Cumberland Falls, rocks, and heads of stone.

Yesterday D was compelled to attend a meeting held at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, which is located roughly 15 miles west of Corbin, Kentucky. Having never been, I decided to accompany her and share the driving time.

It was a gorgeous morning, and so I walked from the lodge to the falls and back. Near the visitors center, there was an explanation of how the falls came to be.

It isn't nuclear physics: Water meets rocks soft and hard, and erosion is the result. Of course, this process of forming rock and wearing it away has occurred over millions of years, hence the irony.

The same state taken to erecting signs like this, which reflect science, awards charlatans like Ken Ham economic development funds to build a replica of Noah's ark -- which reflects superstition.

The Nazi Anatomists: "The difficulty is, you see, that our imaginations cannot count".

It's somber and long reading for a pre-Armistice Day Sunday, but brilliantly written and utterly necessary.

The Nazi Anatomists: How the corpses of Hitler's victims are still haunting modern science—and American abortion politics, by Emily Bazelon (Slate)

In 1941, Charlotte Pommer graduated from medical school at the University of Berlin and went to work for Hermann Stieve, head of the school’s Institute of Anatomy. The daughter of a bookseller, Pommer had grown up in Germany’s capital city as Hitler rose to power. But she didn’t appreciate what the Nazis meant for her chosen field until Dec. 22, 1942. What she saw in Stieve’s laboratory that day changed the course of her life—and led her to a singular act of protest.

Stieve got his “material,” as he called the bodies he used for research, from nearby Plötzensee Prison, where the courts sent defendants for execution after sentencing them to die. In the years following the war, Stieve would claim that he dissected the corpses of only “dangerous criminals.” But on that day, Pommer saw in his laboratory the bodies of political dissidents. She recognized these people. She knew them.

2 - More bad news for New Albany's troglodytes: You're not getting any brighter.

Mitt Romney's 14 percentage point margin of victory in Floyd County indicates that the southward slide (how's THAT for appropriate imagery) is devolving more quickly here. Note that our neighbors to the west, Perry County, went for Barack Obama by 12 points. Note also the conclusion: Education makes the inexorable plunge more tolerable. Someone best send a memo to Tony Bennett, who is about to leave his heart in Indianapolis.

Is pampered humanity getting steadily less intelligent? Humans reached a peak of intelligence more than 2,000 years ago and it's been downhill ever since, a scientist speculates, by Ian Sample, science correspondent at The Guardian

Since modern humans emerged from the evolutionary brambles of our ancient ancestry, our bodies and minds have been transforming under the pressures of natural and sexual selection. But what of human intelligence? Has our cognitive ability risen steadily since our forebears knapped the first stone tools? Or are our smartest days behind us?

Gerald Crabtree, a geneticist at Stanford University in California, bets on the latter. He believes that if an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us. Our intellectual prowess has probably been sliding south since the invention of farming and the rise of high-density living that it allowed, he claims.

Alzheimer's, and more obviously, recurring litter in my yard.

As if we needed yet another instance of the high cost of low price ...

Alzheimer's could be the most catastrophic impact of junk food, by George Monbiot (Guardian)

... Even if you can detach yourself from the suffering caused by diseases arising from bad diets, you will carry the cost, as a growing proportion of the health budget will be used to address them. The cost – measured in both human suffering and money – could be far greater than we imagined. A large body of evidence now suggests that Alzheimer's is primarily a metabolic disease. Some scientists have gone so far as to rename it: they call it type 3 diabetes.

New Scientist carried this story on its cover on 1 September; since then I've been sitting in the library, trying to discover whether it stands up. I've now read dozens of papers on the subject, testing my cognitive powers to the limit as I've tried to get to grips with brain chemistry. Though the story is by no means complete, the evidence so far is compelling ...

... Plenty of research still needs to be done. But, if the current indications are correct, Alzheimer's disease could be another catastrophic impact of the junk food industry, and the worst discovered so far. Our governments, as they are in the face of all our major crises, seem to be incapable of responding.

Bill Nye: "We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future."

Bill Nye offers the perfect antidote to the pervasive superstition and sheer doltery parading sans intellectual clothing in Tampa.

Bill Nye Isn't Dead, He's Gone Viral (bigthink.com)

In the video, Nye says that while everybody is entitled to his/her own opinion, creationism is unequivocally wrong, and that people who still believe it -- or more importantly, insist it is taught to their children -- hold society back for everybody. Nye argues we need a scientifically literate and educated population.

In his words: "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems."

Five random questions on a catch-up Monday.

Is libertarianism compatible with religious fundamentalism?

Why is it that so many people are afraid of even trying?

Even if Mike Huckabee is John McCain’s running mate, could I possibly vote against the Republican candidate any faster?

Given the ongoing poverty of CM Steve’s Price’s worldview, do you think my new movement, 3LF (3rd district Liberation Front) might successfully petition for foreign intervention in our council district?

If a so-called Democrat won’t vote for Barack Obama because Obama is black, then why doesn’t the racist Democrat simply register as a Republican and dispense with the hypocrisy?