can solve each and every problem. Such a problem doesn’t exist. It even cannot exist.God doesn’t “lack” anything, if he cannot make such a problem exist. Why not? Because the sentence still means nothing. It is a contradiction of terms, just like having Gyro Gearloose invent a bulb that emits “dark light”.No being can create — be he all-powerful or not — a clear-sighted person who is stone-blind, silent noise, squares without corners or problems an all-powerful being cannot solve. Not the being nor his omnipotence is deficient; the tasks are contradictions of terms.If this question has been an intellectual barrier to you, it is time to trash it and get to know The Almighty. He is looking for you to make of your life something very special.”

Me: So, neener, neener.

On the Connecticut shooting and gun laws

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/12/16/Reality-Check-Connecticut-Shooter-Did-Not-Use-Automatic-Weapons

 

I would like to point out that there were laws in place prohibiting taking firearms onto school property.  There were also laws prohibiting the shooter from carrying the type of weapons he was carrying.  If passing a law were all that was needed to prevent such tragedies, then the shooting in Connecticut would never have happened at all.

Review of Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

http://lewrockwell.com/thornton/thornton53.1.html

In Your Eyes

One of my favorite songs:

Brandon Raub and the death of American Liberty

The Rutherford Institute is defending this ex-Marine.

August 20, 2012

CHESTERFIELD, VA— The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a former Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub, who was arrested, detained indefinitely in a psych ward and forced to undergo psychological evaluations based solely on the controversial nature of lines from song lyrics, political messages and virtual card games which he posted to his private Facebook page. Although the FBI and Chesterfield County police have not charged Brandon Raub, a resident of Chesterfield County, Va., with committing any crime, they arrested Raub on Thursday, August 16, 2012, and transported him to John Randolph Medical Center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were controversial and “terrorist in nature.” In a hearing held at the hospital, government officials disregarded Raub’s explanation that the Facebook posts were being interpreted out of context, sentencing him up to 30 days’ further confinement in a VA psych ward. In coming to Raub’s defense, Rutherford Institute attorneys are challenging Raub’s arrest and forcible detention, as well as the government’s overt Facebook surveillance and violation of Raub’s First Amendment rights.

Huzzah for Bastiat!

Introduction to Economic Sophisms.

Get the whole book here.

Spooky fun

I was perusing tvtropes.org, reading about the various “Vanishing Hitchhiker” stories from around the world.  I tried to think of any stories peculiar to the Memphis, TN area, where I grew up.  I couldn’t, but I did remember an urban myth unique to Memphis: Voodoo Village.  I first heard about this (to the best of my recollection) in 6th grade, back in the 1980′s.  The story went that there was this dangerous place somewhere else in Memphis, where one could enjoy the experience of death by driving down a one-way street.  The residents would move a school bus to block the way out, and kill you until you were dead.  I looked up information about this myth, I found that the place really exists.  The buncombe about school buses and murder are unverified, of course, and it’s probable that the owner of the property has passed.

That reminds me of another ghost story from downtown.  Beale Street is possibly as well known a Memphis landmark as Graceland.  It’s a sort of cleaned-up, upper Delta version of Bourbon Street.  That’s on the west end, near the river.  On the east end of Beale, back before the Civil War, was the most fashionable neighborhood in the region (Beale was actually part of a different town, called “South Memphis” at the time).  Only one house from those days still stands: the Hunt-Phelan Home.  This house had remained in the same family’s hands until the mid-1990s, when they turned it into a museum.  It was awesome, because the furniture was the same that the family had used for over a century.  Plus, the home had historical significance: Gen. Grant used the house as his headquarters when he occupied Memphis; Jeff Davis, a friend of the family, stayed there several times; the shack out back was the first school for African-American children after the war.  The museum was eventually closed, and additional buildings were constructed on the property that are let as apartments; the house itself is a bed and breakfast, or something like that.  In any case, the story was that, during one of the horrible Yellow Fever epidemics that struck Memphis in the latter 19th century, the family left a quantity of gold with Uncle Nate, one of the former slaves who decided to stay with the family after the War, and fled to healthier climes.  When they eventually returned, they found the unfortunate Uncle Nate had expired in his bed, his mud-encrusted boots lying beside and a shovel, also covered with dried mud, leaning against the wall.  The gold that Uncle Nate buried was never found.  However, if one was willing to brave going out into the front lawn on a night with a full moon, at midnight, and stand in the midst of three trees known as the “Three Sisters” then Uncle Nate’s ghost would appear to you and tell you where he buried the gold.  Unfortunately for anyone willing to test the story, I already found the gold.  I mean, rather, that the “Three Sisters” were knocked down in a storm/cut down for firewood/disappeared in a vortex of energy, and so the gold will never be found.

The End.

What I’m doing

If I don’t post anything here for a while, it’s because I’m wrapped up in another blog.  If anything noteworthy happens, I’ll try to mention it.