theiconoclast.info

Sit down. Take a look at your fingers. Look at them like you have never looked at them before.

Now, if you are a male, chances are that your ring finger is longer than your index finger. However, if you are a female, the chances are that your fingers are approximately the same length, or your index finger may even be longer than your ring finger. Why?

The length of the ring finger is determined by the amount of testosterone one is exposed to while inside their mother’s womb; the more testosterone, the longer the resulting ring finger. Since men are exposed to much more testosterone in the womb than women (the default sex for the human species is female, so testosterone is used to masculinize the brain and body), most men have longer ring fingers.

And this is not just a trivial biological curiosity. Ring finger length has proven in various scientific studies to be an excellent predictor of numerous traits in men. Men with uncommonly long ring fingers have a greater risk of autism, stammering, dyslexia, and immune system problems. Men with uncommonly short ring fingers are at a greater risk of heart disease and infertility.

Also, various studies have shown that a large percentage of homosexual people have a finger length characteristic of the opposite sex; gay men have ring fingers shorter than the index finger and lesbians have ring fingers longer than it. Perhaps it all has to do with testosterone’s effect on the brain during pregnancy. But at this point that is really just speculation.

So, as always, science is cooler than superstition. While fortune tellers can only make up the meaning of the lines on the palm, scientists actually know the meaning of the finger lengths. Science wins again. Thoughts?

Brad Rybinski

One of the things that I like to do in my free time is go to the bookstore (usually Borders or Barnes and Noble), drink enough coffee to kill a small lab rat, and study science textbooks. However, before I get started, I always make sure to carry out a very important mission. And I thought I would share that mission today, so that others may find the same sense of accomplishment in carrying it out that I do. The mission is as follows:

1.      Borders and Barnes and Noble, in either a misguided attempt at  scientific integrity or a selfish pursuit of profit, place books promoting “Intelligent Design” and criticizing evolutionary theory as false, in the science section. But as most readers probably know, intelligent design is not science; it is merely a collection of logical fallacies, religion, and pseudoscience.

2.      Go to the science section of one of the book stores, and find these books. They include The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design,  Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, anything by Michael Behe, and more.

3.      Pick up these books. Using your hands.

4.      Kindly assist the store by moving the books to a more appropriate section. The three best, in my opinion, are “Religion”, “Fiction”, and “Science Fiction”, though you are welcome to select any section other than “Science”. In fact, placing them in the “Erotica” section would probably be quite interesting.

5.      Your mission is now complete.

Thoughts?

Brad Rybinski

First off, technically, according to modern evolutionary theory, there is no such thing as devolution because evolution has no direction, but in this article, I’ll refer to “the opposite of the manner in which most humans want the species to evolve” as devolution.

Now, consider this video (even if you don’t like Nu Metal, Heavy Metal, or Alternative Metal):

If you don’t believe the video (it’s a music video after all), I did some fact checking:

• The first point the video makes is that the average human IQ is decreasing. This can be verified from other sources, such as this chart:

If you look at the average IQ, it is quite obvious that overall, the IQ of the species is decreasing.

• The next point that the video makes is that higher IQ individuals tend to have fewer children

This can be proven from the data obtained from here (shown in the chart below for convenience):

The Correlation of Average Number of Children to IQ of Mother (by decade)

• The last scientifically valid point that the video makes is that humans have no natural predators, which is quite obvious in the world we see around us. Because of the technology that humans have developed, we can (and will) kill anything that gets in our way (or doesn’t get in our way for that matter)

The rest of the video is pretty much scientifically invalid (the part with people wearing lab coats is invalid, go-figure) because it is staged for the video, but the data the video gives early on gives pretty strong evidence supporting ‘devolution’. These points combined lead to ‘devolution’ because there will be fewer high-iq individuals, and high-iq is generally regarded as a positive trait.

So what do you think about ‘devolution’? Post in the comments. (Some good-mannered scientific debate anybody?)

The following article was graciously contributed by Rohit R. .

A few months ago, I was channel surfing and came across a show on The Science Channel entitled “The Real Superhumans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic.”  The idea of the show was to show the extraordinary abilities of certain humans and the quest to try and understand and spread these abilities among the general population.  Most of the people’s abilities had little intrigue to me; however one person stood out to me as being absolutely amazing.  Esref Armagan: The Blind Painter.  You might be wondering why I was so impressed by him.  My answer is that I, like many of you, am artistically challenged, and I can see.  Blind from birth, Armagan is able to paint with skill that surpasses that of many sighted people.  He can paint a windmill, but he has never seen one.  He draws with perspective and shadows, but has no comprehension of what they are.  Here’s a link to some of his paintings.  http://www.armagan.com/paintings.asp.  The science behind this is a bit boring; basically his brain shows neural plasticity that links touch to vision.  Whenever he touches something, the visual cortex of his brain lights up, and his brains scans resemble those of sighted people.  If you are interested in learning more read this article http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524841.700.  Anyway, I just thought that this was pretty awesome.  Let me know what you think about his mad skills.

To be completely honest, there are a lot of parts of chemistry that I find incredibly boring.  But there are some parts that are incredible. For example, consider the two chemicals hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). 

Hydrochloric acid is what is known as a strong acid, that is, it ionizes completely in water. It is also extremely powerful and corrosive. Concentrated hydrochloric acid can erode steel, cause burns, and if its fumes are breathed in, cause a person to start coughing up blood.

Sodium hydroxide is what is known as a strong base; it also ionizes completely in water. And although sodium hydroxide is a base, it is just as hazardous as hydrochloric acid, and is capable of attacking living tissues and causing burns.

However, modern chemistry tells us that if one were to take just the right amounts of both hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, and mix them together, a completely harmless solution would be produced. This solution could be drunk. And it covers 71% of the earth. This solution is salt water.

HCl (aq) + NaOH (s)  = H2O (l) + NaCl (aq)

Acids and bases can be interesting; you just have to think about them in the right way.

Brad Rybinski

The following article was graciously contributed by Manu V.

What is Your Dangerous Idea?

Last week, when I was book hunting at Barnes and Noble, I stumbled across this great book called “What is your Dangerous Idea.” This eye-opening collection of articles by the world’s leading scientists and philosophers is, in the words of the pop tart dude, crazy good. According to one observer, it is the “crack cocaine of the thinking world.”

The basic premise of the book is that each scientist is asked this question- “The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and the Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about ( not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true.” I would like to point out that there is a line that should not be crossed. For example, harmful technologies that can be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, or hateful ideologies, like those that drive racist, facist or other cults, should not be voiced. A dangerous idea can be described as one that is denounced not because it is false, or because it advocates harmful action, but because it is thought to ‘go against the grain.’

The great thing about this book is that it takes a while to read. Not because it uses tons of long words, and certainly not because it is boring. The fact is, every time you read an article, you have to stop and think. You might be like “man that was some hot stuff- I got to think about it a bit,” or you may go “This idiot has no idea what he’s talking about- thats completely impossible.” I would highly recommend it to all you iconoclast readers out there, ’cause this book is a fun ride.

Now some of you readers might be thinking- “hey man, you read this book, didn’t you? Don’t you have a dangerous idea?” Well readers, yes. Yes I do. Here’s mine:

My dangerous idea is that we have no soul. All the thoughts that we think, all the various actions that make up our existence, these are merely the product of interactions between the various molecules and cells that make up our body. This of course, leads to the idea that there is no afterlife. When we die, our consciousness dies with us, and we cease to exist. I believe that the afterlife is merely a way of making death seem less final, less forbidding. The concept that we will live on forever, that life on earth is merely a transient pathway along eternal life, while romantic, is extremely doubtful. Life begins, and ends on earth.

So readers, you may disagree with me, or you may agree with me…..I don’t give a rat’s whisker. All I’m interested in is your dangerous idea. I want to know what you think that might challenge our current views on life. What is the one idea that, were you to say it aloud, might cause you to wake up one morning in a nice, comfortable, well-padded cell. Since I don’t want you to suffer this horrible fate, please type out your dangerous idea and leave it in the comments.