Biotech gets in on the viral marketing goodness.

Viral marketing has been a big trend in marketing in the last few years. It seems every company has made a viral video of some sort to attract potential customers. Often, these videos dont give any selling points or information about what products are being sold; rather they kinda make you go "WTF?". I guess the point is simply to bring attention to the company and the product.

It would seem that biotechnology companies are getting in on the trend as well. Below are some such videos from some well known biotech companies.

The first is "The PCR Song" by "Scientists for Better PCR", a group made up by Biorad to parody those 1980's songs like "We are the World", sung by a whole slew of celebreties/artists. This is probably the best known biotech viral video, and for a good reason: it's pretty darn catchy.


Eppendorf recently tried their hand at viral marketing and came out with a boy-band parody called "It's called EpMotion", for their EpMotion automated pipetting system.


Next comes one from Applied Biosystems. This one is kinda strange in that it starts off as a pretty regular, boring commercial for their thermal cyclers, but then breaks down and busts a move:


Invitrogen has really gotten into viral marketing, with a whole series of ads featuring Scotts Angus and Dougal:




Heres one aimed at the chemists and pharmaceutical companies for Agilent's mass specs:


I'm on the look out for more!

God: Not a fan of that thermodynamics stuff.

Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a nice post about how plate tectonics proves to be a major problem for creationists. I suggest you go read it since he can explain it alot better than I can. Here's the rundown, though, for those of you who like clicking as few links as possible:

Plate techtonics is a well known process (although, to be honest, it's really only been widely accepted since the 1960s). We know about it because we can directly observe it happening. We can also determine the actual rate of continental drift: it's a very very slow one (an inch or so a year). Based on geologic data that suggests the orientation of the plates in the past, we know that it has taken the plates millions of years to get where they are today. The problem for creationists lies with heat. As with most (all?) geologic processes, the movement of tectonic plates around the Earth releases heat. Since the plates move slowly, not alot of heat is given off by this process. However, Creationists claim that the Earth is a mere 6000 years old; what's more is that they explain away plate tectonics by claiming God made the plates move really really fast after the flood to get to their current positions. However, such an incredibly rapid motion would, accoring to the National Centre for Science Education, release enough heat to boil away the oceans and completely melt the Earth's crust!

Of course, I can already anticipate some wacky creationist counters to this. They would probably point out that God would just raise the boiling/melting points of the Earth and its oceans. The heat, then, wouldnt cause a problem. Well, except that raising the boiling/melting point means raising the environmental pressure (Pressue and temperature are both intimately entwined. 'Boiling point', for instance, is defined as the "temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid"). In order to prevent catostrophic environmental changes from happening from the release of that much heat, the environmental pressure would have to such incredible levels that living creatures would find it very difficult to continue living. The only way to get around this would be for God to change the very laws of thermodynamics. And all for only a period of 40 days so the world could appear to be older than it actually is. That God guy - not a fan of thermodynamics.

Bluebirds of the Mesozoic

One of the most enigmatic aspects of dinosaurs are their colour. Aside from what we've gathered from only a handfull of fragments of fossilized skin, anything about the colouration or patterning of dinosaurs and ancient birds is really unknown. Artists go to great lengths to illustrate "realistic" pictures of ancient creatures, but they simply are just an artist's rendition, something pulled from the imagination. However, it's possible that taking an "educated guess" about the plumage of ancient birds might become as extinct as the creatures themselves.

An article published in the most recent issue of Biology Letters by Vinther et. al details a new discovery regarding the colouration of fosilized feathers (Vinther et al. Biology Letters 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0302). The article discusses a known fossil of a feather from the Crato
Formation in Brazil (Figure 1a in the article). The reason the fossil is impressive is twofold: firstly, it is very well perserved and shows amazing detail, including the barbs and barbules. Secondly, and more importently, it shows a striking banding pattern. Previous studies on the fossil showed the black bands to be made mainly of tiny carbon structures (Davis and Briggs, 1995). This is hardly a surprise, because fossil feathers are usually composed mainly of carbon. Use of scanning electron microscopes (SEM) showed the structues to be oblong bodies about 2 microns across. These were thought to simply be fossilized feather-degrading bactera from our very distant past.

Vinther et. al. took another look at this fossil. They took a wing from a Red-winged Blackbird , ground it up, froze it and then compared SEM images of the feather to the fossilized bacteria. What they discovered was that the bacteria weren't bacteria at all! Instead, they showed an incredible similarity to eumelanosomes, the structures in feathers that give them dark pigmentation. The authors concluded that this was no mere similarity; the structures are ancient eumelanosomes! This would mean that the dark bands on the feathers were actually dark-pigmented bands on the living specimen. The lighter parts of the feathers showed none of these structures, and would then mean that they were lighter (if not white) bands on the original feather. This makes much more sense than the original bacteria hypothesis; after all, why would bacteria only perserve in the dark areas of the fossil and not the light ones? It is more likely that, since eumelanin (the pigment-prodicing chemical in melanosomes) is resistant to degredation to chemicals, the black feathers themselves are more resistant to bacterial decay than white feathers. All this means that, by examining fossilized feathers for eumelanosomes, we can determine what the patterning of ancient birds looked like!

But it gets even better. Melanosomes don't just give a dark, black pigmentation. Melanosomes of different shapes, arrangements and distributions confer different colours like red, black, or brown. Other types of melanosomes, like Phaeomelanosomes, can give other colours like yellow, though the authors caution that it is unknown if these melanosomes preserve the same as eumelanosomes. But, if they do, this would suggest that not only can we determine the patterning of ancient birds but also their colouration! This could potentially extend to determining the colouration of feathered dinosaurs as well. Also, it has implications in understaning the behaviour and ecology of these ancient creatures. As the authors state, birds have the ability to see a broad range of colours; this is one good reason why birds have evolved elabourate and colourful plumages. Thus, knowing the plumages of ancient birds and dinosaurs could give us some insight into the way they lived (assuming, of course, that colour vision didn't evolve after birds had sufficently diverged into their modern-day descendants). Perhaps the illustrations we see in books, magazines and on TV will soon be alot more accurate!

Sleezy tactics by Alberta Right To Life

Two weekends ago, Jessica and I took a trip to Red Rock Coulee, a "natural area" (note: not national/provincial park, though there was a park attached to the "natural area") in southern Alberta, about 30 minutes southwest of Medicine Hat. Our reason for travelling was twofold; we wanted to take a mini-vacation for the weekend and she wanted to get some insects for her collection from an ecosystem unlike that of Edmonton. Red Rock Coulee was situtated near some badlands so it seemed like an ideal place to go.

On the way from our hotel in Medicine Hat to Red Rock Coulee, we passed by a trailer displaying a big advertisment by the Alberta Right To Life Group, seen below:

If you can't read it, it says "Abortion kills BABIES and hurts women!!", underneath which is a phone number (1-800-665-0570). The opposite side of the trailer declared "1 in 3 babies is killed by abortion!!", complete with a really crappy cartoon of two babies and one 'ghost' baby.

Wondering where they got their statistics, and to contest how abortion hurts women and "kills babies", Jessica called the phone number, expecting to get a small-town Pro-Life group. She didn't.

The lady who answered was an operator for the Canadian Crisis Pregnancy Hotline, out of Winnipeg. After talking things over with her, we found out that the Crisis Pregnancy Hotline has nothing to do Alberta Right To Life (or any anti-abortion groups), and had no idea that the group was using their phone number on anti-abortion propaganda. The hotline takes a neutral stand on the issue, being neither Pro-Life nor Pro-Choice (although, if you think about it, taking no stance on the issue is basically akin to letting people make their own decisions on abortion, which is what being Pro-Choice is all about).

This makes me wonder why Alberta Right To Life would put the number on their advertisment. One reason, which I think is likely, is that the sign is there to stir up an anti-abortion fever in small town Alberta. Residents would call the number thinking they will have a chance to vent their disgust to like-minded people at Alberta Right To Life, only to get connected to the Pregnancy Crisis Hotline and proceed to give them a tongue lashing about how they are evil, sinful baby killers for giving out information and help to women considering abortions.

Of course, this is just speculation on my part. There's no way to know for sure short of contacting the group themselves. I took a look on their website for contact info but couldn't find one for the Medicine Hat branch (the ones most likely to be behind the sign). I also found that the group has another website, Abortionbreastcancer.ca, that claims abortion is the major cause of breast cancer in women, and that there is a big cover-up conspiracy by doctors to supress this info (more on this bullshit in a later blog post...)

But the sign leads me to think that the group is sleezy for three reasons. First, they dont say where they got any of their statistics. The statistics we found on abortion rates didn't match theirs at all. Without any reference to where the stats came from, how are people going to determine whether or not the group is truthful or lying through their teeth? Most people will take the numbers as truth without even thinking to look them up, but they wouldnt be able to do it even if they wanted to. Secondly, the use of the Pregnancy Crisis Hotline's number (and without stating what the number is for) is sleezy. I doubt doing so is illegal, since the number is freely available to the public, but who knows how many people have called it thinking they are going to get Alberta Right To Life and end up yelling at some poor soul in Winnepeg? And third, the sign spreads blatent lies about abortion (how is it "killing babies" or "hurting women"? Again, no references). I don't know how a group goes about putting up signs like that. I dont think it's legal if it's on public ground (because the group has an obvious religous impetus). Perhaps it's private land? I'm not familiar enough with the Medicine Hat area to know. I'll keep searching for a contact for the Medicine Hat branch so I an question them about it...

Answers in Genesis tries to play with the big boys, fails epically.

One of the things that is often used to laugh at how silly Creationists and, more specifically, Intelligent Design, is, is that it makes no predictions, no testable hypotheses, and porponents lack published papers in scientific journals. Some time ago, Answers in Genesis tried to address these criticisms by starting their own journal (Sorry, AiG, but it doesnt count when you need to start your own journal to publish your own papers, and the peer-review process only works when people outside of your own little group review your science). Nevertheless, we all still chuckled because their papers were non-technical drivel with faulty reasoning and laughable conclusions. Now, the folks over at AiG have tried to remedy this by attempting real 'semi-technial' research. In their article, they compare the fitness of an antibiotic resistant strain of Serratia marcescens to a suseptible strain, in an attempt to discredit evolution of antibiotic resistance (and thus, micro- and macroevolution). But, as the folks over at The Panda's Thumb point out, they fail majorly.

The first problem with their research is breaking one of the golden rules of research: if you are examining a particular variable, everything else needs to remain constant. For example, if you are trying to determine if regular or supreme gasoline gives you a better fuel mileage, you have to compare the two types in the same car, or at least the same model of car. You cant put regular in a Civic, put supreme in a Prius and then declare that supreme is better because the Prius goes further. There is no way to determine if the difference was caused by the gasoline itself of if other factors that differ between the two cars were the cause. You'd have to do the experiment in the same (type of) car. Everything except the variable you are testing needs to remain the same. The same thing goes with working with bacteria. If you are going to compare two strains - one resistant to Ampicilin, the other not - then both strains need to be genetically identical sans the resistance gene. This is one of the most basic, common sense rules about research. Its also the first rule that Answers in Genesis breaks in their 'research'. They compared an S. marcescens Amp resistant strain (it's never explicitly stated where they obtained it, but they allude to Dr. Robert Williams at the Texas Medical Center who has aparently kept the strain going) to a "wild type" that they, get this, isolated from a random sample of pond water. They have no way (short of sequencing the entire genome of each strain) if both strains are genetically identical. One is resistant to ampicilin, the other isnt. But is that the only difference? Most likely not. How can they conclude with any certainty that any fitness difference between the two were because of the resistance gene? They can't. It's as simple as that. They cannot make such a conclusion because they used grossly improper research technique; their findings are absolutely worthless.

The second big problem with their research is that they dont understand what the heck "fitness" means. They define fitness as as ‘growth rate and colony “robustness” in minimal media’ (What the heck is a "robust" colony? That's a pretty subjective qualifier). Unfirtunatley, because of their lousy techniques mentioned above, they can't tell if a smaller colony is less fit (by their definition) because of the resistance gene or some other factor they did not controll. Not only that but the figure they use to describe the growth curves has no error bars, so you cannot tell how accurate their numbers are and whether or not the difference between the two strains is statistically significant (it likely isn't). They then go on to conclude that the resistant strain is "less fit" than the wild type. This makes little sense, considering 92% of Serratia marcescens infections in hospitals are antibiotic restistant (which they state in their own paper). If such strains were less fit then why are they more common than the wild type strain? Because hospitals use antibiotics and the resistance provides a reproductive (fitness) advantage. But because they use a lousy definitation of fitness, they conclude that resistant strains are less fit.

The third big problem is that they dont seem to know the difference between "compete" and "compare". What they did in their paper was compare the two strains. They plated one on minimal media and counted the colonies. Then they plated the second on minimal media and counted the colonies. They compared the numbers, etc. Nevertheless, they constantly refer to the bacteria "competing". There is a big difference. Let's imagine we have two cages, each with a mouse. You feed Mouse A ten pieces of cheese, and it eats all of them. You feed Mouse B ten pieces of cheese, and it eats all of them. Comparitively, both mouse seem the same. But put both mice together and feed them some cheese, and mouse A eats 90% of it, while mouse B only gets 10% of it. This is because Mouse A outcompetes Mouse B. This is not what AiG did. They compared the two strains. They didn't make them compete. So how could they conclude that the non-resistant strain of Serratia marcescens outcompetes the resistant strain? They can't.

And even if all this was forgiven, if they had used proper technique, they had made the strains compete, used a proper definition of fitness....their conclusions are still wrong. If they had bothered to look, this exact experiment had been done before (properly), and the authors concluded the exact opposite of what AiG found.

Nice try, Answers in Genesis, but you're not cut out for this kind of thing. Leave the research to the people who know how to do it. Leave the science to the scientists.

The big myth

I copied this from a forum post which was, in turn, copied from a [unnamed] website, so it's hard for me to give credit to whoever originally wrote this. But whoever you are, I salute you! I present: Jesus - the Myth behind the Man.

"We'll start thinking about Christian borrowing by asking a simple question:

By what criteria can we decide what ancient godman stories were new and original, and what ancient godman stories were myths built up from the religious ideas of their day?

Here's what I mean..

When Osiris is said to bring his believers eternal life in Egyptian Heaven, contemplating the unutterable, indescribable glory of God, we understand that as a myth.

When the sacred rites of Demeter at Eleusis are described as bringing believers happiness in their eternal life, we understand that as a myth.

In fact, when ancient writers tell us that in general ancient people believed in eternal life, with the good going to the Elysian Fields and the not so good going to Hades, we understand that as a myth.

When Vespatian's spittle healed a blind man, we understand that as a myth.

When Apollonius of Tyana raised a girl from death, we understand that as a myth.

When the Pythia , the priestess at the Oracle at Delphi, in Greece, prophesied, and over and over again for a thousand years, the prophecies came true, we understand that as a myth.

When Dionysus turned water into wine, we understand that as a myth. When Dionysus believers are filled with atay, the Spirit of God, we understand that as a myth.

When Romulus is described as the Son of God, born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.

When Alexander the Great is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, we understand that as a myth.

When Augustus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman , we understand that as a myth.

When Dionysus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, we understand that as a myth.

When Scipio Africanus (Scipio Africanus, for Christ's sake) is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, we understand that as a myth.

So how come when Jesus is described as the Son of God, born of a mortal woman, according to prophecy, turning water into wine, raising girls from the dead, and healing blind men with his spittle, and setting it up so His believers got eternal life in Heaven contemplating the unutterable, indescribable glory of God, and off to Hades—er, I mean Hell—for the bad folks...
how come that's not a myth?"

The answer is, of course, it is a myth. Just like every other godman, every other miracle worker, every other prophecy fullfiller, Jesus' life is a myth. Christians need to realize theyre worshiping the same myth as the ancient "heathens" they look down upon.

And I thought things couldnt get any more ridiculous.

It's official. Now I've heard everything.

These people want Jesus as president. Seriously. When election day comes, they want to write in Jesus for president.

You hear that noise? That's the sound of America going down the drain.

Will people please use their brains for a second?

So today Stats Canada released some statistics on crime rates across the country. I read about it on Yahoo Canada News, which you can read for yourself here. The jist of it, though, is that, overall, the crime rate for Canada as a nation has decreased for the third year in a row. Go us! Moreover, the stats show:

"Crime rates were down in all provinces and territories, except Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Overall crime rates remained highest in the western provinces.

Saskatchewan's crime rate fell 3.5 per cent but still was the highest in the country, including the highest rate of violent crime. Manitoba's 62 homicides last year were up 23 from 2006, giving it the highest provincial homicide rate and Manitoba's highest murder rate since recording began in 1961.

"For the fourth year in a row, the lowest provincial (crime) rate occurred in Ontario and Quebec," said the agency."

Alow me to recap. The areas with the highest crime rates are the western provinces, with Saskatchewan at the top. The only areas with increasing crime rates are Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Ontairo and Quebec have the lowest crime rates.

Now read the comments people left about the article. Many people have said things along the lines of "Gee Im glad I dont live in Newfoundland! I'll stay here in BC". One guy commented that Newfoundland seems like "a suburb of Iraq". Waaaait a second here. Does anyone know the difference in highest crime rate and an increasing crime rate?

Newfoundland has an increasing crime rate. That does not mean it has a HIGH crime rate. If the crime rate in Newfoundland went from 1% in 2007 to 3% in 2008, that means it has an increasing crime rate. If Alberta had a crime rate in 2007 of 40% and that dropped to 38% this year, then the crime rate decreased. But which one is HIGHER? Of course these numbers are made up for illustrative purporses but the point remains. The article said Newfoundland had an increasing crime rate, not that it had a high crime rate. It explicitly stated that the highest crime rates were in western Canada!

Another point that seems to have passed people by is that these statistics are based on a per capita level. A province that had one person and one crime would have a crime rate of 100%. Nevertheless, there was only a single crime committed in that province that year. A province of 10,000,000 people with 5,000,000 crimes would have a crime rate of 50%. Which would you think is the safer place to live? If the number of crimes were kept constant (i.e. if the same number of banks were robbed in each province, the same number of people were killed, etc.) then the provinces with the smaller populations would come out with the higher crime rates.

This is really simple stuff. Why can't people get their heads around it? An increading crime rate doesnt mean a high crime rate. Newfoundland isnt a "suburb of Iraq". If anything, western Canada is Bagdad's backyard. Take a look at the picture below: (click it for a better look, it comes out like crap on my blog)


The National crime rate is about 7%. The provinces with the lowest crime rates are at about 5.5%. Newfoundland is a tad over 6%, making it one of the provinces with the lowest crime rate (pretty much smack dab in the middle actually). Compare that to the rates for the provinces out west: they are much greater than the national average.

So why the hate on Newfoundland? Yes, the province has an increasing crime rate, but its still a LOW crime rate. Its pretty ironic and kinda sad when commenters from western Canada call Newfoundland a "suburb of Iraq" when they live in the part of Canada with the highest crime rates. Maybe I'm just irate because I'm a Newfoundlander and people are "trashing" my home province, but seriously, people need to learn how to understand statistics.

God isn't a scientist, he's a fine arts professor.

Once again, the good folks at Fundies Say the Darndest Things have provided me with some creationist fodder to debunk. Today's post comes from Gideon over at Flyleaffans.com. Here it is in full:

The sun has gives off ultraviolet rays doesn't it? And it has been proven that humans in fact, need the nutrients of these rays in order have healthy skin, and so on. But when a human has too much UV, the effects have proved harmful. Knowing this however, He decided to create the ozone layer and a magnetic field to shield us from such radiation. Also, while the earth rotates it is slightly tilted as it hangs, and with good reason: If that tilt was even 1 degree higher or lower than it is now earth would suffer through unstable seasonal change, orbital change, and much more... also making it impossible for us to live on it. As we know, scientists do not just analyze they also have the ability to create; a scientist does not only make observations. So God therefore that would make God a perfect scientist because he knows everything and can create anything (like the examples shown above) perfectly, unlike us human scientists. And so you see, God uses logic even for these basic things. Did that make sense?

Let's dismantle this piece by piece, shall we?

"The sun has gives off ultraviolet rays doesn't it? And it has been proven that humans in fact, need the nutrients of these rays in order have healthy skin, and so on. But when a human has too much UV, the effects have proved harmful. Knowing this however, He decided to create the ozone layer and a magnetic field to shield us from such radiation."

Yes, the sun does give off ultraviolet rays, in three forms: UVA, UVB and UVC. This might be the only thing in Gideon's entire post that he actually gets right. But it has not been proven that humans "need the nutrients of these rays in order to have healthy skin and so on". This is because the rays dont have any nutrients! Ultraviolet rays are composed of photons with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light (but longer than X-rays). In the mid-1800's James Clerk Maxwell showed that light - photons - are a form of electromagnetic radiation. In other words, ultraviolet rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation. UV is energy. As such, it is absolutely impossible for UV light to have any nutrients. "Nutrients" are chemicals necessary for the metabolism of an organism which must be taken in from the environment. They are physical, material substances. UV, energy, cannot "carry" nutrients.

Nevertheless, ultraviolet light is necessary for our health. The biosynthesis of Vitamin D requires UVB light as a catalyst; people who do not get adequate exposure to natural UVB light end up becoming deficent, a condition known as rickets. This might be what Gideon was alluding to but was too ignorant to get the facts right. Too much of it is also dangerous. UV light causes pyrimidine dimers in your DNA: pyrimidine bases, like thyamine will pair with each other in the same strand. This causes the DNA to bulge, preventing replication enzymes from working and causing mutations. This is why you get a sunburn that often peels; your cells get enough mutations that they kill themselves off to prevent themselves from becoming cancerous.

However, while the ozone layer does work to keep out harmful UVB and UVC rays (UVA is not as harmful - it's what's emitted by blacklights), the earth's magnetic fields does pretty much nothing to protect us from ultraviolet light (and it would be pretty crappy if it did protect us. Since the magnetic field has varried in intensity and direction over time, so would our exposure to UV). Chemicals like CFCs destroy ozone molecules, putting us at higher and higher risks of overexposure to UV light. Gideon seems to think that the protection against UV is a gift from His Almighty. This kinda makes me wonder though. Does Gideon think his God is stupid? Why would God design us so that we require something that could easily kill us as an essential factor for life? Wouldn't it be smarter to make sure that everything we require for our metabolism isn't harmful? Was this an oversight on God's part? For someone who's supposedly infinite in his foresight, it seems a bit odd that he would do this.

"Also, while the earth rotates it is slightly tilted as it hangs, and with good reason: If that tilt was even 1 degree higher or lower than it is now earth would suffer through unstable seasonal change, orbital change, and much more... also making it impossible for us to live on it."

Wrong, wrong and more wrong. The Earth's tilt is caused (most likely, the debate is still open on the cause) by the shape of the Earth itself. The Earth is not a perfect sphere; and because of this it rotates with a bit of a wobble. This wobble gives the Earth it's tilt. It is also the reason why the rest of Gideon's claim about the Earth's axis is bunk. The Earth is not tilted because an axis of plus or minus one degree would spell disaster. In fact, the angle of the Earth's axis has changed over time: it changes from 21 degrees to 25 degrees and back again once every 41,000 years (much more of a deviation from the current tilt of 23.5 degrees than the "deadly" 1 degree difference claimed by Gideon). The tidal forces on the Earth due to the gravity of the moon also have an effect on the tilt of the Earth; this is called nutation, and occurs in a cycle of 18.6 years. This means that the axis of the Earth changes (assuming that the rate of change of the Earth's tilt is constant) at least one degree every 5100 years¹. If such a change in the axis would cause "unstable seasonal change, orbital change, and much more... also making it impossible for us to live on [Earth]", then humanity would have been wiped out within recorded history. Even if you believed in Young Earth Creationist claims that the earth is only 6000 to 10,000 years old, if Gideon's claim were true then humanity would have been wiped out at least once. Obviously, this is ridiculous. The truth is that the Earth's tilt is due to the shape of the Earth and the exact angle of the tilt varries at a known rate. There is nothing special about the Earth in this respect - even the moon has axial tilt - and there certainly isn't any "design" aparent in this regard.

"As we know, scientists do not just analyze they also have the ability to create; a scientist does not only make observations. So God therefore that would make God a perfect scientist because he knows everything and can create anything (like the examples shown above) perfectly, unlike us human scientists. And so you see, God uses logic even for these basic things. Did that make sense?"

Gideon is right that scientists do not only make observations, but they also make interpretations of those observations to try and elucidate the way Nature works. What scientists create are working models of Nature. We use experimentation to ask Nature a question and we evaluate her reply. God would not make a perfect scientist at all. Scientists seek answers; God, in all his infinite knowledge, supposeldly already knows the answers (just like a Creationist, eh?). This would make him a terrible scientist: the whole purpose of science is to find the answers to how the world works. If all the answers were known then science would be futile (thankfully, this isnt the case). And if God knows all the answers, then he has no working models to create. God would be just about the worst scientist you could imagine, and not just because he's only had one publication in the 6,000 year's he's supposedly been working. So, no, Gideon. That doesn't make sense.
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1. An entire cycle takes 41000 years, so it takes 20500 years to go from 21 degrees to 25 degrees, a difference of 4 degrees. If the rate of change is constant, then the tilt changes once every 20500/4=5125 years.

A Vaccine For the Mind

Vaccines work by prompting your immune system to recognize, and learn how to properly deal with, a virus or bacteria of a certain type. In this manner, vaccines provide protection against an antagonist, a shield to keep your body safe from the damages of pathogens.

After so many years of dealing with creationists and their ilk, I've come to notice that the way they act is similar to the way vaccines work. Religion seems to put up an impregnable barrier around their minds that keeps out science, facts, and rational thoughts. Religion acts just like a vaccine, except it works on the mind to keep out facts rather than on the body to keep out pathogens. This has lead me to coin a new term: Religion acts as a factcine on the mind. Creationists have been factcinated against critical thinking.

This applies to other groups too: astrologers, new age practitioners, 9/11 truthers, the entire Green Vaccine movement, psychics and their supporters - they all have been factcinated in one form or another to ignore the facts. And, just like a vaccine teaches your body how to fight off a pathogen, so does factcination teach these people to actively fight away facts. Factcination is dangerous: not because factcines contain dangerous chemicals like vaccines supposedly do (they don't) but because they contain even more dangerous stuff: vile lies and ignorance.