The rise of pseudoscience

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I am a Deist.  That means that I believe in God whole-heartedly but reject all religious dogma.  My beliefs are a combination of certain elements from Hinduism, Sufism, and Buddhism and I try to pray and meditate daily and abide by a belief in karma.  During the day I am a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life.  I study the oldest life on Earth (dating back to ~4 billion years) in order to unlock the secrets of life, how it began, and how it evolved until the present.  I am an example of how one can embrace God and still believe at the same time that scientific explanations should always trump religious ones.

Over the last two days Deepak Chopra has been making arguments that basically support “Intelligent Design” on the liberal Huffington Post blog (which is an excellent website).  Such an embarrassing event can occur when you have too many bloggers in one space and can’t keep track of it all.  I am not a Deepak Chopra reader.  I find his writings too…elementary.  I don’t begrudge anyone that does enjoy his writing though.  We all have different tastes is all.  Chopra however has a lot of people that listen to him and take his words as “gospel.”  That is why I was pained greatly to read his post.  Here are some “scientific questions” he poses in order to demonstrate an openness to divine intervention:

1. How does nature take creative leaps? In the fossil record there are repeated gaps that no “missing link” can fill.

Wrong.  It is the rock record that is incomplete.  Tectonic activity is continually resurfacing the Earth and destroying the rocks containing fossils.  Nature does not take “creative leaps.”  The biggest such “leap” occurred around 535 Ma at the Cambrian boundary and over the last 40+ years the “gap” has been slowly filled in with solid fossil evidence showing gradual evolution.

2. If mutations are random, why does the fossil record demonstrate so many positive mutations — those that lead to new species — and so few negative ones?

Because organisms with negative mutations die out sooner making their preservation potential less.  Only a tiny fraction of dead life survives the fossilization process without being destroyed.  That’s why you don’t find dinosaur bones in your backyard.

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80% of India’s Children Lead SUCKY Lives

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Plan, the ChildrenÂ’s aid organization, issued a report with the following sobering statistics (Thanks, Al Mujahid):

  • Nearly half of Asia’s 1.3bn children live in poverty, denied basic needs, says a new report.
  • India has the largest number of poor children in Asia, with 80% of its 400m young severely deprived, it says.
  • 600m Asian children under the age of 18 lack access to either food, safe drinking water, health or shelter.
  • Of those, 350m were described as "absolutely poor", meaning they do not have access to two or more of a child’s essential necessities.
    • [BBC]

Though Africa (especially lately) is the continent many of us associate with poverty and desperation, Asia has double the number of “severely deprived” children.  IÂ’m ashamed of my ignorance of this fact.  ItÂ’s so easy to focus on Bangalore and Gurgaon, on starbucks-esque “third places”, on “desirable” India.  I heard so much about IndiaÂ’s fabulous new middle class, I forgot that

Despite high growth rates in countries like India and China, millions of families were being left behind, according to the report.

Among the causes, the report said, were the pressure of rapid population growth on scarce resources, lack of access to education, health care, clean water or sanitation, caste discrimination, and weak governance and corruption.[BBC]

Around half of IndiaÂ’s children who are age five or younger are malnourished; additionally, India has more children working than any other country. Sixty percent of IndiaÂ’s youngest citizens are “absolutely poor”.  In contrast, only 13 million or ChinaÂ’s 380 million children are considered “deprived”.

China, the report said, had made "great strides in poverty reduction in recent years".[BBC]

WhatÂ’s being done?

Child aid organisation, Plan, author of the report, has pledged to spend $1bn on poverty reduction in 12 Asian countries over the next decade.

It also wants rich nations to reduce subsidies given to their own farmers and to cancel Third World debt. [BBC]

Sigh. Continue reading →

Stylin’ at IKEA

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Remember that ongoing battle between Sikh employees and the NY Metropolitan Transport Authority [see 1,2 ]?  Basically the MTA wanted Sikhs to wear a logo on their turban identifying them as MTA employees so that no passenger would think the train/bus was being highjacked.  Anyways, I thought of that story when I saw this on the DNSI blog:

IKEA’s new Edmonton branch contacted TheHijabShop.com to design and produce a ‘hijab’ – a Muslim headscarf – that would fit in with their current uniform.

When IKEA first approached TheHijabShop.com, their excited team was impressed that an internationally-acclaimed company like IKEA was making so much effort to accommodate Muslims in its workforce.

The challenge for the team was to create a hijab that had the IKEA branding; that was easy to put on without the need for pins – so avoiding any health and safety hazards; and that was something employees would feel comfortable wearing in a working environment, whether in the showroom or in the warehouse. It also had to be compact, without excess material flowing around, and meanwhile sticking to Islamic requirements. [Link]

Obviously I don’t see any similarity between the motivations of the NY MTA and that of IKEA.  I mean nobody could be worried about terrorism at IKEA…right?  No, I just think this is a clever marketing ploy.  IKEA has stores in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.  I wonder if the hijabs will be for employess worldwide or only in those countries.  Are there other companies that make personalized “religious clothing” for their employees that anyone knows about?  I bet you Abercrummy & Fitch will design some stylish hijabs for their employees next season.  Not.

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Our Parents Shrugged

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Between the Ayn Rand discussion Manish’s post kicked off a few days ago and the fisking of Dr. Patnaik cited on IndianEconomy.org, I figured I oughta finally commit to a post that’s been rattling in my head for a few months – the startling parallels between the fictional, dystopian economic world Ayn Rand outlined in Atlas Shrugged and real life Indian history.

Now although I’m one of those Desi dudes who cites Atlas Shrugged as an all-time favorite, I’m far from a Randroid. I readily recognize that getting too literal runs headlong into a more, uh, empirical assessment of the human condition. But, I’m also more than willing to give Rand credit – especially writing in the 1940s and 1950s – for being more right than wrong about some of the biggest issues of the day. Doubly so because, given the intellectual zeitgeist of the time, Rand was decidedly a contrarian. The example of the License Raj – India’s economic regime “progressively” enacted a scant few years after Atlas Shrugged was published (1957), and to some degree of Intellectual fanfare, gives us the latest, almost depressing example of how Indian fact can be more extreme than Western fiction.

In the novel, a key milestone as the world plummets into dysfunction and chaos is the passage of the innocuously titled Directive 10-289 by the government. It opens with a rather lofty goal –

“In the name of the general welfare to protect the people’s security, to achieve full equality and total stability…

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Hold that Tiger

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Ananthan recently penned this fascinating post on the Tamil Tigers’ cemeteries (see photos):

The LTTE is a secular organization but up until the early 90s it seems that dead cadres… were all cremated according to Hindu practice. In the early 90s this was changed to burial…

… the use of these graveyards, similar in style to those used by militaries in the west, helps to confer legitimacy to the LTTE. The Tigers are often dismissed or denounced as unthinking, purposeless terrorists; established memorials help to combat that view… Cremation doesn’t leave any tangible, visible evidence of those who have passed, burial does…

The Maaveerar are celebrated on November 27th, officially remembered as the day in which the first Tiger died… in Sri Lanka the ceremonies take place in the Tuillum Illam. [LTTE Leader] Prabhakaran’s yearly speech is delivered and broadcast through loudspeakers in all Tuillum Illam.

… the practice of burial is rationalized with the opposing beliefs of Hinduism…

Read the whole thing.

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When Indophiles mate

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The daughter of a big-time Silicon Valley VC wed last weekend. In these troubled times, it warms my heart to see that the ultra-wealthy are still meeting and mating over that shared hobby called Indophilia

… each had traveled to India, Ms. Kramlich to ride horses across the desert in Rajasthan and Dr. Bowie to Dharmsala, “to meet the Dalai Lama…” [Link]

Wealthy Westerners… a dusty desert… heaving bodices… it’s The Far Pavilions! For that level of Indophilia, their kids better be wearing turbans. I’m thinkin’ Poon-jab as the child of Daddy Warbucks.

As Ms. Kramlich’s father doubtless has access to a private jet, it may be the last time she and her husband find themselves on horseback out of necessity  The wedding writeup is a peek into the lifestyle of Sand Hill Brahmins:

In 2001 she had abandoned a career in business and product development with start-up technology companies to study acting… They were married in typical California wine-country style on Aug. 13. Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court, a friend of the bride’s family, led the ceremony under a canopy of oaks and a Wedgwood-blue sky on the grounds of the 21-acre Oakville, Calif., weekend house and vineyard owned by the bride’s father, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and her stepmother, Pamela Kramlich, a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The bride looked serene in a form-fitting creamy-white Vera Wang gown as a string quartet, tucked into the greenery, played sweetly. A reception and sit-down dinner for 234 guests followed on the grassy lawns surrounding the votive-lit family pool.

After the couple’s honeymoon, at an eco-resort in Nicaragua, that is part nature preserve and part reforestation project, the bride and the bridegroom, who has no pets of his own, will return to their new horse farm in the Oakland Hills of California with her animal entourage: three Arabian horses and one very happy and healthy poodle. [Link]

All joking aside, congratulations to the newlyweds.

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Sakharam Shyamalan

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That *$ siren with wavy hair whom you’re ogling is Sarita Choudhury:

British actress Sarita Choudhury has been signed up for a role in M. Night Shyamalan’s next big film Lady in the Water… M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film tells the story of a superintendent of an apartment building who discovers a sea nymph in the building’s pool…

Sarita Choudhury was born in London and spent her early years in Kingston, Jamaica. She has also lived in Mexico for a while…

In a previous interview, she put her variety of roles down to lack of opportunities for Indian actors. “Left to myself I would only play an Indian. But the reality was that there were hardly any Indian characters I could play in the films made in England and Hollywood. So I had to learn how to disappear into a variety of characters,” she said. She is currently working in three other films. [Link]

Wonder if one of those roles is a terrorist.

Over the Mountains is in post-production and will be the first to see a release. It is about a Pakistani involved in a planned attack in New York City who experiences a crisis of conscience. Indocumentados is currently in production, while work on For Real has not yet started. [Link]

Ding ding ding!

When I saw Shyamalan’s Praying With Anger, a student film that was a prototype for the American Desi/American Chai/ABCD wave, I’d never have guessed what would transpire. Over a decade later, Shyamalan tips his lid to one of the original 2nd gen actresses from his throne room in mainstream American film.

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3

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Radio killed the video star

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A de Menezes update: police and military radios both were on different frequencies and apparently didn’t work underground. It’s shades of 9/11.

Police marksmen and army surveillance teams following Jean Charles de Menezes onto a Tube train could not receive orders in the vital moments before he was shot dead because their radios did not work underground… The undercover officers sitting alongside Mr de Menezes are understood to have decided he was not a threat, but they could not get this message back to Gold Command at the Yard nor relay it to the marksmen.

As the firearms officers ran into the station they are believed to have been out of touch with everyone else involved in the operation. It has been disclosed that the two groups involved — one from Scotland Yard and the other from the Army — were using different radio networks as they trailed the innocent electrician from his home on July 22. Officers on the train are understood to have decided that from the way Mr de Menezes was dressed, and that he was not carrying a bag, he was not about to blow himself up. [Link]

Active suspects should never have been let onto the tube in the first place:

One of the troops who accompanied the Yard marksmen on to the tube also reportedly told military chiefs that the armed police arrived far too late and should have intercepted their target outside Stockwell Underground station, in South London. [Link]

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This Suitablegirl is suitably loyal.

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Over a decade ago, I walked up and down the aisles of the local Barnes and Noble because of an all-consuming curiosity which was ignited by some now-forgotten book review. (I would later work at that very BN during my senior year of college, in case you are unbelievably bored). I had picked up a torch for brown-ish fiction which burns just as brightly today as it did when I was a teenager. I found my quarry, picked it up very carefully and took it to the cash-wrap, where the clerk, on second thought, double-bagged it.

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I went home and didn’t emerge from my room for two days; I waved away meals, plugged my ears to my father’s indignant screams about how I was missing class, I think I forgot to bathe, who knows. I couldn’t leave this tome, whose protagonist shared MY nickname. Upon reflection, I think I understand why you Potter-heads do what you do…oh, wait. I don’t. 😉

Vikram Seth’s “Suitable Boy” changed my life. It altered my expectations for literature, my perceptions of my parents’ histories, my conception of myself and what I wanted out of my future. Suddenly, I had a thousand things to ask my delighted father, about newly-free India in the 1950s. I looked at my mother, a freedom baby who was born right after India gained her independence with a new affection and appreciation; if Aparna were alive, she’d be my Mother’s age. I regarded all the other books on my shelves with a supercilious disdain.

I’ve read SB three-and-a-half times. It never left my bedside table; it’s been there for over a decade. My most cherished ritual involved briefly immersing myself in it before falling asleep every night; as soon as I finished the entire tome, I’d gingerly turn the book over and start it again the next night. Suddenly, I’m sad that my treasured font of comfort is dusty and untouched. Continue reading →

I hear there’s a new lawman in town

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Uttar Pradesh has a plan to combat rising crime in the state.  It has decided to deputize some unlikely “lawmen.”  Radio Australia reports:

A pride of lions is to be unleashed in India’s Uttar Pradesh state to help combat crime.

But environmentalists fear the lions might be the ones needing help in the face of sharp-shooting bandits blamed by police for 4,000 abductions and 180 murders in the region over the last five years.

Mohammed Hasan, Uttar Pradesh chief wildlife warden in the state capital, Lucknow, says zoos have already been contacted to assist with the plan.

I am not sure about this.  Lions are known for their excessive brutality during arrests.  That is why they were banished from the NYPD several years back.

A previous attempt to establish a sanctuary in the region of Chandraprabha, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, initially appeared to succeed.

The lion population grew from three to 11 animals, but then the cats disappeared, presumably shot or poisoned.

Nobody likes to hear about a 187 on an undercover cat.  This would be a great way to deal with the Meth problem in rural U.S. states as well.

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