Thoughts? (NSFW)

[GWD]

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYNaDcYGaeI&NR=1[/youtube]

 

[gbwillner]

Trippy.

 

[ecoli]

the world is made of bacteria?

Where can I get some.

 

[redoc]

Drugs are bad, MMmmkhay!

Watching this clip reminded me of my college abnormal psych course where I learned that a Harvard faculty gave up everything after going on trip... Really is intriguing thinking about what kind of potential experiences you can unlock with drugs that change the activity of neurons...

 

[GWD]

I was just curious to see what sort of responses this would solicit (not many)

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the interview from which the comments where gleamed for the above montage. I don't think the montage necessary struck home some of the finer points of his argument:

[YOUTUBE]http://youtube.com/watch?v=grcqs9cDuN8[/YOUTUBE]

Ignore the images.. yes "vegitable" is misspelled.. but I am just fascinated by the soliloquy.

Theosophy/Philanthrophy/Cosmology have always been hobbies of mine... I'm just in awe at the sort of insight that a "meat-head" like Joe Rogan mustered.

Definately cause for thought.

 

[GWD]

And of course the book...

 

[Salient]

That guy has done way too much of that stuff.

 

[GWD]

That guy has done way too much of that stuff.

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals...

Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imaginations

 

[gbwillner]

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals...

Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imaginations

Are you saying dogs don't have imaginations????

 

[GWD]

That guy has done way too much of that stuff.

Holy man... you righteous man...

You gotta believe in what you see

 

[GWD]

Here's a pretty cool caduceus image I found

It's designed by a guy named Howard David Johnson

It draws a lot from Greek, Hebrew, American, and Egyptian symbolism would be my guess.

[IMAGE REMOVED AT REQUEST OF COPYRIGHT HOLDER http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/Raphael_with_Caduceus_Staff.jpg ]

 

[gbwillner]

Here's a pretty cool caduceus image I found

It's designed by a guy named Howard David Johnson

It draws a lot from Greek, Hebrew, American, and Egyptian symbolism would be my guess.

[IMAGE REMOVED AT REQUEST OF COPYRIGHT HOLDER]

Somebody must have clocked Mercury good because you can see he is seeing stars.

 

[gbwillner]

Here's a pretty cool caduceus image I found

It's designed by a guy named Howard David Johnson

From Howard David Johnson's web page:

"EVOLUTION IS NOT A LAW OF SCIENCE. Darwin's Theory of Evolution was proposed in 1859 and almost a hundred and fifty years later it has still never achieved the status of a Law of Science. This is because of the Missing Link. There is no proof of a link between man and ape, hence the term "The missing link". This blind faith in Evolution has been taught with religious dogmatism in the public schools for generations and is still merely a theory. The Theory of Evolution, not the Law of Evolution is a mere UNPROVEN hypothesis, which the dictionary defines as "a mere assumption or guess or a proposition, or a group of proposals, offered as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena.""

and

"Therefore, I present to you this idea: Modern Scientific beliefs are based upon a leap of faith in the big bang theory. It has become a belief system based on faith and therefore another form of religion. Scientists, like priests can explain their beliefs but the everyday people accept it all on faith. Scientists and doctors are the priests of this new religion, getting angry and crying "heresy" when anyone respectfully disagrees with them."

Where do you find this stuff GWD?

 

[GWD]

From Howard David Johnson's web page:

"EVOLUTION IS NOT A LAW OF SCIENCE. Darwin's Theory of Evolution was proposed in 1859 and almost a hundred and fifty years later it has still never achieved the status of a Law of Science. This is because of the Missing Link. There is no proof of a link between man and ape, hence the term "The missing link". This blind faith in Evolution has been taught with religious dogmatism in the public schools for generations and is still merely a theory. The Theory of Evolution, not the Law of Evolution is a mere UNPROVEN hypothesis, which the dictionary defines as "a mere assumption or guess or a proposition, or a group of proposals, offered as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena.""

and

"Therefore, I present to you this idea: Modern Scientific beliefs are based upon a leap of faith in the big bang theory. It has become a belief system based on faith and therefore another form of religion. Scientists, like priests can explain their beliefs but the everyday people accept it all on faith. Scientists and doctors are the priests of this new religion, getting angry and crying "heresy" when anyone respectfully disagrees with them."

Where do you find this stuff GWD?

Ha!

I don't know that dude from the imprint of my left thallux.

I was just goggling images because I wanted to e-mail my father a picture of this tattoo I want to get...

I came across that image and just thought it was a cool picture. I sited the artist just because I thought it was the right thing to do.

He sounds like a real k00k.

 

[gbwillner]

Ha!

I don't know that dude from the imprint of my left thallux.

I was just goggling images because I wanted to e-mail my father a picture of this tattoo I want to get...

I came across that image and just thought it was a cool picture. I sited the artist just because I thought it was the right thing to do.

He sounds like a real k00k.

Nah, I've seen worse....

 

[QofQuimica]

I was just curious to see what sort of responses this would solicit (not many)

He's a hippie who's about fifty years too late. Those ideas aren't exactly new, or even improved. 😉

 

[Professor Dave]

Hey Guys,
I'M GLAD YOU ENJOYED THE ART. Professor Johnson here, calling attention to kooky behavior in the academic community that is harming our society does not make me a kook or a hippie. Evolution is not a law of science. look it up. There are teachers out there BEING DOWNRIGHT DISHONEST and abusing their authority in accredited learning institutions with regards to religion and politics. IT IS A FACT. FRAUDS have been perpetrated for political power for a long time and our learning institutions are in need of serious reform. Mentioning this does not make me a kook. My entire family are professional teachers and administrators. Believing in God does not make me a kook. Einstien believed. Newton Believed. Galelaio believed. Even if there is a God - how does that take away from the nobility and dignity of the medical profession? Of course it does not, nor does the fact that science has indeed become a religion in many people's lives. I am disappointed that an almost-educated man would abandon the scientific method and resort to cheap name-calling. The world's top scientists cannot refute my debunking the carbon 14 myth as proof that dinosaurs existed. I challenge you to grow up, quit calling me names and use the scientific method to refute my claims. I am confident that honest men of science and I MUST ultimately come to the same conclusions when GOING TO THE SOURCE and using the scientific method. Bless you all, but I will not have my professionalism ipugned publicly as you have done without a fight.

 

[Sunfire]

I thought this might be an appropriate place to post about some recent conversations between my brother and I. I hope it doesn't offend anyone. Enjoy.

Yea. **** hit the fan today, big time. Take one male, 5'10 230 pagan scientist, and pit against one other male, 5'10 230 devout JW ex-'bethelite'. He's been staying here more and more during the last few weeks, and over the last week started to engage me in theosophical conversation. I held no fear and was happy to engage in what I thought would be intelligent discussion.

Wrong.

I had forgotten just how deeply washed their minds are. Yesterday evening, we started into a discussion on the time-old ridiculous and boring topic of Creation versus Evolution. To me, this is pablum, but I try to reach him about what we've discovered and how to look at things from all sorts of interesting perspectives. It ended up with us in a shouting match, with him yelling that, "Jehovah will stop the hurricanes!!!" Okay. Time for bed, goodnight.

This morning, I was presented with his 'essay', which was basically the Creation books (the older and the newer one) quoted word for word. Other than sadness at what his essay-capabilities could have been like in a different life, no problem. I figure I'll just read and respond.

Here was his first 'thought'.

"Older sediment (than Cambrian period) beds should contain progenitors of Cambrian period forms. These older sediment beds are almost barren of evidence of life. Darwin could not find it. It still can not be found today below the lowermost division of the Paleozoic."
​

Hmm, interesting. Alright. So I Google a bit, and find plenty of information on early bilateria. Did you know there's a Ediacaran Period? I didn't. It's pre-Cambrian, and we have a fossil history of some really amazing organisms! Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacaran

The next ones dealt with the dreaded subject of our early ancestors. One of his 'thoughts' was

"Australopithecus looks simian, closely resembling a chimpanzee skull, not in any way a human skull."​

As someone who studied anatomy through the Anthropology department of University of California Santa Cruz, taught by a brilliant Professor who has made comparative primate anatomy his life's work, I knew a bit about the subject, enough to say to myself, "hold on." First, simians? Simians are higher primates, including Homo sapiens! What is this, some sort of joke? Yea, the head looks like a bit of a hybrid, but...

We've got the Laetoli footprints, footprints that are believed to be from Australopithecus.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/l_071_03.html

And for petesake, we have their fossilized bones!

http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/afarensis/afarensis-a.html

Bones that plainly indicate bipedal posture! You put two and two together, and it's pretty easy to see that they didn't walk like any chimpanzee I've ever seen! They were bi-pedal. Their feet even had arches, like ours. Their big toes pointed outwards for balance, like ours. The footprints show us that their gait was similar to ours. Not only that, but it can be deduced from the prints that there could even have been social behavior similar to ours! I don't need a book to figure it out. It's all right there! We can look at it! We can touch it! Thanks to the people who were lucky enough to have stumbled on these remnants of a distant past, and who took the time and energy to work carefully and thoroughly enough to share it with the rest of the world.

I had presented him with the information of Tiktaalik roseae, a fossilized species that was discovered in 2006. It had features found only in fish (such as fins and gills) and features found only in land animals (wrist, elbow, neck).

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/apr/news_7948.html

His response was

"Tiktaalik was not a transitionary between a fish and tetrapod. Simply a separate creation, the morphological gap is wide."​

WTF? I don't see fish + land animal characteristics as being any type of "wide' anything? My mind was just feeling so very insulted at this point.

Next was a "quote from a Scientist", oooooo.

"The first fish evolved...To our knowledge, no 'link' connected this new beast to any previous form of life. The fish just appeared, with that structure which divide all animals into higher and lower life? the backbone." Marvels and Mysteries of Our Animal World, page 25, by Jean George"​

A bit of Google, and I find

http://www.tolweb.org/Osteostraci/14842

Not too difficult to figure it out, to me.

There was more, but by this point I couldn't give it any more brain-power. It was just so black and white, all there for anyone to see. So, he comes home from work (practice for preparing the New World...he told me the other night that it's coming in "two years, about"...I reminded him that he told me something similar over a decade ago, which he professed that he never said). I approach him in the kitchen, thank him for his writing, and tell him that I had come up with my answers. I start out with the fact that we actually do have fossil history from pre-Cambrian, and he just flipped. Totally bonkers. Starts ranting about how 'man' is evil and incompetent and can't rule 'himself'. I'm like, 'woah, we're talking about pre-Cambrian', he interrupts with 'Your evolution is what's the cause of all of it! It's what's responsible for the immorality in the world!!!!' At this point, we're both like bull walruses yelling..."There are pre-Cambrian fossils!!" "No there isn't!!" 'Wtf, do you want me to show you or not??" "I don't want to see those falsehoods and lies!!!" So at this point my parents step in between us, he uses the restroom and takes his pillows and leaves.

I go out and show my parents the pictures of the Ediacaran fossils. Those organisms were beautiful, so delicate. They begrudgingly glance, but my father looks at it with more interest, so I send him the link. This is his reply:

"The reason I'm dubious about all that information is the high amount of conjecture involved. Words like 'not defined',
"assumes", "controversial" and "sparse" to name a few are not enough for me to accept at face value. O, and then there's the 'give or take 100 million years'. Give me a break.

Look at Mars - all that money and effort. Then the sudden announcement "water!" But the next day it is acknowledged that it is loaded with perchlorate - and away we go again.
For me, I'll take good old Earth. Makes sense to me - it just needs a good cleanup."​

There's so many dodges in there, that I can't even reply to it. What I did write back was this.

"I've learned something important through all this, a few things. One, is that truth is simple. It is what it is. Interpretation is of course involved to a certain extent, but for the most part, truth is solid. The other thing I'm learning is that some people don't want to know truth, not really. They say they do, but in the end, they don't. They want what they think truth should be, or what they want it to be. And the third thing I've learned, and I suppose this would be the most important thing, is that those people don't change what's still true. Truth is simply what it is, regardless.

I look at those fossils, and you know what I think? I think, 'awesome'."

 

[Sunfire]

These links may also prove to be of some interest:

Evolutionary capacitance

Susan Lindquist

Some of Susan's work

John Cairns (debatable I know, but still highly relevant imo)

Professor Dave, I myself refuse to be corralled within the extreme dichotomy of creation versus evolution which is so often presented to us, we as strong, caring, flexible, rational and yes even sometimes very intelligent creatures. I prefer to adopt a stance of 'creationary evolutionism' and/or 'evolutionary creationism'. It works well for me and requires no strain. We step in and maintain when it's necessary and when we're able, you know? We are a species just like any other, we just happen to have some extra smarts on how to keep ours going, both on an individual and group level...at least for now (as long as we've got weapons like carbapanems and the like, and those cool cars that let out water vapor). I very much wish you peace. Cool pic, by the way.

 

[gbwillner]

Hey Guys,
I'M GLAD YOU ENJOYED THE ART. Professor Johnson here, calling attention to kooky behavior in the academic community that is harming our society does not make me a kook or a hippie. Evolution is not a law of science. look it up. There are teachers out there BEING DOWNRIGHT DISHONEST and abusing their authority in accredited learning institutions with regards to religion and politics. IT IS A FACT. FRAUDS have been perpetrated for political power for a long time and our learning institutions are in need of serious reform. Mentioning this does not make me a kook. My entire family are professional teachers and administrators. Believing in God does not make me a kook. Einstien believed. Newton Believed. Galelaio believed. Even if there is a God - how does that take away from the nobility and dignity of the medical profession? Of course it does not, nor does the fact that science has indeed become a religion in many people's lives. I am disappointed that an almost-educated man would abandon the scientific method and resort to cheap name-calling. The world's top scientists cannot refute my debunking the carbon 14 myth as proof that dinosaurs existed. I challenge you to grow up, quit calling me names and use the scientific method to refute my claims. I am confident that honest men of science and I MUST ultimately come to the same conclusions when GOING TO THE SOURCE and using the scientific method. Bless you all, but I will not have my professionalism ipugned publicly as you have done without a fight.

Professor Dave,
If you are really the artist who created those images I commend you on your artisitc abilities. You seem intelligent. But please leave the science to the scientists and theology to the theologists. Your claims in the paragraph above only demonstrates your misunderstanding of the scientific process and you lack of education in evolutionary theory. Simply because your family is made up of educators and administrators hardly qualifies you as an expert in these subjects. Frankly, I sincerely doubt anyone here cares about your refuting of carbon 14 dating. There are innumerable publications of the subject that show its efficacy for several thousand years time, confirmed by tree-ring dating and other methods. Would you refute those as well? Going back in time further than that we don't use carbon 14 anyway. No one here will debate the existence of a god with you here- we simply won't allow it in these forums as the purpose is to inform and discuss physician-scientist training programs.

 

[GWD]

Professor Dave, you sound crazier than a ****house rat

I do like your artwork though

 

[GWD]

So I went to this concert last weekend...

I might be off-base here, but this reminded me of a pretty deliberate effigy of someone who has been in the news a lot lately

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b6xtGPNioI[/YOUTUBE]

Is it just me?

 

[Calf]

LOL no I see it too!

 

[gbwillner]

She's hawt...

 

[GWD]

More siRNA scramble from performance artists Tool:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY[/youtube]

Dedicated to CN 7270, whose friends knew him as d1g1t

He gave his life so others would not have to

See you in the spiral d1g1t

 

[GWD]

Since I'm dealing with death, and on a Tool kick...

"This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember.... We are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvXASWDMtBM&NR=1[/youtube]

 

[GWD]

She's hawt...

That's CLEARLY an imposter.

I watched the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night, and you can rest assured that the actual Sarah Palin has a larger bust size.

Oops. Did I just type that? bleh!

So yeah... that was pretty tasteless, but this next guy is pretty damn wise

Definately NSFW, and certainly brash, but I'm pretty convinced he is on top of his game here

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPb0qXNUuoM&feature=related[/youtube]

 

[gbwillner]

That's CLEARLY an imposter.

I watched the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night, and you can rest assured that the actual Sarah Palin has a larger bust size.

Oops. Did I just type that? bleh!

So yeah... that was pretty tasteless, but this next guy is pretty damn wise

Definately NSFW, and certainly brash, but I'm pretty convinced he is on top of his game here

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPb0qXNUuoM&feature=related[/youtube]

WTF was that about????? What game is he on top of? It seems like he's saying that there are a lot of minorities out there who have been oppressed by the man, so let's team up and shoot them with my Uzi. Am I missing something?

 

[GWD]

gbwillner: agreed, I found it to be a very provactive social commentary on the culture of racial relations in our society.

I'd encourage you to listen to the entire album before passing judgement:

So here is a reality many of us Phuds have to deal with everyday...

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDrum1NS2No[/YOUTUBE]

 

[GWD]

2-parter:

A) Blasphemy or Performance-art?

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFn26ntmSsg[/YOUTUBE]

B) Something I hope we can all agree on

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dNbymstZjs[/YOUTUBE]

Happy Thanksgiving SDN MudPhuds.. we all have a lot to be thankful for.

 

[GWD]

gbwillner: do you consider yourself stale?

 

[GWD]

Wow.. welcome to 2009 classmates!

I'm glad I caught this thread again before it slipped off.

Here's another one from Joe Rogan.. struck me as a meat-head, but I continuously admire the things he has to say... he's a pretty insightful guy for a meathead.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m51X4z1xVWE&feature=related[/youtube]

Happy 2009 SDNers

continuing to define, improve, and heal the world around us is a very blessed station... may the new year bring us all happiness and prosperity.

 

[fairalexfield]

Hey GWD,

You seem to really be into Alex Grey. Have you ever been to the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors? If you're ever in NYC I highly recommend checking it out, his art is breathtaking and it's truly amazing to confront his work in person.

As for Rogan, he's just a meathead who took psychedelics and now thinks he's a hippy, don't get caught up into his DMT bull****. A lot of what he says (and what other people think about DMT) was gathered from Strassman's book and it's sad that people take his speculations and turn them into fact (DMT is released when you die, the pineal makes DMT, etc...these are NOT proven). He even says in his book that he's just speculating, but of course people have misconstrued it into truth to fit their own view of hallucinogens (in that they mean something more than just a drug that causes a profound shift in consciousness).

It's also kind of sad how Strassman's dream was never realized, in how so many people promised to follow in his footsteps, but then dropped the ball when it came time to assert themselves. I'm glad to see a small resurgence of psychedlic research in therapy, for instance the MDMA work with the terminally ill, and I feel that there's a lot of merit to that type of research (read Stanislov Grof). It's really sad that the counterculture had to abuse such a potentially therapeutic class of molecules.

 

[GWD]

The war on drugs is a pretty massive failure at this point. DMT is a super easy synthesis, so are most of the heart-breakingly and life-ruining amphetamines...

I don't know Strassman's whole story, his book just came in the mail today. I do know that people don't die from smoking marijuana, but they do die from injecting junk.

I like the Rogan work, just simply because it seems like an instance to me where a meathead transcends his popular connotaction.. he's being true, and he's offering what I consider pretty sagely advice.

In my particarular program, I have to present 6 semesters of graduate journal club (5 of them being the traditional journal club primary literature-type report), but the 6th semester is a book report.

I will be reporting on Dr. Strassman's study this semester. Yeah.. it's kinda weird, but it's also kinda awesome and enlightening. It's definately kinda different.

My personal hero is Dr. Albert Schweitzer. I'd rather just go somewhere and help people then impress anybody anyway..

That being said.. yeah.. Alex Grey is a brilliant genius as far as I'm concerned. The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is a must see.


Here's a fun one it doesn't look like I've posted yet:

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXBCdt5IPg&feature=related][/youtube]

I will certainly look into the Stanislov Grof's work.

To each their own.. peace.

 

[gbwillner]

Here's a fun one it doesn't look like I've posted yet:

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXBCdt5IPg&feature=related][/youtube]

I will certainly look into the Stanislov Grof's work.

To each their own.. peace.

Trippy... again.

Those tool guys have always had the best videos. Too bad videos are so 1990s.

 

[GWD]

fairalex: thanks for your response. I wasn't aware of Grof's work before, but I look forward to reading it in the future, and keeping an open mind as to the potential therapuetic benefits that he proposes.

I espouse Joe Rogan's commentary simply because I think he is someone who is in the public eye, and has the courage to make commentary, and quite frankly I think he has some pretty interesting things to say (sorry he is not in an MSTP program).

I haven't finished Dr. Straussman's book yet, so I can't comment. I must say that I am highly intrigued that he was able to secure stable funding over such a long period of time for his research. I know he collaborated with a great deal of very distinguished physicians and scientists, and I look forward to reading the rest of his book, but I think he has some pretty enlightening things to say.

"Oh.. he's a hippy...," "Oh he just did a bunch of drugs...," well maybe SDN needs to do a bunch of drugs or something, because I've yet to hear such a compelling argument from this forum. These are actually some pretty profound and well thought out observation regarding the human condition that Mr. Rogan is offering.

In a way, I'm kind of disappointed that the best and the brighest 'insight' anyone here has to offer is say 'go do some more drugs hippie'

 

[gbwillner]

In a way, I'm kind of disappointed that the best and the brighest 'insight' anyone here has to offer is say 'go do some more drugs hippie'

Who said that? I don't see it anywhere.

Is Joe Rogan the guy from Fear Factor?

 

[GWD]

So what exactly do you mean by trippy?

I'm just gonna keep posting cerebral ****, but my gosh... death is all around us in this profession...

I guess I'll just keep focusing on the trippy **** until I die

And yes, Joe Rogan is the guy from Fear Factor, and those videos I posted above.

 

[GWD]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNOtiRB3uyk&NR=1[/youtube]

 

[GWD]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATr9qrbg7TU[/youtube] thoughts on this... bad call... listen to the lyrics... solderiers keep on dying?

SHould've play'ed [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FchMuPQOBwA[/youtube]

 

[gbwillner]

So what exactly do you mean by trippy?

I'm just gonna keep posting cerebral ****, but my gosh... death is all around us in this profession...

I guess I'll just keep focusing on the trippy **** until I die

And yes, Joe Rogan is the guy from Fear Factor, and those videos I posted above.

Uhhh... it wasn't some knock on you. "trippy" is pretty self-explanatory... you keep putting up images with vivid colors and videos with abstract and seemingly nonsensical imagery.... references to psychedelic art and are commonly called "trippy". Nothing wrong with it.... just invokes those ideas in my head, probably like it does in yours. It's like me calling you "liberal" when you are in fact liberal but think of that in a Rush-Limbaugh-ian way to mean some sort of insult when there is inherently none.