Creationism: Words fail me

I visited the Darwin ‘Big Idea’ exhibition at the Natural History Museum at the weekend. The tagline – ‘If you had an idea that was going to outrage society, would you keep it to yourself?’ – refers to the fact that Darwin held off publishing On the Origin of Species for twenty years for fear that Christians (his wife/cousin included) would not be best pleased.

Fortunately, sane people don’t worry about such things in this day and age. But ‘I couldn’t help but wonder’ how on earth Creationist types – Sarah Palin and the like – actually explain the evolutionary stuff around us in a way that is so compelling as to discount Darwin entirely. Here is what I discovered.

So there’s something called ‘flood geology’, which tries to prove that the Genesis flood, of Noah and the Ark fame, occurred approximately 4500 years ago and was the cause of all the geological features and fossils we see around us today. Some Creationists argue that ancient dead things are buried at different levels in the earth’s rock because they sank more quickly during said flood. On account of being heavier, you see. So a dinosaur is heavier, and therefore lower – but not necessarily older – than Noah’s third-favourite cat.

Young Earth Creationists believe that the earth is about 6000 years old. Indeed, a seventeenth-century archbishop called James Ussher did some sums based on a literal reading of the Bible and deduced that the world was created ‘upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty-third day of October’ in 4004 BC.

Old Earth Creationists, on the other hand, can explain how our world came into existence one autumnal Saturday evening in 4004 BC, and yet clearly hosted dinosaurs and whatnot long before that date. The Bible doesn’t specifically state that ‘the first day’ (God switches the lights on) was the same day as ‘in the beginning’ (lights on the blink). So he could well have created the earth, spent veritable eras creating and destroying dinosaurs in the darkness, and then settled on a new plan – the one with which the Good Book is actually concerned.

There is so much more of this stuff that will have to be left for another time. ‘Irreducible complexity’, for example – the theory that things are just so damn clever and fiddly that it’s simply not possible they weren’t created by a big invisible beardy man in the sky. There was a great quote from David Attenborough in today’s Guardian:

‘They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.’

I love David.

The Royal Family: Icky

I’m no doubt preaching to the choir when I point out that there’s something kinda funny-looking about the royal family. ‘Buck-toothed, big-eared, horsey and inbred’ is probably nearer the mark. The shocking truth is that they are in fact all of the above.

The Queen and Prince Philip are both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria – making them third cousins – as well as being second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark. Christian IX was himself Queen Victoria’s third cousin and had asked her to marry him before she chose Albert instead. Albert being her first cousin. Somehow, the fact that Victoria and Albert were both delivered by the same midwife makes it even ickier.

If you look at the (tiny) family tree below, you’ll see that the Queen and Prince Philip are also third cousins of King Juan Carlos of Spain – who is married to yet another third cousin’s daughter.

What is wrong with these people? Surely there are plenty of perfectly horsey fish in the sea?

Charles Darwin did a spot of research into inbreeding, spurred on by anxiety after marrying his cousin Emma Wedgwood, of the credit-crunched white-motif-on-blue-background pottery family. Back in the day – Victorian times, shockingly – this was quite the thing to do in order to prevent unsavoury sexual mingling with the inferior classes. Charles and Emma Darwin had a nice life and ten children, but somehow Charles couldn’t shake off the suspicion that there was something inherently… inbred and icky about his family. He spent years recording his children’s defects – ‘backward in walking & talking… attacks of shuddering & gasping & hysterical sobbing… makes many extraordinary grimaces’ etc etc – and eventually concluded: ‘We are a wretched family and ought to be exterminated.’

I’m saying nothing, but republicans may want to take note.

Mentos: Frothy

Today’s fact is less original than some of the others, but I’m doing it anyway for the simple fact that you must see the video below if you haven’t already. It’s absolute genius.

So the fact is: Mentos + Diet Coke = crazy explosion of fizz.

For once, I have done some research into the science behind this physics-class phenomenon. For some reason (oh dear, there goes the scientific gravitas), Mentos have greater surface tension than other ‘small oblate spheroids’ – round things – as well as a number of little pot-holes on said tense surface. Something called ‘nucleation’ occurs in the pot-holes, and carbon dioxide is released so rapidly that the whole thing turns into ‘a raging foam’.

Phew. Here’s the video:



While engrossed in the scientific volumes necessary to write the technical paragraph above, I discovered some very pointless things about Mentos, including the fact that ‘the typical Mentos roll is approximately 3/4-inch in diameter, 6/16-inches tall and 1.3 ounces.’ That’s right: approximately 6/16 of an inch*.

Most interestingly, however, you can recreate the experiment within your very stomach by eating a handful of Mentos and downing some Diet Coke! It ‘can result in people regurgitating the foamy result (as evidenced by numerous online videos)’, although ‘no actual news accounts exist of anyone dying from it.’

I must source these regurgitatory videos at once.

***

* And hello, surely that’s 3/8? Take that, boffins!

Can’t Get Enough of that Wonderful Duff

My brother’s boss sent him a helpful link to a website all about the dangers of alcohol this morning, and he helpfully passed it on to me, reminding me in the process of the time I registered with a new doctor and, after making something of a wild misstatement regarding my alcohol intake, was met with a raised eyebrow and sent to the waiting room clutching a leaflet entitled ‘Thinking About Drink’. Them’s were strange days.

So today I have mostly been learning facts about alcohol.

While alcohol has the effect of stimulating the drinker, it is not in fact a stimulant. On the contrary, the garrulousness, wild dancing, hilarious-anecdote-telling, sing-song-instigating, ill-advised-text-messaging and tearful revelations that accompany a night down the local occur because alcohol anaesthetises the part of your brain that governs self-control. The different areas of your brain get pissed at varying rates, which explains why you can go from ‘I bloody love you, mate’ to ‘LET’S JUMP IN THE RIVER!’ – and back. On the positive side – depending on what you’re up to – your pain threshold goes through the roof.

I also learnt that alcohol is technically a food, since it contains calories. Who knew? Indeed, a glass of wonderful booze contains as many calories as ‘a large potato’, the website told me. Unlike a large potato, however, alcohol has no nutritional value and doesn’t sit around waiting to be digested. It goes into your blood stream in a diluted form, depending on how much water you have in your body. Since muscle contains more water than fat, and women generally have more fat in their bodies than men, women are traditionally a bunch of hysterical lightweights and most likely to suffer from ‘behavioural instability’ and ‘emotional distress’. (I’m thinking Jean off EastEnders.)

There were all manner of other hideous facts – ‘blood-sludging’, ‘cell death’ and ‘decreasing penile size’ came up an awful lot – but they were rather depressing and would have driven you to drink.

Chin chin.

Top o’ the Morning, Mr President

A topical one today: President Obama is Irish. Sort of. Obviously he’s more American (and Kenyan) now that numerous generations have passed, but nonetheless he joins a long list of US presidents – about half of them, in fact – with Irish ancestry. They include Washington, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes, and of course JFK.

Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Kearney, was a shoemaker from the village of Moneygall (‘Grove of the Foreigners’) in Co. Offaly. As far as I can tell, Moneygall has 300 residents and one pub, about which Obama recently declared ‘I'm looking forward to going there and having a pint.’ Irish leader Brian Cowen, also from Co. Offaly, has apparently invited him to jet on over and make himself at home – although I suspect Obama may be holding out for a less unsavoury drinking partner.

Joseph Kearney emigrated to Ohio in 1850 with his wife and four children, one of whom – Falmouth Kearney – was Obama’s grandfather’s grandmother’s father. The family had been lured over by the promise of land left to them by Joseph’s brother, Francis, whose will stated: ‘My tract of land lying in Ross County shall be given to my brother Joseph Kearney (now in Ireland) during his life time, if he comes to this country.’ Very generous considering that ‘I bequeath to my wife my bay mare and the choice cow.’

It would seem the Kearney-Obamas left a handful of relatives behind in Moneygall, however, judging by this entry on the village’s Wikipedia site: ‘Andrew Sullivan, 2nd cousin of president elect also resides in moneygall since his retirement from international rugby.Sullivan captained the all blacks to the world cup in 1987.'

I wonder who inserted that into the otherwise grammatically correct Moneygall entry.

The Electric Chair: Not very comfy

So, having lulled you into a false sense of security with that Marmite malarkey, now seems as good a time as any to launch into my veritable deluge of facts about the electric chair. If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.

In the olden days – 1887 – a ‘War of Currents’ erupted between two big cheeses in the revolutionary new world of electricity. One was George Westinghouse, a Victorian-looking man with a pocket watch and a walrus-like moustache, and the other was Thomas Edison, of ill-gotten light bulb fame*. In an unfortunate coincidence, people got it into their heads that they might like to harness electricity within their very homes around the same time that New York State was looking for a more exciting way to kill criminals. When an upstate dentist came up with the idea of an electrified chair, neither Westinghouse – who was promoting AC (alternating current) power – nor Edison – peddling the inferior DC (direct current) system – wanted anything to do with it**.

Edison – who, frankly, sounds a bit of a shit – decided that the only way to keep his good name unsullied was to promote Westinghouse’s AC as life-terminatingly strong. The press duly assembled for a series of demonstrations in which Edison used AC to electrocute a number of unsuspecting animals, including Topsy the Elephant, late of Coney Island, who was immortalised (for want of a better word) in the short film Electrocuting an Elephant, directed and filmed by one Thomas Edison***.

Far from locking the lunatic Edison away for good, the capital punishment people looked on in awe at his marvellous new creation, and authorised electrical execution (‘electrocution’) for humans in 1888. Edison, the smug git, suggested they call the new process ‘Westinghousing’.

The first ever electrocution took place in New York in 1890 and was a total cock-up. The prisoner was still breathing after being declared dead and it took a few minutes to recharge the generator, during which time a number of vomiting day-trippers tried unsuccessfully to flee the viewing gallery. After an eight-minute frenzy of panic and horror, he finally died. An appalled Westinghouse said ‘They would have done better using an axe.’

***

* Edison didn’t invent the light bulb: he tweaked the electric lighting systems of more than twenty earlier inventors and came up with the first commercial bulb – fact.
** DC flows in one direction while AC jiggles about. I’m not a scientist, go away.
*** I am so not joking. Topsy was a bit wild on account of being horribly abused – prior to electrocution, you understand – and had to be put down.

Marmite: You either love it or you tap it

I was going to start my blog with a fascinating fact or five about the invention of the electric chair, but to avoid being labelled a morbid psychopath, I’ll leave that for my second instalment. So: Marmite.

Marmite, beloved of Paddington Bear, be-hated of the French – or at least the ones I know – is a fascinating creature. You either love it or yada yada yada. I’ve just this moment learnt that a 2004 advertising campaign that featured Steve McQueen and half the human race fleeing a huge space-blob made of Marmite had to be pulled because children were getting nightmares. About Marmite. That’s quite some hating.

But I dither. The exciting fact about Marmite – and it really is exciting – is that, when tapped persistently for a few minutes using the side of a knife, it turns white. (Don’t ask awkward questions – I have no idea what possessed someone to discover this.) White Marmite! Try it at once.

This artistic snap shows the result of ten minutes’ tapping. I had to stop before achieving full whiteness as I’d lost the will to live, and the feeling in my arm.

It's interesting science but it looks fucking disgusting. Should you begin to tire, dollop the Marmite into the bin - which is considerably harder than it sounds and renders the entire experiment thoroughly tedious.

(Thanks to Mary for voicing this crucial – not to mention timely – information at a publishers’ networking thing.)