A big fat Pfft to that rapture nonsense. We’re still here. Nevermind that. Next we’ll hear that some who were formerly among us no longer are. Conclusion: Gone in the Rapture! Uh huh. The old evidence from absence trick. Until weeks later when one or more of them is spotted incoherent and stumbling about in someone’s backyard. Then it will be spun as evidence of a sign – “They’ve been returned to us to foretell the next rapture!” And this time you all better believe it.
Where are the scientists eager to find “the gene” for this gullible behavior. Are these people hard-wired to be gullible? In which case we, qua disbelievers, should substitute sympathy for ridicule. Or: Does holding silly beliefs actually improve an individual’s evolutionary fitness. Perhaps believers have more and fitter children? The questions suggest a straightforward experiment to begin. Gather up a few thousand of the gullible and a similar number of disbelievers. Take a buccal swab from each and send it to 23andMe. They perform the genome wide association study (GWAS). Identify polymorphisms statistically significant for the gullibility phenotype. Results are summarized and published in a high-impact journal; cc CNN.
Done.
Okay…
So we are recently back from Seattle where I attended a provocative conference on systems biology and the future of translational medicine.
It wasn’t all work. And speaking of enraptured: We found the Dahlia Lounge
A friend remarked that the photo belies my wife’s real age. Me not so much. He was right of course.