Oh Kalamity — a cosmological debunking

The Kalām Cosmological Argument is a favourite of William Lane Craig. It's formulated in such a way as to preempt objections, though as I've previously mentioned on numerous blogposts this disingenuous wordplay — an attempt to insulate the argument from criticism — fails.

This great video is as comprehensive a take-down of the Kalām's flawed logic as we're likely to see for some time — at least until some new cosmological theory emerges from legitimate science. The analysis and arguments presented here are thorough, properly referenced and in many cases from the very mouths of the cosmologists themselves.

http://youtu.be/baZUCc5m8sE


Here's the info on the video, copied from YouTube:

We hope this is the definitive take down of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. We show how it is contradictory and that the physics being used to support it doesn't do so. We also had this video reviewed by Marcus, one of the Cosmology Advisers on Physics Forums to make sure there were no errors, his words
"I think it is excellent.Your narrator comes across as really smart and personable....I don't see any glaring errors, really amazingly good
it's charming, intelligent, visually engaging, sporadically really beautiful like the brief cut of the Hubble telescope and the volcano etc. Well-made!"

And here's what P. Z. Myers says in his Pharyngula post (credited to Skepchick) that alerted me to it:

This is a wonderful video debunking the Kalam Cosmological Argument. What I really like about it is that it takes the tortured rationales of theologians like William Lane Craig, who love to babble mangled pseudoscience in their arguments, and shows with direct quotes from the physicists referenced that the Christian and Muslim apologists are full of shit.

Watch and enjoy.

Them: Adventures With Extremists — by Jon Ronson

Some time before TAM London I was recommended by someone on a blog (I think it was one of the Skepchicks) to read The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson, because it was a good book that was being made into a film — and Ronson was likely to talk about it at TAM. Almost as an aside, this same blogger also recommended Them: Adventures With Extremists by the same author. I found both books cheaply at Amazon UK so I ordered them (I mean, I ordered Them, and I ordered The Men Who... oh, forget it).

When the books arrived I perused the blurbs, and noticed that Them had a reference to David Icke, and when I flicked through it I saw there was a chapter titled "There are lizards, and there are lizards". So I turned to it. Soon I'd read the whole chapter, and decided to start the book at the beginning, immediately. It was that compulsive.

Ronson spent time with a variety of extremists, conspiracy theorists and nutters (er... Icke?), reporting his conversations without foisting his own judgement on the reader. He has a self-effacing style of journalism — a kind of equal-opportunity indifference that treats a conversation with a little known Islamic fundamentalist on the same level as, say, Denis Healey.

The theme of the book is the search for the secret room in which the New World Order controls the whole world. The fact that some of the conspiracy theorists believe that the members of the elite "Bilderberg Group" (whether or not that elusive group is actually the NWO) consist of alien shape-shifting lizards twelve feet high only adds extra weirdness to the whole affair. It's an amusing journey which reads as if extracted verbatim from Ronson's journal.

He draws few conclusions, presenting his findings as they are, so the total effect seems more than a little disjointed. It's not a definitively researched thesis, though the dry humour sprinkled throughout the narrative more than makes up for any perceived lack of academic rigour. Ronson seems less concerned with assembling known facts than with conveying the general paranoia of his interviewees. It's hard to judge the extent or significance of what he's reporting, but it does make for a fascinating — if picaresque — story, especially, I imagine, if you have a penchant for sacrificing children to giant owls.

(I'm pleased to report, Jon Ronson did indeed talk about Them and The Men Who Stare at Goats at TAM London.)

My Confession - Elyse - Skepchick.org

Some people's path to scepticism is a gentle amble along a relatively unchallenging track. You learn some science and begin to question the beliefs of your childhood. The final break from the world of irrationality may be emotional, but short lived, and once you emerge into the clearing of rational, evidence-based reasoning, the relief can be its own reward.

It's not like that for everyone. Check out this awesome post at the Skepchick blog, where Elyse relates her own heart-rending story of sceptical awakening.