It is Evolution Day, whatever that means. Allegedly it is a day to celebrate the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, so it is not rally about evolution, per se. Evolution, at lest in the USA, is still a touchy subject. According to a PEW study, as to the adult population, 60% believe that humans evolved over time, 33% believe that they have always existed exactly as they are today, and 7% don't know, while 63% believe animals evolved over time, 32% believe that they have always existed exactly as they are, and 5% don't know. I have problems with this report which I shall discuss in a minute, but, the result, as is, is somewhat fascinating. It seems 1% of the people believe that animals evolved and humans didn't. Probably they think humans are extra special or something, but it also means that 1% think that humans aren't animals. That leaves vegetables and minerals. Sometimes some humans refer to others as vegetables, but that's figurative, if a cannibal ate any of them, there is no way he or she would qualify as vegetarian. That leaves minerals, it seems Zappa was prescient when the Mothers of Invention recorded "Help, I'm a Rock".

OK, I said I had problems with this so here we go, as presented above and as summarized in at lest one chart, it is deceptive as hell. The whole study and report is not so bad, but does still muddy the water. It turns out that about half of those who allegedly believe humans "evolved" believe that humans evolved by natural selection, you know, like actually evolved. The rest believe that god guided or directed the evolution, you know, like gradual creationism or creation by stages, in fits and starts. It is like saying you believe in logic but that logic includes that magical things happen with regularity such that the laws of logic may be broken at any time, like if a is greater than b and b is greater than c, then c can still be greater than a because of magical effects. That's not logic, and god guided evolution isn't evolution. So, really, only about 30 some odd percent of the adult US population believes in evolution, which is still surprisingly high given its history.

On this day in 1932, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory aka FBI Crime Lab officially opened. At the time, the FBI didn't even exist, they were the BOI, the Bureau of Investigation, and the lab was the "Technical Laboratory" They, of course, named it, and we might even give them the benefit of the doubt and, at least tentatively, believe that they honestly intended it to be exactly that. The problem with that willing suspension of disbelief is that the infamous Jedgar the Hoover was already in charge. This renders the alleged sincerity of the effort to create a purely scientific and impartial crime laboratory highly questionable.

The lab was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Eventually got so bad that one Dr. Frederick Whitehurst who was himself working for the The Feebs had to blow the whistle on scientific misconduct at the lab. In time 40 reforms had to be undertaken. There was a lot of false science , pseudoscience, and just outright made up bullshit passed off as scientific truth. One example was hair analysis. Numerous people were convicted of numerous things and jailed, sent to prison, and maybe worse on the basis of expert hair analysis conducted by the lab but there was no science behind it and no validity to it, ll it was all nonsense. When the use of DNA evidence eventually came to pass many people who were convicted on the basis of hair evidence were exonerated and freed thanks to DNA proof that they had nothing to do with the crimes they were purported to have committed. Sadly, the use of DNA analysis came far too late for a great number of the lab's victims and NDA evidence was not available in a great number of cses.

There was the practice of bite mark analysis whereby a victim's bite marks were allegedly identifiable as to specific biters by looking at somebody's teeth and saying yes that person is the perp who bit this victim. This was absolute garbage. At least one person was exonerated and freed based on DNA evidence after serving 33 years based on this fake science, and the WaPo claimed that there were 21 known wrongful convictions based on this pseudoscience, which the Feebs and prosecutors still try to foist off on juries now and then.

Bullet and gun analysis was another problem area and eventually the FBI itself had to back off on the way it treated this evidence and upon its claims for the validity or certainty of this evidence. They purported among other things, to be able trace bullets to specific manufacturers batches through chemical analysis and that was just totally wrong. There was a serious study by a panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences that issued a report on the FBI's use of what they called forensic evidence which found that nearly every familiar staple of so-called forensic science used by the FBI was scientifically unsound and highly subjective.

There were and are a lot of problems and issues with the lab work and with the expertise that allegedly underlined it and the alleged experts it produced. One of the problems with looking back at this as an outsider, is that one can't be sure which bogus expert testimony was a product of the lab and which was not, which phony experts were lab affiliated and which were simply local recruits into the holy cause of getting convictions regardless of the actual truth of the accusations. I recall the exposure of a so-called arson and fire expert who got tons of wrongful convictions. I believe this was in Texas but I can't swear to that. Tons of arson cases that were based on the expert testimony of one specific expert and he was just a total fraud

One of the lab's major failings was what it did not investigate the provenance, the who, what, when, why, how, and where of the purported evidence that was purportedly found or discovered by FBI agents but just took it for granted that whatever they said was the absolute truth. But FBI agents like the rest of us are human and some of them were not above reproach some of the time, some of them were in fact pretty sleazy. Evidence was planted and/or faked, testimony was lies, chronologies of events were massaged or fabricated and much more, but the lab did not investigate those particulars and, didn't even check to see if they were possible or likely. The required skepticism of the true scientist or investigator was absent.

I mentioned above the infamous Jedger. This man was not only not above reproach but he was an arch criminal who routinely violated laws and/or had his agents do so. He used the FBI to harass and sabotage political dissidents including framing some of them planting evidence fabricating evidence and lying in testimony before various officials. They use illegal surveillance, wire tapping, burglaries, and again any evidence they turned up may or may not have actually been found, or fabricated, or planted, and we don't know the full extent of this. At one time the agency confessed to a program called called COINTELPRO which they then claimed to have ceased. All that probably means is that there is no longer a set of folders that say COINTELPRO, but say something else, or are maybe not labeled or they're not in folders anymore. There may be in binders or on thumb drives but the program probably never ceased and the lab, of course, never discovered or disclosed this because they weren't looking for any of that kind of thing. They just took it on faith that everything was exactly as it was represented. More than that, some lab personnel In some cases seem to have thought of themselves as agents first and foremost rather than scientists and investigators first and foremost, so they had the good of the agency and it's won-loss record and the need to convict bad guys at the top of their agenda which could arguably have frequently affected their judgment even if they weren't intentionally conniving at manufacturing stuff.

On this day in history:

1190 – Conrad of Montferrat became King of Jerusalem upon marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem.

1429 – Joan of Arc, acting under divine guidance, unsuccessfully besieged La Charité. hmmm.

1642 – Abel Tasman became the first European to discover Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).

1832 – South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void in the state, beginning the Nullification Crisis.

1835 – The Texas Provincial Government authorized a horse-mounted police force.

1859 – Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.

1877 – Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty was published.

1932 – The FBI (Pseudo) Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opened.

1941 – The United States granted Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces.

1944 – The 73rd Bombardment Wing launches the first attack on Tokyo from the Northern Mariana Islands.

1962 – The British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was first broadcast.

1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby on live television

1965 – Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seized power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

1971 – A hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachuted from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

1973 – A national speed limit was imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months.

1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy"

1989 – After a week of mass protests against the Communist regime, Miloš Jakeš and the entire Politburo of the Czechoslovak Communist Party resigned from office.

2013 – Iran signed an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions. The US didn't abrogte it until May 8, 2018

2016 – The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army signes a revised peace deal, bringing an end to the country's over 50-year-long civil war.

2023 – Hibiscus Rising, commemorating David Oluwale, was unveiled in Leeds. Imagine doing it here.

Some people who were born on this day:

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

~~ Baruch Spinoza

1472 – Pietro Torrigiano, sculptor
1583 – Philip Massinger, dramatist
1632 – Baruch Spinoza, philosopher and scholar
1690 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, organist and composer
1713 – Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman
1840 – John Alfred Brashear, scientist, telescope maker and educator
1849 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, novelist and playwright
1859 – Cass Gilbert, architect, designed the United States Supreme Court Building and Woolworth Building
1864 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter and illustrator
1868 – Scott Joplin, pianist and composer
1876 – Walter Burley Griffin, architect and urban planner, designed Canberra
1888 – Dale Carnegie, author and educator
1895 – Esther Applin, geologist and paleontologist
1897 – Lucky Luciano, businessman
1912 – Teddy Wilson, pianist and educator
1914 – Lynn Chadwick, sculptor
1914 – Bessie Blount Griffin, physical therapist, inventor and forensic scientist
1916 – Forrest J Ackerman, soldier and author
1924 – Eileen Barton, singer
1924 – Lorne Munroe, cellist and educator
1925 – Simon van der Meer, physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate
1926 – Tsung-Dao Lee, physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1931 – Tommy Allsup, guitarist
1941 – Pete Best, drummer and songwriter
1941 – Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass player, songwriter, and producer
1941 – Wayne Jackson, trumpeter
1943 – Richard Tee, singer, songwriter, and keyboard player
1943 – Margaret E. M. Tolbert, chemist and academic
1943 – Robin Williamson, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1993 – Ivi Adamou, singer and songwriter
1944 – Bev Bevan, drummer
1944 – Candy Darling, model, actress,Warhol Superstar, Stones Citadel Inspiration
1945 – Lee Michaels, singer, songwriter, and musician
1946 – Tony Clarkin, guitarist and songwriter
1947 – Dave Sinclair, keyboard player
1950 – Bob Burns, drummer and songwriter
1954 – Clem Burke, drummer
1956 – Terry Lewis, musician, producer, and songwriter
1960 – Edgar Meyer, bassist and composer
1962 – John Squire, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1967 – Henrik Brockmann, singer and songwriter
1993 – Ivi Adamou, singer and songwriter
1969 – Rob Nicholson, bass player and songwriter
1970 – Julieta Venegas, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1974 – Machel Montano, singer, songwriter, and producer
1990 – Tom Odell, singer and songwriter

Some people who died on this day:

I've never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.

~~ Diego Rivera

1615 – Sethus Calvisius, composer and theorist
1650 – Manuel Cardoso, organist and composer
1722 – Johann Adam Reincken, n organist and composer
1807 – Joseph Brant, tribal leader
1895 – Ludwik Teichmann, anatomist
1957 – Diego Rivera, painter and sculptor
1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald,
1980 – Henrietta Hill Swope, astronomer and academic
1991 – Freddie Mercury, singer, songwriter, and producer
1991 – Eric Carr, drummer of KISS
1993 – Albert Collins, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1997 – Barbara, singer, songwriter, and actress
2006 – Juice Leskinen, singer and songwriter
2007 – Casey Calvert, guitarist
2008 – Kenny MacLean, bass player and songwriter

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Evolution Day (International observance)
National Carmenere Day
D.B. Cooper Day

Today's Tunes

Evolutiion

D.B. Cooper

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Scott Joplin

Teddy Wilson

Tommy Allsup

Pete Best

Donald "Duck" Dunn

Richard Tee

Bev Bevan of ELO
Let there be Drums1976

Sandy Nelson - Let There Be Drums - 1961

Bev Bevan of ELO - Heavy Head, flip side of Let There Be Drums by Bev Bevan in 1976

Some Dude named Diddley - 1957

Just sayin', evolution, ya know,

Candy Darling

Lee MIchaels

Freddie Mercury

Albert Collins

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, evolution, FBI Crime Lab, DB Cooper, Toulouse-Lautrec, Scott Joplin, Pete Best, Donald Duck Dunn, Candy Darling, Freddy Mercury, Albert Collins