Burnee links for Thursday

Ray Comfort is gonna die : Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers reports on a near-death experience.

Gingrich fears 'atheist country … dominated by radical Islamists' – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

Hours after declaring Sunday that he expects to be running for president within a month, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he's worried the United States could be “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists,” in the foreseeable future, according to Politico.

Radical Islamists — who are secular atheists? Obviously this is nonsense, but it shows how muddled some people can become when they equate "secular" and "atheist" with "sin" and "evil".

I’m a new atheist
Nullifidian takes possession of a term.

The 21st Floor » Blog Archive » Rock Stars: Woo Magnets?
I'd like to know whether the proportion of woo peddlers in Rock is any different from that in the general population.

BigAl's Books and Pals: The Greek Seaman / Jacqueline Howett
Lesson for the author: when you're in a hole, stop digging! (Actually I think she did, but not before she'd alienated everyone else in the comments.)

Bad Comments Round #2: Jacqueline Howett, Responding to Criticisms, and the (Usual) Dangers of Positive Thinking « The Indelible Stamp
More insight on the crash-and-burn author who threw her career into a black hole over an entirely reasonable but moderately unfavourable book-review.

Flying robots play ping-pong: war with the machines is one step closer – Telegraph Blogs

Very impressive, but can they juggle?

NeuroLogica Blog » Video Evidence
Steve Novella debunks.

New Humanist (Rationalist Association) - Blackburn schools to teach humanism in RE
Paul Sims' article describes welcome developments but it seems there's still much confusion as well as blatant ignorance and bigotry when it comes to the religious perception of humanism.

Latin-Spani-Croco-Duck
Surly Amy expounds on comfortable creationism.

The 21st Floor » Blog Archive » Be Skeptical – Lessons From Linguistics
Some interesting insights about the structure of language and the scientific method.

The Biggest Lie in British Politics « sturdyblog
Support for Johann Hari's recent article on why cuts will kill the economy.
(This one: The biggest lie in British politics : Johann Hari)

Marcus chown at TAM London 2010

Into the second day of TAM London with Marcus Chown and his Ten Bonkers Things About The Universe:

Among these bonkers things were the fact that the entire human race would fit in the volume of a sugar cube; if the sun were made of bananas it would be equally hot; 98% of the universe is invisible; and you age more slowly on the ground floor of a building than on the top floor.

Marcus went through his ten items at some speed, perhaps mindful of the necessity of engaging his audience on a Sunday morning after a possibly late night, and he therefore didn't go into much detail. Probably he could have done a complete presentation on each item. He paced the stage rather than standing at the lectern, and his slides were varied — though naturally had a cosmological emphasis. He book-ended his talk with audio-visuals that included music from Elton John and David Bowie. This was a good start to the second day.

The Comfort zone of a fundagelical Christian

Well, it happened. Ray Comfort was on the Atheist Experience last Sunday. I listened to the podcast, and it was one of the fastest hours I can remember.



I didn't know what to expect, although I thought it likely, given the professionalism of the Atheist Experience hosts, that it would be a civilized affair. Ray is a decent chap, that's clear, though plainly misguided and lacking intellectual rigour when it comes to matters of science — especially biology. At one point he started in with his argument about male and female evolving separately; that he still proposes this as a refutation of evolution demonstrates that he has minimal grasp of what the theory of evolution actually states, and that he's willfully ignoring patient explanations offered to him in the past (P. Z. Myers', for example).

One problem the Axp has with a discussion like this, is that an hour is nowhere near long enough to address all the various nonsense that Ray continues to come out with over the years. Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser did a good job, but the show could easily have been three times as long and just as packed.

If I have reservations, these would be about the wider effect of a match like this. Though it was hugely entertaining, the show let Ray appear as pleasant but deluded — not as a raving fundagelical who actively promotes a hellfire and brimstone version of Christianity that he wants everyone else to adopt. Which of these portrayals is more likely to motivate active opposition? When two members of the Rational Response Squad debated Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron the latter were shown up as creationist loons. When Ray Comfort and Thunderf00t took part in a video-recorded discussion, Ray came over as sincere but disastrously wrong. And here on the Axp he seemed to be a regular guy with some wonky ideas about evolution and nature.

Whether this show motivates opposition to Ray's wrong-headed views or not, it's necessary to challenge such views wherever and whenever they threaten to impinge on people's rights, and on that score the Axp hosts continue to be supremely competent.

Episode 2 of Skepticule Extra is now available

After the phenomenal success of the first episode of our absolutely brilliant new podcast I know everyone's eagerly awaiting the next episode of Skepticule Extra.

So here it is:

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/03/skepextra-002-20110327.html

This episode is mostly about the wife of a fascist god who visits hospitals to teach creationism to the patients. (Or something — I may have garbled that slightly.)

Burnee links for Sunday

The Atheist Experience™: Ray Comfort - on the show this Sunday
I can't quite believe this is actually going to happen.

The Meming of Life » There is no normal » Parenting Beyond Belief on secular parenting and other natural wonders
More catching up with Dale McGowan — on familiar awesomeness.

Skeptics with a K – Special #008 « The Merseyside Skeptics Society
A ten-minute spot on Radio Merseyside — well worth a listen. And well worth a read is Marsh's relevant blogpost of 10th March:
NHS Wirral and The North West Friends Of Homeopathy: A Typical Wednesday Evening Out

New Statesman - Against the evidence
Richard Wilson explains the difference between doubt and dogmatism.

Atheist attempts to educate Rabbi Adam Jacobs on morality - Philadelphia atheism | Examiner.com
This article could have dealt more with the concept of absolutism. Which is the main theistic argument (even though it's false).

Science: How To Fake It
This how all those ridiculous "science" stories get into the popular press.

Bad Reason: Talking Bollocks about Cox
Don't diss Brian.
(Via @kashfarooq)

Godless in Tumourville: Christopher Hitchens interview - Telegraph
Excellent in-depth update on the Hitch.

My part ownership

Watching Brian Cox's inspiring Wonders of the Universe episode "Stardust" I was once again struck by the thought that though this arrangement of parts that I call me is, in the grand scheme of things, ephemeral, the parts themselves — the atoms that make up the molecules that make up the chemicals of which I am temporarily composed — are as near immortal as anything is likely to get. Forged in the nuclear furnaces of dying stars, my fundamental particles have been around a lot longer than I have, and before I was here they were probably doing sterling service elsewhere. And after I'm gone, these particles will be recycled for other purposes — I will, in a sense, live again as reincarnated diaspora.

There is a hierarchy in this compositional framework that I call me: though at bottom I am the quarks, I am also the complex functioning organs that comprise my body — which are themselves composed of simpler parts right down to those atoms and the quarks that comprise them. Such a view gives me pause, to consider my ownership of the parts of which I currently comprise.

This clip from Lawrence Krauss's superb lecture at the 2009 AAI Convention makes a related point:

https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo

(Ironically this clip was linked by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis!)

The Bible is not a science textbook

With Robert Kaita's "Creator and Sustainer — God's Essential Role in the Universe" we are into Section Two, The Question of Science, of Dembski and Licona's Evidence for God. And immediately we run into problems:

Einstein posed a question that scientists, as scientists, still cannot answer. He asked why the universe is comprehensible. We do not know, for example, why there are only a few laws of physics. The same law of gravity can be used to describe how we are held to the earth, but also how immense galaxies are attracted to each other to form clusters.

This misunderstands what scientific laws are, even though the above quote actually contains a germ of the truth. Scientific laws are not some underlying or intrinsic quality of how the universe works, they are merely a set of descriptions that approximate to our observations ("The same law of gravity can be used to describe...").

Kaita uses a line of dominoes as an analogy for deism, then says, "Somehow, we have a sense that such a picture is not very satisfying." But the way things actually are — the truth — is not contingent on whether it produces a satisfying picture. Nevertheless Kaita uses the further analogies of car maintenance and practical nuclear fusion (his own scientific field) to support his idea that God must take an active role in the universe to keep it running. That doesn't sound very god-like to me — whatever happened to omnipotence?

That's not Kaita's only evidence for his sustaining creator-god; he also quotes from the Bible:

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.

(Genesis 8:22 New International Version, ©2011)

The Bible, however, is not a science textbook. Anyone who tries to support theism from a scientific viewpoint — especially in a section entitled The Question of Science — by quoting the Bible, has already lost the argument.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952965