Euclideon Unlimited Graphics – Too Good to Be True?

Every so often a news item comes along that gets me excited. Often times these are technology news items, researchers and companies distributing press releases about their new “breakthrough” technology. I get excited but I stay level-headed, the vast majority of the time exciting new medical or energy technologies simply don’t pan out in the long-term. Sometimes things turn out to be prohibitively expensive, sometimes it’s a technological limitation and other times it’s a fundamental misinterpretation of results or an intentional deception. One such technology that I stumbled upon the other day comes from an Australian company named Euclideon that promises a paradigm changing computer graphics technology that will revolutionize video gaming by processing “Unlimited Detail” on current generation computers.

Such a claim is extraordinary, so extraordinary in fact that the whole thing started to smell a bit fishy and I soon began to notice red flags popping up all over the place. Now before I go into this let me make something clear, I am not making any factual claims about Euclideon’s technology, I am not a computer programmer or graphic artist and am coming at this from a layman’s point of view. Nevertheless there is no expertise required to notice a few red flags, except perhaps some experience with critical thinking.

For the full scoop straight from the horse’s mouth you can watch this 10 minute video recently released by Euclideon:

Omega Point Theory – Resurrection! (Pun intended)

It sure has been along time! Around 2 months since my last post and I do feel bad about it…

But what now has finally brought me out of my intellectual stupor? Why it’s my old buddy Omega Point Theory of course! For those who are interested or need a little refresher here are the two previous posts I’ve written on Omega Point Theory:

Omega Point(less?) Theory

Omega Point Theory – Redux!

After the long silence from Mr James Redford, presumably because he had not seen my blog entries, Redford has written a characteristically lengthy reply. Please sit back and relax while I examine this reply openly and honestly and see what it has to offer.

Without further ado, here is James Redford’s response.

Hi, Christian Polson-Brown.
Your write in reference to the abstract of my article “Jesus Is an Anarchist” (Social Science Research Network [SSRN], revised and
expanded edition, October 17, 2009 [originally published December 19, 2001] http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 ): “Mr Redford describes the implications his research have on the world as ‘profound’, a small slice of hyperbole if I’ve ever seen it!” It’s hardly hyperbole if Jesus Christ exists and he is God’s Messiah. Your response is the logical fallacy of circular reasoning, as you’re assuming as true that which has not been demonstrated to be true: that Jesus Christ doesn’t exists and he is not God’s Messiah.

For the historical reliability of Jesus Christ’s existence and his bodily resurrection, and the untenability of theories which deny his
resurrection, see Prof. William Lane Craig, “Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ”,
Truth, Vol. 1 (1985), pp. 89-95. http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html For more on the historicity of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, see William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 3rd ed., 2008), Chap. 8: “The Resurrection of Jesus”, pp. 333-404, particularly pp. 360 ff.

It is empirically impossible to prove the non-existence of something, and science does not claim to. This point is articulated elegantly by Carl Sagan with his “dragon in my garage” story, printed in Demon Haunted World and available to read here. Burden of proof in this situation lies squarely on those making the claim of existence. For the life of Jesus of Nazareth to be accepted by the scientific community his existence needs to be proven, rather than his existence not disproved. Every argument that flows from the existence of Jesus is therefore based upon a false premise. The reference you cite regarding historical evidence for Jesus comes from a highly suspect journal. The journal “truth” existed for only three volumes and is written from an openly admitted “distinctively Christian perspective”.

Skeptical Blogging and Preaching to the Choir

The first time I seriously considered starting a blog was at a local Perth Skeptics event. The guest speaker was Kristjan Wager who runs the ProScience blog. He was talking to us about skeptical blogging in general, what got him started, what it involves and how he has found it. One of the guests there asked a rather pointed question about whether skeptical blogging serves any practical purpose, and whether we are merely “preaching to the choir” as they say. I’ve heard this sort of sentiment repeated elsewhere; the view that the blogosphere is merely an “echo chamber” of like minded individuals patting each other on the back. These people argue that our efforts would be best served elsewhere, maybe handing out leaflets on a street corner or engaging in direct confrontation of forums. In my short time as a blogger I have found that the reality is actually very different.

Thanks to the in-depth traffic statistics that wordpress keeps for all it’s blogs, I have been able to observe where the majority of my traffic comes from. Contrary to the echo chamber hypothesis, my statistics indicate that a good deal of traffic comes from search terms not typically associated with the skeptically mindset. Right up front the big exception to this conclusion is from very top search term “richard dawkins” or “dawkins” which has accounted for a full 9.54% of my total views. Who’s to say however that all those people searching for dawkins are doing so from a skeptical mindset? After dawkins the most popular search terms of all time are “omega point theory criticism” which I will concede seems like a directly skeptical search. Then you get into “global temperatures” & “earth’s atmosphere” which while still scientific indicate that non-skeptics may be stumbling upon my skeptical rundown of climate change denial.

What TAM Australia Means to Me

Just a few days ago it was announced that TAM Australia tickets would go on early-bird sale June 20th, with full public sale on July 4th. What is “TAM” and why do I care? First a little background.

TAM stands for ‘The Amazing Meeting’ and is a science and critical thinking conference hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). For the last seven years it’s been held in Las Vega and just last year they branched out across the pond and held a TAM in London. Now it’s our turn, time for a TAM meeting down under! If you’re not aware, the JREF is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering critical thinking in new generations and providing information and resources for the public and media about paranormal or psychic claims (amongst a host of other things). Most famously they are know for the $1,000,000US challenge, the prize pool of which is available to any claimant that can demonstrate the existence of anything paranormal under stringent and mutually agreed upon conditions. The Amazing Randi himself is far more than a name for the JREF, he is still, at the venerable age of 82 a fearless warrior on the front-line of battling harmful pseudoscience and paranormal nonsense.

When I was first introduced to the organized skeptical movement in 2006 through the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast it became immediately obvious just what a figure James Randi has been over the last half a century. The SGU team with their ‘Randi Speaks’ segment gave me a direct channel to hear from Randi and the podcast itself opened my eyes wide to movement as a whole. Now, four years on I am completely enthralled by the entire culture, constantly reading blogs, browsing the SGU forum, writing my own blog, following fellow skeptics on twitter, reading the books and of course, still listening to the podcasts! (with a host of others like Skepticality & Skeptoid added to the pile). Over the last four years the idea of attending a TAM event was like a far off dream, something that I may be able to do in a hefty number of years. I imagined by the time I finally attended a TAM (if they were still running), most of the names I’m familiar with would have passed out of the spotlight in the movement and made way for equally hard-working, yet less personally important folks.

But now the chance has come. Later in the year I will (hopefully) be flying off and coming face to face (or at least room to room) with many of my skeptical heroes, including the group that got me into it (the SGU). TAM offers a chance to connect face to face with international skeptics and reach far beyond the small pocket I’ve seen in Perth. I have no idea what the conference will be like or how comfortable I’ll feel at a conference of mostly older professionals but I have no doubt it will be a remarkable and gratifying experience.

Now I just have to grab an Australian Skeptic subscription so I can get an early bird ticket. Oh, and I need to start thinking about why I deserve a $150 student reimbursement :P

Brauer: Natural Quackery

I was in a local pharmacy the other day when, as I normally do I sought out the “natural” alternatives that were made available. I guess I do this in the hope that once, just once the pharmacy won’t be selling utter nonsense to an unsuspecting and trusting public. That day has not yet come and as usual I located the rather extensive homeopathic range by Brauer Natural Medicine. Brauer is the quack medicine distributor I most commonly see in local Perth pharmacies and I have had the privilege of personally testing their product by taking a “dangerous” overdose of homeopathic pills as part of this years 10:23 challenge. So anyway, on this particular trip to the pharmacy I decided to pick up one of the free “product selector” booklets that Brauer medicine produce to peddle their snake oil. In this blog entry I present for you a quick run-down on what Brauer says about their product, why science says it’s total nonsense and why it is dangerous.

I won’t get into a long discussion about the history and nature of homeopathy as I wish to focus on the specific case of Brauer medicine. For a more detailed and referenced rundown on why homeopathy is bunk please check out these excellent resources: The 10:23 Website, The Skeptics Dictionary, SkepticWiki, Quackwatch. For a very quick rundown homeopathy is a system of claimed alternative medicine invented in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann. Since it’s invention it’s core beliefs have remained unchanged despite the world’s advancements in health and medicine including the discovery of viruses, bacterial infection, cancers, vaccines and genetics. It is by all accounts a relic of medieval thinking from a time when the leading hypothesis was that sickness was a result of imbalances in the four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile). Homeopathy itself is based on three laws; the law of similars, the law of infinitesimals and the law of succussion.

The law of similars says that in order to cure a problem you need to consume whatever causes the problem. This extends to such things as caffeine for sleep disorders, sore eyes with onion and rashes with poison ivy.

The law of infinitesimals says that the more diluted a substance the stronger it’s medicinal effect. This means that the vast majority of homeopathic solutions are diluted to the point that not a single molecule of the active ingredient remains, including dilutions of 1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Of course even if some of the active ingredient remained, the ingredient itself is worthless medically.

Karen’s Spiritual Journey

Just a quick post to distract me from writing lab reports.

This is a clip I came across on Twitter from a BBC series called “Outnumbered”. It’s just awesomely cute and sweet and has a pretty funny message about religion. I dare you to watch it and tell me the little girl isn’t face-explodingly cute.

Dare ya.

Discovering a New Skeptical Medium: Manga

No I don’t mean the psychic kind of medium, I’m talking about discovering a new means through which critical thinking can be taught. The notion of using Japanese manga comics to communicate a message about science or critical thinking would likely never have occurred to me, but thankfully it did to someone! That someone Canadian resident Sara Mayhew, graphic designer and mangaka (manga artist), author of Secrets of Sorcerers and Love Pet. Her current project is called Legend of the Ztarr and is available online here.

I first heard about Sara and her work on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe Forum where she posted an announcement about her upcoming talk at the TED conference. If you haven’t heard of it before TED is an annual convention on Technology, Entertainment and Design where speakers are invited to talk about their specialty in such fields. Other noted skeptics who are TED fellows include James Randi, Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins so Sara is clearly in good company. The TED conference is just fantastic and I highly recommend you check out there catalog of lectures available in full online for free on their website.

Soon after I heard about Sara and her plans to take manga and critical thinking to TED I quickly had a couple of other encounters with her work. Sara was interviewed on episode #127 of the massively popular Skepticality podcast and was able to spread the word even further about her work and her plans. Sara also recorded a 2 minute video describing herself and her beliefs as part of a Nokia’s responsiveness program (embedded below). She also runs a very cool blog called “There Are Four Lights” the title of which is an awesomely nerdy Star Trek reference. It’s clear from her blog that her popularity has exploded and there are a number of posts detailing exciting events she’s participating in and work she’s done.

Electron Boy Saves the Day!

I love this story, I really do. This is just so awesome and touching that I had to write about it. No it’s not really a science or skepticism piece but my gosh, it’s just so cool.

Everyone has heard of the Make-A-Wish foundation right? They are a charity that arranges special occasions, trips and meetings for terminally ill children. It began in Phoenix Arizona in 1980 when seven year old leukemia patient Christopher Greicius was granted his wish of being a police officer for day. The media coverage of the event prompted the founding of a national organization which soon went international and now operates in more than 30 countries. Tragically Christopher Greicius died of his illness just four days after his wish came true.

Just last month one particularly special wish came true and garnered international attention. 13 year old Seattle resident and liver cancer patient Erik Martin was granted his wish of becoming a superhero. Thus began the amazing story of Erik Martin Electron Boy and his amazing lightning rod! Erik was met by Spiderman in the morning (one of Electron Boys pals), who asked for his help in freeing the Seattle Sounders who were imprisoned in their locker room by Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy. Electron Boy quickly put on his costume and hopped in the Electron Mobile driven by Moonshine Maid went to the rescue. Oh and I musn’t forget the 20 motorcycle officer escort along the closed off main road!

Upon arrival Electron Boy met up with Lightning Lad who gave him the lightning rod which he promptly used to free the Sounders. After many heartfelt thanks from the team and a re-energizing power up secret handshake from Lightning Lad Electron Boy went onto the oval where he was awarded a signed football and personalized jersey. But the trouble wasn’t over because over the Jumbotron Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy announced that they planned to take over Seattle and make it dark! Electron Boy was off to the rescue and hopping in the Electron Mobile went and freed the head of the local electric company from atop a cherry picker. After that he needed to free some workers from a trapped elevator and then prepare for the final confrontation. In a battle of epic proportions Electron Boy faced up against the evil duo and managed to freeze them with his lightning rod.

All in all hundreds of people were involved in the occasion. The day was executed flawlessly in a light-hearted and feel good manner that left everyone smiling. Not only were the local police force and football team part of it but many local actors were given roles and hundreds of electric company employees gathered to cheer Electron Boy on. After the final battle Seattle City Councilwoman Sally Bagshaw granted Electron Boy the key to the city and announced that Thursday would be known as Electron Boy Day. Erik was clearly enjoying himself the whole time despite his ailment. He did have one thing to say though:

“This is the best day of my life.”

Read Article:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011740342_electronboy30m.html

Watch More:

Images Courtesy of Seattle Times

What’s This About Methane On Mars!?

I have had at least a few people ask me directly “what exciting stuff is there left to discover in science?” Other than the obvious fact that there are definitely exciting answers to questions we haven’t even conceived of yet, there are also many major scientific mysteries answerable in this lifetime. I do not look think badly of these people, they likely haven’t had the exposure to learn about cutting edge modern scientific mysteries. It is also true that many of these mysteries, like those potentially answered by the LHC, require a deal of background knowledge to wrap your mind around. Nevertheless a few hours on wikipedia browsing major concepts in physics and astronomy is all anyone needs to appreciate the awesomeness of things like black holes, dark matter, entanglement, supernovae, exo-planets or the Higgs Boson.

This blog entry is about what I consider possibly the most exciting scientific question easily answerable in my lifetime. That question is “What’s with the methane on Mars!?”

What is so exciting about some gas leaking from Mars you might ask? First a little background. Methane on Mars was first discovered by a team at NASA back in 2003 using infrared telescopes fitted with spectrometry devices that break down incoming light into it’s constituent spectrum and can infer chemical composition from the signature or absorbed wavelength. This methane is being released annually (Martian annual) during the warmer periods at a number of locations. The gas is released in a series of plumes which can release as much as 19,000 tons of methane each!

So what does this all mean? Well we begin by considering all possible explanations for these methane plumes that scientists consider plausible. A likely explanation is that some geologic process is going on underneath Mars that is creating this methane. The only known way this could be happening on Mars is if water, carbon dioxide and the planet’s internal heat are converting iron oxide (rust) into serpentine minerals (common rock-forming hydrous magnesium iron phyllosilicate minerals). One major stumbling block with this explanation is that Mars is not thought to be geologically active and the required heat has not yet been found. It is possible that pockets of methane created in aeons past are stored beneath the surface and released annually as fissures form from cracking permafrost but this adds in another layer of complexity. There are other geologic questions that need to be answered before a complete explanation could be established and any such answer would still provide fascinating and as yet unknown information about ongoing activity on the Red Planet previously not thought to exist.

Another explanation, recently discounted by published research suggested that the methane might be left over on Mars from meteorites. Calculations have shown that the amount of meteorites needed to continually maintain the levels of methane found on Mars is far beyond what could be considered possible. There are other gaping holes in this hypothesis, such as why would the methane be confined to a few discrete pockets and why is it only being released annually. After considering the possible explanation of geologic activity and the unlikely explanation of meteoric activity we are left with one other major hypothesis.

LIFE!

In Dog We Trust – The Case For Man’s Best Friend

According to a recent survey about 36% of households in the USA have at least one dog. According to the Pet Food Institute this totals to around 57.6 million dogs, meaning there are nearly 3 times the amount of dogs in America as there are humans in Australia. Americans spend around $5.6 billion on food for their dogs and the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates around $7 billion dollars are spent annually on keeping dogs healthy. Why and how are humans so connected to an entirely separate and distantly related species like Canis familiaris? What makes dogs stand out from other domesticated animals and what can the study of human-canine co-habitation tell us about our own evolutionary history?

Let’s start with a very brief look at the ancestry of both dogs and humans. The canine group has its origins in North America and were originally small forest dwelling carnivores around the size of a fox. When open herd grazing ungulates like horse and antelope began to dominate the vast plains of North America the ancient canines radiated out from the forest onto the open ground. This created a canine ancestor that began evolving into a swift pack hunter in order to tackle the ungulate herds. It is thought that some of these ancestors migrated over the Bering straight into Asia, Europe and Africa around 10 million years ago. Over the next few million years these canids formed into the wolves, jackals, coyotes and painted dogs (not actually ‘dogs’) that we are familiar with today. The grey wolf (Canis lupus), the species from which domestic dogs arose evolved at the end of the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago.

Meanwhile in Africa the ancestors of humans had been evolving steadily. The earliest member of the homo genus is currently identified as Homo habilis who lived from around 2.4-1.4 million years ago. Homo habilis was already using stone tools though it’s leg structure was more suited to tree dwelling than plains walking. After (and alongside) habilis arose Homo ergaster, who later gave rise to Homo erectus and Homo antecessor. Erectus and Antecessor were the first human ancestors to move far out of Africa and into Asia and Europe, both around 1.2 million years ago. Then from Antecessor came Rhodesiensis which finally evolved into Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Homo sapiens have lived from around 250,000 years ago till present while poor old neanderthalensis disappeared around 30,000 years ago. So while canid ancestors beat us into Europe and Asia by a good margin the grey wolf from which dogs evolved arose at around the same time as modern humans.

The exact circumstances surrounding the first co-habitations of wolf and man are not known but evidence suggests the earliest interactions took place more than 100,000 years ago. Even before this time it is thought that humans may have been observing and learning from the wolves about how to hunt large ungulates on the tundra. What is known is that by 30,000 years ago dogs had split from wolves and were living alongside humans. The earliest clearly identified dog skeleton was found in Belgium and dates to 31,000 years ago. The March 2010 edition of the Journal Nature published a study that looked at tracing the geographic origins of the domestic dog using genetic markers. The genetic evidence shows that the domestic dog originated in the Middle-East, rather than East Asia as previously thought. It is logical to assume therefore that if the oldest dog remains we have are from Western Europe but dogs evolved in the Mid-East then the split must have taken placed many thousands of years before our oldest skeleton.