Burnee links for Monday

John Haught - Where's The Tea? - Skeptico
More on Haught vs Coyne, and discussing Haught's fallacious analogy.

A very silly calculation | Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers on the lottery fallacy.

The 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time
Lists of this type always raise questions of arbitrariness — who's on it and who's not — but this one is nonetheless fascinating.

Massimo calls out Templeton « Why Evolution Is True
Jerry Coyne applauds Massimo Pigliucci's rejection of Templeton money.

The Rants of Cherry Black » Blog Archive » Middle of the night, joyful rantings!
Now that Giles is elsewhere (in London I believe), Pompey Skeptics in the Pub is pretty much Trish's sole responsibility. I don't think she's likely to give it up any time soon.

Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites
Another list? What the hell, why not?

Expecting the obvious is not "prediction"

Craig A. Evans, in the title of chapter 32 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, asks "Did Jesus Predict His Violent Death and Resurrection?"

According to the Bible (extensively cited) he probably did. But what does it matter whether or not Jesus did so? Considering what he was up to, he might well have expected to fall foul of the indigenous authorities, the consequences of which were not difficult to foresee.

As for predicting his resurrection, this is what Evans has to say:

Did Jesus anticipate his resurrection? It is probable that he did. Once he began speaking of his death, Jesus very likely began speaking of his vindication through resurrection. Had he not anticipated it would have been very strange, for pious Jews very much believed in the resurrection of the dead.

It would have been strange, apparently, if Jesus had not "anticipated" his resurrection, so it remains unclear what point Evans is trying to make. To echo my response to a previous chapter in this section of the book, "So what?"

---

4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952879

Burnee links for Thursday

Stephen Law: Craig's website response re our debate
Stephen Law analyses William Lane Craig's analysis of their recent debate. (This also usefully provides a 'deep link' to Craig's analysis without registering at Reasonable Faith.)

Incentivizing online activism – a proposal « Skeptical Software Tools
Tim Farley has an interesting idea (yes, another one). But I'm not a gamer, so I'd probably not be any good at this.

Testing psychics « Derren Brown Blog
Why Sally Morgan should submit to a test — if she's a real psychic.

William Lane Craig and the problem of pain | Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers calls out Craig on his mangled "science". I heard Craig's argument about the pain of animals for the first time at his recent debate with Stephen Law. I thought at the time a lot of pet-owners would vehemently disagree with him.

Skepticule Record — Pompey Skeptics in the Pub

Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub was tonight, and very good it was too. Audio will be posted as a Skepticule Record episode in due course. Meanwhile you can listen to last month's talk by Alec Muffett:

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/11/skeprec-007-20111013.html

"Sex, Lies and Instant Messenger"

Enjoy (but not too much...)

Burnee links for Sunday

PRESS RELEASE: Big news for the online atheist community.
The latest herding exercise — maybe this one could work...

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: Coyne vs. Haught - advantage, Coyne
Russell Blackford on John Haught's whining.

What eight years of writing the Bad Science column have taught me | Ben Goldacre | Comment is free | The Guardian
The state of play in Bad Science, and why it's not all bad news (plus lots of links to interesting stuff).

Guardian writer foolishly claims that religion answers factual questions « Why Evolution Is True
Jerry Coyne on Keith Ward's hubristic Guardian piece.

Skeptics in the Planetarium

(Now that I've booked my own tickets for this event, I'm happy to spread the news...)

It's going to be amazing — just look at that line-up! Crispian Jago has all the lovely details, so go to his site for further links and info about the performers.

 There's also a Facebook event page to confirm your attendance (if you want to) and see who else is going. Oh the anticipation...

Moral imperatives explained

It's been a while since I embedded Morality 2, but here's the third instalment of QualiaSoup's excellent YouTube series on morality:

http://youtu.be/sN-yLH4bXAI


Seventeen minutes of astounding moral clarity — definitely worth the wait. So far this series has turned out to be the most lucid, concise and comprehensive analysis of morality I've seen.