How do ideas spread? Well, that’s what a team of scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute wanted to find out. Their experiments involved using social networks to see how opinions would spread and change over time. They discovered if 10% of the “population” (defined here as those involved within the network) held strong and intractable opinions, the rest of the group would eventually follow suit in order to avoid any disagreement with the group.

While the research is admittedly preliminary, the numbers make sense to me. I’ve always believed the opinions of the majority are in fact dictated by a small group of highly influential people who have no quandary about spreading their ideas to others. It’s interesting to note the authors suggest that ideas that fail to achieve higher than 10 percent, and believers who have too little conviction were doomed to being in the margins. There’s a lesson here somewhere for us. While we hate the idea of holding any belief too firmly (even a non-belief), it is nevertheless the primary way ideas are spread.

The good news is so long as we keep talking about our non-belief, and the better we get at dismantling the claims of religious people, the closer we get to the magical “tipping” number. Hey, we already know over 10% of the population thinks this religion bullshit is a waste of time. Now these people just need to start telling others a hell of a lot more.

Here’s some cool news: scientists are a little closer to understanding how sex evolved. Apparently, the answer “because it feels fucking awesome” wasn’t good enough for a few eggheads, and they decided to try and figure out some clever experiments to test out a few theories. A group of researchers at the University of Indiana found if they manipulated the sex of the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, those that reproduced asexually were less likely to be resilient to parasites, and therefore less likely to pass on their genes.

It may come as a shock to most of you, but the development of sex as a reproductive strategy is still a little bit of a mystery. We know it’s incredibly useful, but until now we’ve lacked solid evidence demonstrating effectively why such a survival strategy is beneficial.

Of course this doesn’t prove anything just yet; like all good science, we will need to wait and see if the experiments, once repeated, have the same outcome. Still, it’s encouraging to know we might be a lot closer to answering the mystery that is sex.

About a year ago, I wrote an article criticizing Dr. Jeffery Long for his terribly unscientific book about NDE’s, or Near Death Experiences. Long essentially collected nearly 1,300 stories of people’s traumatic experiences, and figured the similarities must somehow mean something supernatural was going on. He even went to far as to claim this was ultimate proof there is an afterlife.

It would be too easy to point out his web surveys don’t exactly meet the rigorous standards of evidence, and all too pointless to do so. True believers want justification for their beliefs, no matter how flimsy the evidence is. Even the article I wrote on Dr. Jeffrey Long still regularly gets comments from people convinced that I’m either terribly biased or close-minded regarding the possibility of there being life after death.

A new study on the effects of death on the brain has provided further evidence only physical explanations are at work here. Dr. Lakhmir Chawla monitored the brain activity of terminally-ill patients and found that shortly before death, the brain had a huge cascade of activity, lasting from 30 seconds to almost 3 minutes.

Dr. Chawla believes this may account for the vivid experiences people often describe during NDE’s, but the problem with this study is since all the patients died, it wasn’t possible to actually interview them. Still, since the activity in the brain is so similar to that of vivid dreaming, why do we continually refuse to abandon the unsupported belief something supernatural was happening.

Hey, I would love if death wasn’t the end, just like I would love to believe I’m an invisible sex-god who can shoot laser beams out of my eyes. Unfortunately, the fact is I must accept that I’m a simple ape, whose only super power is to offend people with the terrible things that come out of my mouth.

Morgan Freeman is doing a series of TV shows for the Science Channel called ‘Through the Wormhole’, which discusses advances in discovery that astrobiology, string theory, quantum mechanics, and astrophysics have been making in our understanding of the universe. And while there are some signs  Freeman himself isn’t exactly the most religious person in the world, he still had to pander to the religious crowd while promoting the show on NPR. Here’s what the first caller in to the radio program asked Freeman:

VINCE: My question, Mr. Freeman, is how impartial is the series overall to different views of science and religion?

Mr. FREEMAN: Well, you – I don’t think you can make a series like this and have it partial, because we have to entertain all thoughts, all of the theories around a certain subject. The whole idea is to bring in all of the different theories and thoughts. Particularly if you’re talking about something like creation, you know, you can’t just go in and say this is such and this is such and this is such. Actually, nobody knows. So we get – try to get a rounded perspective on it.

CONAN: The – having seen that episode, even if in a beta form, and I think the only parts I didn’t see were some, obviously the full narration, but there were some illustration system, some graphics that weren’t inserted as yet. But nevertheless, there were – those who take a literal reading of the Bible will not find that view even mentioned.

Mr. FREEMAN: Or very encouraging. No, no, no, they will not, but still, we have to accept that if you take the Bible literally, then the world is only about 6,000 years old. So we have to do that with care, of course, but ask the questions. So mostly what the series does is ask the questions. I don’t think it produces any answers.

CONAN: It does not come to a firm conclusion on the point, Vince, I can assure of that, without giving away the ending.

Mr. FREEMAN: Okay.

Wrap your head around the question again: how ‘impartial’ is this science series when dealing with science and religion. What? I would hope the show is partial to SCIENCE since science is real and religion is kooky garbage. It’s nice to hear Freeman say literalists are not going to be happy about the ideas discussed, but holy crap. If religious people are still stuck on garbage like the age of the earth, how are you supposed to remain ‘impartial’ as far as they’re concerned while voicing advanced theories on the nature of the universe as a whole?

If you ever wondered why some of your friends or family members seem to lack a certain degree of skepticism concerning their own beliefs, you might be interested in a study conducted by the Aarhus University of Denmark. Using magnetic resonance imaging, they studied 20 Pentecostals and found when they listened to prayers recited by someone they were told was a Christian, the part of the brain normally associated with skepticism and vigilance (yes, there are parts of the brain responsible for this) shuts down.

The study found the most important factor wasn’t what the prayer was about, but rather the perceived authority of the person reading the sermons. In other words, they’ve identified the mechanism that allows charismatic religious leaders to gain influence over other people, and all that’s required is for a part of their followers brain to shut down.

This is exactly WHY I’m so fearful of religion; perfectly logical and rational people can be convinced of any absurdity once they surrender their skepticism to some silver tongued preacher. It’s scary when you think about how easy it is for some people to just shut off a part of their brain with such ease. Could there also be other parts of the brain that are affected as well? This could go a long way to explain why generally peaceful individuals can be convinced to kill in the name of their religious beliefs. The more we understand about religious belief, the more it scares the shit out of me.

Remember all those annoying religious wackos who keep trying to convince us watching porn is evil? Well, it turns out their fucked up message and restrictive religious instructions might actually increase the chances of someone becoming a rapist. That’s according to two psychologists, Michael J. Goldstein and Harold Kant (who’s body of work goes back to the 1970′s), who had figured out the link between porn and rape was utterly bogus, even back then.

It doesn’t surprise me a strict religious upbringing can fuck someone up, especially when the religion focuses so strongly on our impulse to breed. Look, you’re an animal, and there’s a part of you that can’t resist the idea of having hot, steamy sex. If you try and repress this urge, odds are it’ll manifest itself in some pretty scary ways, and no one needs that. Religions are like the thought police; they don’t even want you fantasizing for your own pleasure. Instead they try and teach you lustful thoughts are bad, and need to be suppressed. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of psychological damage that’ll do to a human being…

As far as the benefit of watching porn, the good news seems to be as sexually explicit materials become more widely available, the number of sexual abuse cases don’t increase; in fact, they actually begin to decline. And what about the idea that watching porn makes men misogynistic? Well, that too has been refuted. So if you’re sitting at home so bored out of your tree you’re reading this shitty blog, might I humbly suggest you go do your civic duty and go watch a lot of porn instead?

If you enjoy celebrating the birthday of dead famous people, then you’ll love today; 200 years ago, a spry little Englishmen named Charles Darwin was born, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, a number of different organizations are planning all kinds of cool and exciting tributes to the pursuit of knowledge, more commonly known as science.

It’s hard to believe we only started actually caring about this day roughly 15 years ago, but if you consider how religious folks still rue the day he ever wrote his famous book, “On the Origin of Species”, it’s not actually surprising. Everyone seems to love the quality of life science gives them, but not everyone is cool about the implications such discoveries have on our “spiritual” lives. Thanks to the pioneering work of men like Darwin, we have all kinds of ways of understanding nature without needing to rely on some omnipotent creator, and this isn’t such great news for religious folks.

Hey, they can always take comfort in the fact that if we ever get tired of knowing anything real about the world, we can always go back to being ignorant sheep following their every edict; sounds like a hoot!