Skepticum

As a huge fan of Discover mag I had to think twice this morning on why Discover would launch a Science and Religion blog, or rather why would Discover mag promote and host the blog of Father Michael K. Holleran, who views science as intrinsically amoral:

I would propose that scientific research is intrinsically amoral; by its own rules, science would simply go out and do whatever it is capable of doing at any time. This is a limitation, but not a fault. Problems arise, however, because its object is often part of a much more complex reality. For example, not only do people do science, but people are often the object of science. What is more, they are not simply the subjects and objects of science, they are also the subjects and objects of psychology, art, ethics, philosophy, theology, and mysticism. Hence, these other levels of exploration and discourse have the right not to do science but to challenge the scientist, when a value known and embraced at another level is threatened by a science that is fundamentally without values. This is obviously the case in the life sciences: biotechnology, biochemistry, etc. Even if cloning, stem cell research, and reproductive advances represent scientific progress, are they truly and necessarily progress for the totality of the human person and for life in society?

As I said, I thought twice, or thrice… or I’m still thinking about it. As a former journalist I can understand the need for balanced publishing content and also the need to attract a variety of readers. I can also understand the need to give religion a voice within the mostly science-focused writings published by Discover. However, claims such as the one above do not belong in a science publication, just as creationism does not belong in the science classroom.

Discover’s Science and Religion blog though tries to marry the two fields, through a poetic if not overly-fanciful way of describing the need for spirituality.

Perhaps what is best in our humanity is what can likewise help reconcile science and religion in practice: the sense of wonder, of openness, of exploration, the exhilarating intoxication that I mentioned above. These sentiments are the inspiration, both Maritain and I would argue, for both science and religion—indeed for any passionate pursuit. Grounded in this sort of breadth of spirit, which is secure, serene, and confident in itself, we can hopefully learn—whether in science or in religion or in any human endeavor—not only to tolerate but to glory in the experience of not knowing. The feverish demand for instant certitude seems a Western neurosis. After all, whether we consider ourselves loyal scientists or loyal members of a religious tradition or both, an awestruck sense of respect before the unknown is the only loyal attitude towards whatever reality is the object of our exploration. As Maritain pointed out, there is more mystery in a grape between the teeth than in all of our discourses that would attempt to explain it. So, may we avoid anorexia of the spirit, and let the “banquet” continue!

Fortunately a blog is a place open to dialogue, so father Michael’s posts received immediate commentary from readers, most of which were critical of his ideas.

Father Michael, you asked us to avoid ad hominem calls of hypocrisy, to turn a blind eye to the failures of the past: the atrocities of both religion and science. To imply, with some subtlety, that no modern theologian takes a literal view of the book of Genesis. However, therein lies one of the more brilliant points Dawkins makes in his book, The God Delusion. Relgious people, Dawkins notes, "pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories." To discard those parts of the Scripture that no longer align with modern moral, humanistic standards, while admirable, shows how tenuous, even flippant, religious beliefs can be. How incongruent with the search for Truth, when truths can be rewritten or discarded by the whim of a single prophet. (Posted by Dave Jarvis at 2007-09-25 18:13)

My response to father Michael would be that his posts are beautifully written and call for pondering of the immensity of human experience. However, the idea that we need to glory in the experience of not knowing must simply be a figure of speech, because it is in the nature of humans to want to know, which explains the creation of so many varied religions. Religious explanations are just one way humans have attempted to "know," science is another, and then there’s such a thing as philosophy, which may or may not adhere to religious concepts. Morality, and the need to "know" do not depend on deities to ascribe rules of behavior. Just as humans painted christ to be a white blue-eyed man, humans ascribed, and transcribed (if they came from plates, not that I believe that) rules of conduct to serve human purposes. Also humans re-write rules of human interaction every day. There is nothing mystical about the need to "know" and nothing mystical about human interraction.

Magnet braces, pads, inserts, wraps and more that promise pain relief are used by up to 28% of people with rheumatoid arthritis,
osteoarthritis, or fibromyalgia, and make up for a $5 billion industry worldwide.

Despite their popularity and pseudoscience claims of medical benefits (one company claims magnets are just as effective at pain control as ibuprofen), a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed there is no evidence static magnets fight the pain of arthritis or fibromyalgia.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Max Pittler said, "the biggest concern is that people seeking to ease their pain may
be buying into - and paying big bucks - for a therapy that may not be effective."

An Amazon search on "magnet therapy" resulted in 402 books on the topic and 640 items in health and personal care, the cheapest of which are the $3.50 ear dot magnets. You can also find insoles, bracelets, adhesive strips, wrist bands, back bands, a zillion types of dot magnets, ankle wraps, elbow wraps, necklaces, circle pads, heat pads, eye masks, head bands, and even a Super Power magnet with "10,000 Guass of power." I’m sure they meant it to be 10,000 Gauss.

Most of these products’ marketing is nothing but pseudoscience. "Pseudoscience uses invented modes of analysis which it pretends or professes meet the requirements of scientific method, but which in fact violate its essential attributes (James Randi Educational Foundation).

The James Randi foundation has published criticisms on a few cases of products that claim medical benefits from magnets. Such a product is the Dr. Scholl’s insoles. Dr. Scholl’s came out with the Magna Energy Insoles that got the following review from the Randi Foundation:

On the package, we’re assured that "The Dr. Scholl’s brand is the leader of innovation" and we’re promised "penetrating waves" from their foam insoles, which are "designed to deliver Certified bipolar magnet strength." How reassuring. For a moment there I thought I was reading a quack document. And, to bolster any flagging faith in this product, Dr. Scholl tells the customers, "our exclusive bipolar magnet system allows alternating waves of magnet therapy to penetrate your body through the soles of your feet."

Magentic Fields on the Magna Energy Insoles

Here are a few facts, unpopular as they may be: All magnets are bipolar. For this company to represent that they have something "exclusive" in an ordinary magnet, is dishonest. As for the "alternating waves of magnet therapy" they coo about, I think they’ve no notion of what a "wave" is, nor what is meant by "alternating," either. To claim that the magnetic fields around these silly little disc magnets could "penetrate" the wearer’s body — let alone be measured or be of any therapeutic value, is ridiculous. Just look at the illustration, above, of the suggested magnetic field and how much of the body it affects. Arranged as they are, the tiny magnetic fields cancel one another out a very short distance from the insole, anyway! And just what or who provided the "certification" for these bits of magnet? Certification for a magnet is like licensing an acorn to grow into an apple tree.

While there might still be valid applications of magnetism in medicine, these types of price-inflated products have not proven to make any difference in pain management and are not going to be recommended by doctors or scientists as replacements for proven pain control methods. If you plan on using your money on a pair of gym shoes and a set of magna energy gel insoles, and then spend some time at the gym, may experience some pain reduction but exercise is what most probably did it, not the insoles.

LA Times reported today the evangelist Billy Graham got his own 40,000-square-foot museum in his hometown of Charlotte, NC. Unlike others who get a museum after they die, or usually just a small display in another museum Graham got to walk through his museum and got to approve its creation, "only when he was convinced that the project would serve as a perpetual crusade — a tribute not to him but to Jesus Christ — did Graham give it his blessing."

As Graham probably didn’t give the same directions to the LA Times article, his living personality is the focus of the news. From this report it’s hard to see if the museum is focused on Jesus, Graham or Disney. Here are some quotes:

The Billy Graham Library is intensely focused on the Gospel, with dozens of video clips of Graham quoting Scripture.

Right here we see we don’t just get any gospel in the museum, but rather clips of Graham quoting Scripture.

Tourists will see several dozen artifacts from Graham’s life, including a poem written for him by rock star Bono; a medal from Queen Elizabeth; photos of him with Muhammad Ali, Johnny Cash, John F. Kennedy Jr. (After his father protested there was too much Billy Graham, Franklin took down some of the snapshots, but he couldn’t bear to strip them all.)

There are also pictures of Graham with presidents including W Bush, a stuffed cat, a lifelike-looking cow and hens clucking on a soundtrack wrap up the atmosphere:

In a calculatedly Southern drawl — the first attempt at a voice-over was deemed too Yankee — Bessie tells visitors how a young Billy Frank used to practice preaching as he milked her.

And talking about milking, the museum has a gift shop with "stacks of $12 Billy Graham ball caps and $10 stuffed cows wearing Billy Graham T-shirts."

But I digress, I started by saying Graham appears to be the focus here not Jesus. At the end of the article the win goes to Graham with 36 mentions versus Jesus who only gets 2.

Suck it Jesus, Graham is our god now!

… or so claims John Friend, clerk of the Douglas County District Court.

Fried claims that god responded to a lawsuit brought against his ’lordship’ by State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.

According to AP Chambers, who considers himself an agnostic, "sued God last week, seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty for making terroristic threats, inspiring fear and causing "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants."

Friend claims that god’s filing appeared miraculously on the counter, "It just all of a sudden was here — poof!"

Although this first filing listed Michael the Archangel as witness, a second filing that also appeared miraculously on the clerk’s counter lists a phone number for a Corpus Christi law office.

So either god hired a law firm, or he actually lives in Corpus Christi. Just like that, poof!

According to a National Coalition Against Censorship report a number of Congressional hearings this year confirmed the Bush administration have been systematically censoring and monitoring science information being disseminated from government agencies.

On July 10, Dr. Richard Carmona disclosed that the administration interfered with his work and muzzled him on numerous issues throughout his four-year tenure as Surgeon General. Carmona, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002, alleges that his speeches were censored, and his public statements carefully monitored by political appointees: “Anything that doesn’t fit into [their] ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried.” He cautioned, "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds.”

The NCAC published a list of 5 other testimonies of government suppression and manipulation of science.

A well known example of how government appointee ideology is attempting to replace science with dogma is the case of the abstinence-only sex-ed programs:

Two reports commissioned by Congress confirmed the ineffectiveness of ’abstinence-only’ sex education, and documented how these programs disseminate scientific misinformation that poses a serious threat to public health. Despite these findings (and ignoring recent polls suggesting that over 75% of Americans support more comprehensive sex education), the House Appropriations Committee recently voted for a 25% increase in federal funding for abstinence-only programs next year.

Let me repeat what Carmona said, because I can’t say it better, "in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds."

If Kathy Griffing telling Jesus to Suck it! was “worse than racism” to some, Sally Fields’ anti-war comments at the Emmy’s were also too much for the delicate American ears and convictions. So Fox decided cut the end of Field’s statements in its US broadcast. Here is what Fields said about the war:

“Let’s face it: If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place.”

The network cut the sound off starting with “goddamn” until Fields left the stage.

Thankfully, Canadians aren’t so opposed to hearing what people have to say, so her speech was broadcast in full.

What the morons in the US haven’t figured out is that there is no way on the planet you can stop this information from being shared. It’s called YouTube, LiveLeak, etc. Here is how it’s done:

What’s even crazier though is that according to a Chicago Tribune poll 55% of their readers thought the comments should have been edited out. People, where is your sense of liberty?

UPenn Bioethics professor Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., published a commentary on MSNBC today warning women to be wary of TV commercials that promote genetic testing to detect risk of breast cancer.

Salt Lake City biotechnology company Myriad is running TV, radio and magazine ads with the slogan “Be ready against cancer” in Boston, Hartford, Providence, and New York City.

Caplans’ concern is that,

“Myriad is getting awfully close to overselling its testing technology in the guise of trying to educate women about breast cancer.”

His argument is not necessarily against Myriad advertising their $3,000 genetic tests but he has concerns about the fact that Myriad is targeting such a larger population and their claims are vague and wide-sweeping.

Here are the facts that Caplan quotes:

1. “The genes Myriad offers testing for are responsible for only about 10 percent of all breast cancer. “
2. Having the gene doesn’t mean you will get the disease at a young age. Cancer may not strike until you’re 50 or 60, so worrying about it from your 20s is a long time.
3. “Many experts on genetic testing recommend the Myriad genetic test only for women who have close genetic relatives who had breast cancer at a young age — 40 and younger. Perhaps 2 percent of American women meet that criterion.”

Caplan also points to a very serious side-effect of taking such testing in a non-regulated environment:

Health insurance companies may decide to consider a positive test as a preexisting condition, or even completely drop health coverage. “There is not much in the way of legislation that protects women against this sort of genetic discrimination.”

Caplan concludes:

Not only is there a grave risk that the test is being pitched to women who don’t need it, it is not clear what women are to do if they do have the genetic mutation.

MSNBC published an article that brought a big smile to my face, Top 5: Worst Ways to Die. OK I’ll admit it was a grin more than a smile.

After the disappointment of Harry Potter not dying, and numerous other fantasy books where the characters escape every possible death scenario, there is some comfort to knowing there is no escaping death in video games.

Here is my favorite one from MSNBC’s Top 5–Spine ripped from the body:

I learned something new today, that maybe cockroaches aren’t the ones ruling the world, but jellyfish may be. Or they’ll rule together when we’ve finally managed to eradicate all other species:

“If humans change the atmosphere and oceans to the detriment of other species,” Kevin Raskoff says, “and we find that jellies are filling in, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. The jellies are just doing what they have done for over 500 million years, and they are very, very good at it.” In a tragedy of our own making, the jellyfish, Raskoff declares, “will just be the messengers. Humans were the ones who wrote that message. We even had the chances to rewrite it over time but
failed to take action.”

Discover Magazine online, Sept. 13, 2007

The Chicago Tribune reported today that, “Mayors and state legislators nationwide have weighed in on the obesity crisis by targeting fast-food companies and the way they cook and market their burgers and chicken.”

Some of my closest friends have accused me of being an exclusive proteinovore. I get low points in diversity because I am not very tolerant of carbs, or so they say, and I like my meat close to breathing. So I may not be the most objective party when it comes to dieting, however, I also have low tolerance for government intervention in business.

In this particular case the problem is gluttony. Christians talk about IT, movies cash in on IT, and Americans love IT. And when I mean we love it, we really love it.

So at the risk of offending a few people, I’d say we are the problem not the fast-food companies. As Chris Rock says, no drug dealer ever has to worry about how they’ll sell their stash of crack, because crack sells itself. In America food is like crack, it sells itself because we are addicted to having more and more and more of IT. Fast food companies are enablers, but they’re not at fault for our gluttony.

However, not all is lost in America:

A federal judge in New York signaled Tuesday that regardless of how strenuously health advocates plead, it isn’t easy to insinuate the government between a diner and his or her fries. In a closely watched case, U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell struck down a local rule that required fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus.

New York went ahead with a calorie counting rule, but who’s to say that any of us understand the whole calories counting thing. As I said, I was accused of not following FDA’s recommendations by overdoing it on protein and discriminating against carbs, and I’ll admit I have no clue about calorie counting with the exception of the fact that I know if something has calories it means it can be set on fire.

In fact, that’s how chemists and physicists count calories, because a calorie is nothing else but a method of measuring energy consumption.

The Calorie you see on a food package is actually a kilocalorie, or 1,000 calories … The original method used to determine the number of kcals in a given
food directly measured the energy it produced.The food was placed in a sealed container surrounded by water–an apparatus known as a bomb calorimeter. The food was completely burned and the resulting rise in water temperature was measured. This method is not frequently used today. SciAm.com, May 19, 2003.

The food labels though are dictated by an Act not by a science textbook. Yes, The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990.

…most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories. SciAm.com, May 19, 2003

Did you get that? An indirect calorie estimation.

And who has to gain from this Act? Dietitians. And you thought this Act was favoring those with girth issues?

Over the past year, restaurateurs who wanted to keep nutritional claims on their menus have taken one of two courses of action to meet the requirements of the NLEA. Some have worked with a registered dietitian to create healthy menu items, while others have had their recipes or samples of their food analyzed by a dietitian. National Restaurant Association, April 1998.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of nutrition is expected to grow up 10 to 20% by 2010.

So there you have it, no one knows what’s in our food but the FDA and the registered dieticians. If you really want to know how many calories you’re eating, place your food in a sealed container surrounded by water and burn it. Measure the temp of the water and you’ll get your kcals. One kcal is the amount energy (heat) that will raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. What does that mean to our bodies? Well here’s the trick, it really depends on how the body metabolizes the food, what level of activity one gets etc. “The exact increase in fat tissue also depends on the form of energy intake. For example, food consisting mainly of fat can be converted into fat tissue quite efficiently, whereas carbohydrates cannot. Similarly, the exact conversion efficiency of food energy into physical power also depends on the exact form of energy source (type of food) and on the type of physical energy usage (e.g. which muscles are used, whether the muscle is used aerobically or anaerobically).” (Wikipedia, Food Energy)

So don’t sweat it, no matter what the results are someone who knows nothing about science will argue with you about the calorie content of what you just burned.

Image courtesy of morguefile.com

For those who ever wondered why conservatives and liberals think so differently, it appears to be more than just a political matter, but that liberals and conservatives use different cognitive styles. Their brains respond differently to new information and decision-making requests ("greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern"). LA Times reports that according to a study published today in the Journal of Nature Neuroscience, "Liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." When given a test to press letter M (which appeared most frequently) when seeing the letter on a screen but refrain from pressing W when seeing it on the screen, liberals were more accurate and refrained more frequently from pressing W. In other words, liberals were able to better navigate cognitive conflict and react appropriately when conservatives were more likely to follow an established pattern and express habitual tendencies. Call it knee-jerking.

The results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict. Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Wired’s article “Battle With ’Gamer Regret’ Never Ceases” talks about the potentially wasted time spent gaming. Using “time played” can throw one into “Gamer Regret” when discovering one played 4 hours per day for a whole week, or in a case, more than a month in a year.

So is gaming truly wasted time that we should regret having spent playing rather than… volunteering at a hospital, or something productive (someone call me on this one –”define productive”)?

Videogames, like crosswords, are a form of play — and play is a key element of a healthy adult existence. As game theorist Raph Koster has always pointed out, our playful brains love to seek out patterns, to solve problems — and there’s something existentially joyful about doing this in an environment that doesn’t have any stakes if you screw it up.

Or here’s a more radical way of putting it: Wasting time is one of the central reasons we play. If play were productive, it wouldn’t be … play. Monday Night Football doesn’t achieve anything either.

Let me give my 5 personals reasons why gaming is not wasted time:

1. My hand-eye coordination improves after consistently gaming for a few days.

2. Gaming keeps me linked to a social context unique to web 2.0. Thus I’m web smarter for it.

3. After a stressful day of work, during a cold winter day, there’s nothing a little bit of WOW can’t cure. It completely clears my mind of any thoughts, which is complete bliss.

4. Gaming keeps me technologically apt. The newer and more challenging the game the better the computer needs to be. So I built my own, twice, to keep my games running smoothly. There’s some girl power right there.

5. As Koster said, playing is a part of life. Some play cards, some play charades, and some game.

The Telegraph reported today that the Bengali woman who claimed to have been cured of a stomach tumor courtesy of Mother Teresa claimed the Sisters of Charity abandoned her to live in poverty.

Monica Besra claimed in 2003 that she was healed of her tumor after praying to Mother Teresa and pressing a medallion bearing the image of the sainthood-candidate to her side.

Besra’s claim that the Sisters of Charity made promises to her before taking her to testify to the Vatican, and then abandoned her is just another twist to the controversy of Teresa’s canonization process.

It all started when the Vatican made an exception in the case of Mother Teresa and eliminated a 5-year waiting period after the death of a candidate before the start of the canonization process.

More of the controversy came to public attention when it came to Teresa’s beatification (step 4 of the canonization process). To pass this stageTeresa needed to have performed miracle healings post-humously. Monica Besra was the first claim of faith healing related to Teresa. According to Besra,

“My hut was frequented by nuns of the Missionaries of Charity before the beatification of Mother Teresa,” said Mrs Besra, squatting on the floor of her thatched and mud house in the village of Dangram, 460 miles northeast of Calcutta. “They made of lot of promises to me and assured me of financial help for my livelihood and my children’s education. After that, they forgot me. I am living in penury. My husband is sick. My children have stopped going to school as I have no money. I have to work in the fields to feed my husband and five children.”

Even though it was the nuns who tied the medallion to her stomach on the first anniversary of Teresa’s death, the sisters say Besra herself made the miracle healing claim. Now, despite saying the sisters abandoned her she claims her faith is still strong in Teresa.

The doctors who treated Besra gave a logical explanation for the healing, in that the tumor was small, it shrunk and went away with treatment over a period of a year.

Even her husband said the miracle was a hoax. However, after the international press of the matter turned them into celebrities, and on the eve or his wife’s trip to the Vatican, he changed his mind and declared the healing a miracle himself. He said he was proud of his wife for traveling to the Vatican.

I guess now that they were celebrities he believed in the virtue of his wife to bring upon themselves such additional miracles as their kids being able to go to school and his wife taking a trip abroad. Unfortunately this side-effect of the miracle was short lived, and now the nuns are letting them struggle with poverty, the kids can’t go to school anymore and the husband is sick and can’t work.

Now, if the sisters had tied a medallion of Saint Mana around her waist, and then she was healed, by the same logic she would claim I healed her. Or if I go out there and find 100 flu sufferers and then give them a Mana Magic Medallion and tell them in 7 days they’ll be healed, chances are most of them will be healed and what a mighty miracle I make! Of course I would not have the ethos of Mother Teresa (which involves her reputatin as well as the strength of the placibo effect), even though, under the right circumstances I could probably raise just as much money as her from law-breaking citizens. What the nuns forget, but I will make sure to put in the box with the medallion, is the disclosure that while the miracle will be powerful it will be short-lived.

A recent post I read on King Aardvark’s Kick in the Nuts site made me repeat an expression which I realized could be my trademark when it comes to labeling religion:

To me religion will always be like an abusive partner.

I’ve posted this on many blogs as a comment, but I decided now to post it on my own.

I was an adult when I flirted with religion and got a bad case of what I call the “abusive partner syndrome.” To me that’s what religion will always be, an abusive partner–it told me I was chosen, and then beat on me and told me I fell short, then it told me it loved me, gave me comfort, and as soon as I felt better, it beat on me and told me I fell short. Then it told me I could learn from my mistakes and grow stronger, and I worked hard at it and as soon as I was within reach of my goal it slapped my hand away and once again I fell short.

Using similar metaphors I anonymously sent Aesahaettr my response to a post of his. I was afraid I was going to offend his readers by saying this, but fuck it, this is my blog and my readers so I’m going to say it:

Some love is sick and some love is true. I only want the true kind. Being in love with religion can be like being in love with an abusive partner. You open yourself up for this desired love, but they’ll keep hurting and hurting you while telling you they love you despite the inflicted pain. And they tell you the pain will make you stronger. But you’re not stronger and never free until you break free from wanting that kind of love.

I guess in the end (about 3 years later, not much longer) I stood up, stretched all my five feet and nine inches of female pride, threw some reason into it and realized that if you keep cutting the grass it may look beautiful but it will always be short. Ya’re not gonna stand there, wave your finger at the grass and blame it for being short. But we do that, don’t we? We feed the grass, we patch it, we ban the dog from running in it, and when it starts growing we cut it short.

These days I wish I was six foot tall, but my pituitary gland won’t cooperate. Might be because I needed a lot of hits over the head to wake up. Might be that genetically speaking I didn’t inherit a much taller gene, or I didn’t drink enough growth-hormone tainted milk. Or it might be that at my height I’m the same height as the average American male, so I’m tall enough. Those are the facts I flirt with today.

A Yahoo article today claims that Applebee’s Grilled Steak Caesar Salad® has 1,190 calories and 75 grams of fat.

About.com’s Calorie Count site gives the nutritional evaluation seen in this picture for the Applebee’s salad, with an estimated 1,296 calories.

Calorie King backs up this information.

Whether it’s the steak or the toast this salad is a monster twice the size of a Big Mac.

What did they put in that salad? A whole cow?