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What a nerve to say: “Well Science doesn’t know everything”

Science knows it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise it would stop.

Really, it takes a comedian to drive home a point about science much better than any of us could. I feel often that we are nutheads who would pin our hopes on alternative medicines and spirituality and prayer and other woo-woo, instead of relying on evidence-based science.

Yes, science doesn’t know everything. We know that and scientists are forever trying to push that boundary of what is known further. In fact, its a blessing that we know what exactly is unknown.

I have tried to transcribe a few more quotes from the video below:

• There is kind of a notion that “every opinion is equally valid.” My arse.
• Horse-shit-path (audience laughter). And I am sorry if you are into homeopathy. Its water (audience laughter).
• Science knows it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise it would stop (laughter and applause). Just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean that you can fill in those gaps with any fairytale that appeals to you.
• Herbal medicine is around for thousand years. Indeed it has. And then we tested it all. And the stuff that worked became medicine (audience laughter). And the rest of it is just a bowl of soup and some potpourri (audience laughter).

(via Bad Astronomer)

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Whoa!

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Its hard to imagine a prose such as this on sexual ethics was written more than 70 years back. The essay on “Sexual Ethics” by Bertland Russell is an excellent read. The final paragraph just sums it best:

[I]t would be well if men and women could remember […] to practise the ordinary virtues of tolerance, kindness, truthfulness, and justice. Those who, by conventional standards, are sexually virtuous, too often consider themselves thereby absolved from behaving like decent human beings. Most moralists have been so obsessed by sex that they have laid much too little emphasis on other more socially useful kinds of ethically commendable conduct.

As they say, what consenting adults do in their own bedroom is nobody else’s business.

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It took me almost a minute to get the ad (via Sullivan):

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I watched the latest Harry Potter movie on Friday. I was surprised to find that the movie was able to capture all of the important aspects of the storyline in the book. I would say it is perhaps my second-favourite movie, right after the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Since the students are in their teens, the movie is more mushy than the earlier installments. The only two complaints I have with the movie: (i) they could have reduced the mush and increased the time spent on the climactic scenes, (ii) unlike the book, Dumbledore hasn’t conveyed to Harry Voldemort’s obsession with Hogwarts artifacts that he would convert to horcruxes.

Other than that, a very enjoyable movie. I might want to watch it again. Soon.

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First, a statement from our dear Health Minister that made my jaw drop lower than I ever remember it doing (via Amit Varma):

Health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday became a votary of rapid electrification of villages in India but for a different reason - to curb population growth by ensuring access to television.

Now, if you think… well, that kind of makes sense, please hold on that thought for a moment. The reasoning of Mr. Azad is not the possibility of using television for educational purposes, the reasoning is neither that electrification will improve socio-economic indicators of the region which will help reduce the rate of population growth. No sir. His reasoning is that the rural folks would be so busy watching the saas-bahu serials and Rakhi’s swayamvar that they will forget to copulate. Seriously, thats what he really said:

“Electricity will lead to television in houses, which will lead to population control. When there is no light, people get engaged in the process of population growth,” he said while addressing a function on World Population Day.

[…]
“When light will reach (villages), 80 percent of population growth can be reduced through TV,” he said, adding that the current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government is working to ensure greater rural electrification. He also exhorted media and TV channels to provide quality materials and highlight positive news.

Interestingly enough, Amit has this objection to our health minister’s statement:

One, the government has no business regulating what consenting adults do in their bedrooms, whether this relates to sexual practices or procreative choices. How many kids a couple wants to have should be that couple’s decision alone. Anything else is a violation.

I am not sure how he extrapolates the minister’s statement to “regulating what adults do”. By extension, Amit is commenting on Mr. Azad’s opinions; is he therefore violating Mr. Azad’s rights to free speech? What Mr. Azad is saying is that the governments agenda is to bring electricity to villages. I don’t see him saying that the government will provide free TVs (which it, stupidly, might); definitely not regulating rural folks to watch TV instead of procreation.

I doubt Amit was commenting on “exhorted media and TV channels to provide quality materials” part of the speech. Even if he was, the way I read “exhorted” is to mean “to urge” rather than “to force”.

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The Delhi high court decriminalized acts of consensual sex between same sex individuals. This will go a long way in decriminalizing homosexuality and preventing haphazard and extortive application of section 377. I believe its an important small step, but not really a victory for secular, inclusive democracy in India. I don’t believe it will change our attitudes towards homosexuals, though.

Still, here is a music video of a child with two fathers. This video, called “Twee Vaders“, from a Dutch show Kinderen voor Kinderen, is one of my favorite videos.

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