OK, my apologies for the title. I rarely take such a hard line on anything. But these ridiculous remarks by radio host Michael Savage are the limit, and all the idiots who truly believe this nonsense are quite simply ignoring a half-century of research on the subject.

It goes beyond that as well. Savage hosts a tremendously popular show, carried by radio stations all over the country, which is stunning, considering one could fertilize one's lawn with the contents of the show. The spread of antediluvian bilge by pretentious right-wing windbags such as Savage continues to steep huge segments of America in the intellectual stone age, but perhaps my criticism should be directed at the fools who've made this show so popular.

We've entered an age of scientific research where the "Autism Spectrum of Disorders" is beginning to be regarded as phenotypic diversity among humans (in essence, just a part of the variety of our species). The spectrum encompasses a wide variation in behavioral patterns, intellect, and levels of social interaction. One of the most widely described is the ability to focus dedicatedly on a particular interest, and phenotypic traits associated with "genius" are often ascribed to high-functioning forms of autism. For these reasons, Einstein was believed to have been autistic. In more recent times, Bill Gates has been identified by experts as an autism sufferer. Scientists in fact believe most people exhibit at least a few of the symptoms identified as part of the Autism spectrum.

The bottom line is that there actually are learning and social disabilities that prevent children from developing "normally", and rather than scolding or punishing them, we should seek to better understand the nature of these disorders and help nurture the talents of these kids, and not tell the "brats" to "cut out their act". You're totally wrong, Mr. Savage.

For those interested in learning more about the spectrum of disorders, here are a couple of good resources: Autism Today, and OASIS.

A brilliant post by Hitchens as usual. Most idiots propounding intelligent design often use as an example the eye. How can something as complex as the eye come about by evolution? Surely there must be a higher force driving the creation of the eye. Ya whatever.

The piece is about cave salamanders, which live in caverns around the world. The amazing thing is that since these creatures have been living in an area where there is no light, these animals have lost the need for eyes and hence have no eyes.

This is mind boggling. Read the bit about what Dawkins says - awesome.

Science - 1 , Stupidity - 0

Take that all you I.D. cretins..

Alright, so a couple of things I've been mulling over the past couple of weeks...

For those who haven't discovered it yet, check out Olivia Judson's "The Wild Side" blog on NYTimes. She makes recent scientific research and breakthroughs accessible to the science newbie, and keeps us science nerds in the loop on new publications. The post that caught my eye was her May 20th post on "cybrids" - human-animal fusion embryos that may allow scientists to overcome a fundamental problem in embryonic stem cell research, namely getting sufficient embryos to conduct experiments to harvest these cells. What I found incredible was the bill to allow this research ended up being passed by British lawmakers - an impressive feat in itself. American scientists haven't had the leeway to conduct these experiments because Bush Jr. has seen fit to veto every significant embryonic stem cell research bill, primarily because he believes some "mad" scientist will create an army of clones running around or fields of babies to harvest these cells.

Also check out Roger Cohen's Op-Ed column about emerging energy superpowers. I particularly found interesting his support of sugarcane ethanol, an idea that had been slammed as recently as this article by TIME. Certainly, more recent counter-arguments suggest sugarcane ethanol might be a more viable alternative over corn ethanol. Whether or not the US lifts the tariff to allow what Cohen calls the "right" ethanol in remains a question.

Finally, my take on the finals tonight. Traditionally, the team with the best player and better coach usually win the NBA title. The Lakers have a huge advantage over the Celtics in both regards, possessing an all-time great player in his absolute prime and a coach on the precipice of becoming the all-time leader in NBA championships won. However...the Celtics may not have the best player, but they have 3 All-Stars who play off each other tremendously well, an underrated yet experienced bench, excellent team defense as well as the defensive player of the year, and players who can get hot and dominate for stretches. If Doc Rivers' can stay out of his team's way, then the Celtics not only have a shot, they should be able to win. Other than the Mamba and Phil Jackson, the Celtics have decisive advantages across the board, play well when they're ahead, and feed off their home crowd like perhaps no other team in the league. While I hate to pick against Bryant and Jackson - two of my favorites - I have to go with Celtics in 7.

The basic premise touted by the book Tipping Point as well as decades of work on the spread of epidemics, is that it is easier to start an epidemic by searching for a certain set of 'special' nodes and initiating your epidemic from there. These nodes are referred to as 'influentials' in marketing lingo.

Well apparently 'influentials' are useless according to Duncan Watts. While the arguments Watts makes are sound (the fact that the underlying society has to be more susceptible to trends for epidemics to start, as opposed to the idea that a trend can be made an epidemic if one finds the right set of 'influentials' ), I do have a problem with a couple of his other conclusions.

For instance - why should one assume that highly connected nodes are the most influential ones? Has anyone observed a positive correlation here? Probably not, as people have shown the power of lightly connected nodes in other contexts.

The main conclusion seems to be : if you want to engineer an epidemic, rely on mass-marketing tactics, in that do not worry about identifying special nodes, but build in special mechanisms for normal nodes to spread the epidemic faster. Cool.

I found this article, a Q&A session with primatologist Frans de Waal, a pretty fascinating insight into instinctive animal behavior and how it relates to our own conduct. Follow the link to his own article to find additional details regarding his study of Bonobos, a close relative of the chimpanzee (whose DNA sequence differs from our own by a mere 1.23%, interestingly enough).

My favorite part: a description of the behavior of two Bonobos when offered a grape or a cucumber. When both were offered either grapes or cucumbers, they accepted each readily and performed their assigned tasks, even though grapes were preferred (i.e. they took what they could get when both got the same). However, when one was offered grapes and the other cucumbers repeatedly as a reward, the latter became increasingly disgruntled and soon rebelled over eating the cucumber or performing the task. I'll let you read de Waal's explanation regarding irrational vs rational profit-maximizing behavior, which I certainly couldn't improve on.

The study provides an interesting extension of an earlier post by El Subliminal. Would you be happy with what you got, or would you too become disgruntled when a co-worker was better compensated for performing the same task? And would it be better to hold out until you were equally compensated? The implication that this study potentially holds an important message for American society is perhaps a disturbing idea, as is this.