Friday 3 December 2010

Burnee links for Friday

Miss Manners And the Big C | Culture | Vanity Fair
The Hitch update: "...the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five."

TSN: The Great Debate Panel
Can scientists determine what is right and wrong?


Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: The New Age Vehicle Well-Running Centre
Classic. (And not just for classic cars....)

Johann Hari: The religious excuse for barbarity - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent
"No, we don't respect your desire to needlessly torment animals because some hallucinating desert nomads did it centuries ago. We don't respect it at all. You can cry that we are 'persecuting' you if we stop you committing acts of cruelty if you want.

"It's what the religious – Christian, Jew and Muslim alike – did when we stopped you tormenting women and gays and anybody else you could get your hands on. One of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God."
Stephen Law: Draft paper for comments
I've struggled with attempts to understand Alvin Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" — and been unable to pin down precisely why I don't buy it. It takes an articulate philosopher's analysis to tease its abstruse strands apart, for which much thanks are due to Stephen Law.

Creation Science Movement - News: "Species can split into different varieties through natural or intelligently guided selection-as with dog or apple breeding- but this is division, not addition of the gene pool."
God-talk and eschatology.

Hitchens on mockery and Helping - Butterflies and Wheels
Ophelia Benson on the Hitchens-Paxman Newsnight interview.