evolution
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Atheism, naturalism, and the way things ought to be
In an occasionally thoughtful but mostly silly attempted takedown of the so-called New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and such), philosopher John Gray writes that there is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically — as a human adaptation to living in the world — and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. -John…
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I realize that I haven’t posted in nearly two weeks. Between marking exams, gardening, attempting to solve differential equations and calculate integrals with several hundred terms, inspiration has been lacking. Here are some things I may yet get to: The book launch for Universe or Multiverse, edited by QMW Cosmologist Bernard Carr. Entertaining, for sure,…
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Another reason we should teach evolution and the big bang
…they are part of an an ancient Jewish conspiracy, and so it pisses off the anti-semites…
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The Size of Planets, the Age of the Universe, the Ignorance of the Masses
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[This post is a bit long and diffuse… I may hack it up into bite-sized pieces later…] Just because my job has ‘astro’ in the title, doesn’t mean I know enough to comment on whether or not Pluto is a planet. And there’s plenty of other science-in-the-news… The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decided that…
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Marx: Science and Paradox
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It is … paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things. –Karl Marx, Das Kapital, quoted by Francis Wheen in The Guardian. Or that objects in motion tend…
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What enlightenment?
While I was out last night planning the overthrow of religion with my fellow amoral atheists, the BBC was broadcasting a documentary in which it presented a poll showing that nearly 40% of Britons thought Intelligent Design or Creationism is the best explanation of life on earth. So it appears that Britain, too, is being…
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“Freak chances of evolution in an indifferent cosmos”
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In a criticism of Richard Dawkins’ upcoming series, The Root of All Evil, attacking religion, Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting tries to find space leftover for, well, god: “It’s also right for religion to concede ground to science to explain natural processes; but at the same time, science has to concede that despite its huge advances…
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More light, more science, no subways
Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So it all gets better from now on (Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a perfectly reasonable response to the darkness). But what else? A Republican-appointed member of the federal judiciary has slammed the Intelligent Design crackpots, seeing them for the crypto-creationists they can…
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“They’re just birds”
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Unlike their sister paper, The Guardian, who seem willing to pander to the crackpot anti-evolution right, The Observer not only reports on the Religious Right’s weird valorization of the film March of the Penguins, but is also willing to point out the truth in an editorial (aka leader): If ever the world needed reminding about…
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