Category Archives: The Evidentialism Files

Stop Making Sense


Moai statues of Easter Island:

  • Myth buster: The Moai aren’t just heads – they have full bodies buried underground.
  • The average height of a Moai is about 13 feet, but some can reach up to 33 feet.
  • There are nearly 1,000 Moai statues on Easter Island.
  • The statues were carved between 1250 and 1500 AD.
  • They are believed to represent ancestral chiefs or other important individuals.
  • The largest Moai ever transported weighs 82 tons.
  • Many Moai wear “pukao” – large cylindrical stones on their heads, thought to represent topknots or hats.
  • The statues were carved from compressed volcanic ash found at a quarry called Rano Raraku.
  • Some Moai have coral and obsidian eyes inlaid.
  • The method of transporting these massive statues remains a subject of debate among archaeologists.
  • Many Moai face inland, watching over the villages, rather than out to sea.
  • The fall of the Moai (many were found toppled) is thought to be linked to civil war or environmental disaster on the island.
  • Recent research suggests the statues may have been placed to mark the location of fresh water sources.

Happy Birthday Commodus!

  • Commodus was born on August 31, 161 AD, coincidentally sharing a birthdate with Caligula.
  • He was the son of Marcus Aurelius, one of Rome’s “Five Good Emperors,” and the first emperor “born in the purple” (while his father was emperor).
  • Commodus became co-emperor with his father at the age of 16 and sole emperor at 18 when Marcus Aurelius died.
  • He was obsessed with gladiatorial combat and often participated in the arena himself, fighting against disabled opponents or wild animals.
  • Commodus renamed Rome “Colonia Commodiana” (Colony of Commodus) and tried to rename all twelve months after himself.
  • He identified himself with the demigod Hercules and often appeared in public dressed as the mythical hero.
  • Commodus was known for his extravagance and narcissism, commissioning numerous statues of himself throughout Rome.
  • He survived multiple assassination attempts, including one orchestrated by his older sister Lucilla.
  • His reign is often considered the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.
  • Commodus was ultimately assassinated on New Year’s Eve 192 AD, strangled in his bath by his wrestling partner Narcissus.
  • Commodus is portrayed as the antagonist in the 2000 film “Gladiator,” although the movie takes significant liberties with historical accuracy for dramatic effect.

Relatively Speaking


Time moves faster at higher altitudes.

Time seems like a simple enough concept — 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and so on. That is, except for a little something called “gravitational time dilation.” First explored in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the idea is almost confusingly simple — the farther away you are from a massive object (e.g., a planet), the faster time travels. The more massive the object, the slower time travels, which is why things get very wonky around supermassive black holes like the one at the center of our galaxy. 

These differences in how time flows are minuscule on Earth, so they don’t really affect us — the top floor of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, does not operate with a special time-dilated clock. Yet technically, even our heads experience time just a bit differently than our feet. In 2010, the U.S. National Standards and Technology (NIST) even performed an experiment using optical atomic clocks that could measure a change in time dilation within less than 1 meter. 

Although imperceptible to our minds, precision technologies such as GPS need to factor in time dilation in order to work at all. So the next time you use Google Maps, consider giving a shout-out to Einstein and his mind-bending theory of the universe.