Godless Girl

… and her adventures in Atheism

Posts Tagged science

I Apologize to Science!

Aug 11

Posted by Godless Girl in Your Daily Woo, randomness, science, skepticism and freethought | 11 Comments

May I present you with today’s episode of Your Daily Woo, brought to you—very unfortunately—by me. Try to figure out why I’m ashamed to have bought the following product:
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I swear I didn’t know! It was 2009! I didn’t even use them! If I had realized what the label claimed, I wouldn’t have bought the silly things.

Dear science, please forgive me for purchasing homeopathic “medicine.”

The label says “No risk of side effects. No expiration date.” Of course there are no side effects and no expiration date. There’s nothing in them to cause a reaction! The main ingredient is bullshit.

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Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees? We May Have the Answer.

Mar 16

Posted by Godless Girl in christianity, god, news, science | 11 Comments

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Photo by The Cambodia Trust (flickr.com)

There is no god. Even if there were, it clearly doesn’t give a damn about you missing some bodily tissue. If it did, it could fix it! How do we know this? Science!

The fabulous website whywontgodhealamputees.com is based on the challenge that if a god is all-powerful, all-loving, and promises to answer prayer, then why won’t this god heal someone who has a missing limb? It’s never happened, and we know it never will. At least, not through prayer.

An exciting landmark has been reached in regards to a gene that may regulate tissue regeneration in mammals (that means humans too, Creationists!). This ability to replace damaged flesh with healthy, scar-free flesh seems to be triggered by the loss of the p21 gene. When the p21 gene is lacking, cells behave more like embryonic stem cells rather than adult cells.

“Much like a newt that has lost a limb, these mice will replace missing or damaged tissue with healthy tissue that lacks any sign of scarring,” said the project’s lead scientist Ellen Heber-Katz, Ph.D., a professor in Wistar’s Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis program. “While we are just beginning to understand the repercussions of these findings, perhaps, one day we’ll be able to accelerate healing in humans by temporarily inactivating the p21 gene.”

[Andrew Snyder, Ph.D. stated,] “In normal cells, p21 acts like a brake to block cell cycle progression in the event of DNA damage, preventing the cells from dividing and potentially becoming cancerous,” Heber-Katz said. “In these mice without p21, we do see the expected increase in DNA damage, but surprisingly no increase in cancer has been reported.”

(Read the rest over at PhysOrg)

If it may work on a mouse, could tissue regeneration be available to humans in the future? Do you think this would encourage or stifle the superstitions about divine healing?

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Skeptics in the Harry Potter Universe

Dec 30

Posted by Godless Girl in Jesus, questions, randomness, religion, skepticism and freethought | 9 Comments

First, you must know I am a very enthusiastic fan of Harry Potter and his universe. I am not embarrassed by this in any way, but I have not reached true fangirl status (dressing up, fan mail, fapping to movie posters and the like). Still, if the HP universe existed, I would be leaking happiness! You would hear me squeal out various spells as I breezed past you on my broom.

I’ve been cruising AverageWizard (which is filled with many more intense fans than myself) and imagining what it would be like if my life truly was magical. Would being a skeptic mean something different than it does today? If magic existed, would we believe in a supernatural realm? What would be the cause of this magic? Since many spells fight the natural laws of our current universe, would these laws endure in the Harry Potter universe? Would there perhaps be new ways to explain magical events like transfiguration, immortal life, and flying broomsticks?

And as usual, I find that I am not the first to think of such things. Take Roger Highfield’s book The Science of Harry Potter for example.

[Highfield uses] the Potter corpus as the launching pad for a wonderful foray into genetics, biology, quantum theory, behaviorism, mythology, folklore, and more, bolstered by drawing on and extrapolating from the work of a great variety of scientists and scholars. Magic, like science, he states, affords many insights into the workings of the human brain, which he designates as the greatest wizard of all. Whether dealing with flying broomsticks, Quidditch, or Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Highfield demonstrates how Muggle science has a leg up on many of the phenomena in Harry’s world. The book’s second half focuses more on the origins of magical thinking.

George Plitnik, a physics professor at Frostburg State University, even offered a seminar using the book. Talk about making science fun to learn!

So, would life be different for you if magic existed? Do you think supernatural beliefs would be more or less rampant in society? Would Jesus Christ have been a magician instead of a rabbi? Would we be suffering from the same crises of war, hunger, environmental pollution, and poverty? Would Harry Potter be the messiah in our next religion? Could a Satan myth exist in this world as the ruler of all dark magic?

P.S. Just in case you didn’t know, Daniel Radcliffe, the actor behind Harry Potter, is an atheist!

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About That Soul…Thing

Dec 18

Posted by Godless Girl in christianity, religion, skepticism and freethought, videos | 7 Comments

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“If we need a brain for consciousness, then consciousness cannot survive the brain’s destruction.” This is a point I want to hammer home to the believers in a conscious afterlife (read: heaven/hell). If the soul is all that survives death, how are these people planning on admiring streets of gold or agonizing inside the burning hot lava of hell when there will be no possible way of experiencing these things?

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