Baby brains and telephone bibles

Once more into the breach, dear friends!

Designer babies will be godless achievement machines

@PopBioethics shares this piece. If you've never seen "Gattaca", rent it and then ask why you've hated yourself for so long. It details a fictitious future where babies are selected to be of utmost appeal; with beauty, brawn, brains, and a big old superiority complex to boot. Truth is often stranger than fiction, and the technology for such a future no longer seems out of humanity's reach. The article provides an argument to Peter Lawler's belief that this sort of progress will destroy our ability to think for ourselves and behave as abominably atrocious automatons. Kyle Munkittrick argues this better than I can so have a read. I only add the thought that Lawler's objections may be to a more highly civilized and intellectual populace realizing that religion, while charming for some, supplies little more than a nail in the rubber wheel of progress.

Understanding the brain's "brake pedal" in neural plasticity

@sciam, never short on compelling research and opinion, educates us on neural plasticity and the chemicals responsible. In brief, our brains are remarkably adaptable and receptive. Children pick up languages with ease, like little sobbing sponges. As we grow older, however, neurochemicals play the role of cementing such knowledge in our minds, making us a more clouded and stubborn receptor. With a complete understanding of such dynamics, could we perhaps augment our mind's plasticity and take a two-week seminar in French? Afterward, we need only some chemical treatment to return our brains to  normal operational status, complete with French poetry ripe for recitation on that special romantic encounter. Another question to ask, of course, is how plasticity plays a role in our cultural awareness. If a devout Catholic returns to a child-like understanding and studies Scientology for a week, would they be disastrously divided on where to spend all their hard-earned money?

Why exactly can nothing go faster than the speed of light?

@seanmcarroll, via @eugenephoto, share a blog post explaining this fascinating question. For the short attention span or physics illiterate, the idea can be roughly described as comparing the speed of light to a horizontal line. Asking what goes faster than light is like asking what is straighter than straight. The notion is impossible considering the laws of our universe. Without breaking or bending those laws, such travel is strictly prohibited. Dang!

No such thing as The Bible

@CNNbelief supplies this article, confirming what most Atheists already know: "The" Bible is a nonsense title without prefacing which version is up for debate. Much like the village bicycle, pretty much everyone has had a ride. In deciphering the true words of whichever god gives you that good old-fashioned oxytocin buzz, one must consider how much the manuscript has been translated, articulated, mangled, shredded, collaged, twisted, integrated, obfuscated, and inundated with biases running the gamut of human interpretation. If a god did divinely inspire man to write endless versions of ancient stories meant to teach future millenia of millions of people how to manage their naughty bits, you'd think he or she might have administered some authority as to which version captures divine intentions with the least amount of mortal fluff. Take comfort in knowing the next time someone claims "The" Bible as inspiration, you can probably safely assume they haven't been carrying around all 150-some versions to cross-reference their righteous assertions! I'm sure, between the lines, they all mean to say do unto others as you'd have them do unto you anyway.