Another day, another article on whether religion and evolution can coexist. I have never really understood the position of religious scientists who claim that there is no conflict and it is perfectly possible to accept both the theory of evolution and the existence of a supernatural. If you really understand the concept of evolution there can't be any place for an external force who either directed the process or interfered with the process as it went along. Evolution moves forward by the process of random mutation and mixing of genes through reproduction in conjunction with natural selection. How can you believe in this process, but also believe that man was created in god's image so that there was always some directionality to the evolution of humans and a known endpoint? Did god somehow tweak the environment in such a way that there was only one way that evolution could go? Or did he directly interfere with the process? If he was constantly adjusting, why did he stop about 150,000 years ago and then only start to interact with humans 6,000 years ago? It makes less sense the more I think about it!
I've dabbled a bit in genetic algorithms and Artificial Life, so I can sympathise with his job!
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Monday, 8 December 2008
Another facepalm moment
It's a pity that intelligence and education isn't a barrier to reproduction. I think some people are definitely holding this evolution business back...
Religious 'shun nanotechnology'
Are they really that concerned about the
Maybe they are worried about the competition and that some creatures will be worshipping the Great Creator Craig Venter in a few million years.
Religious 'shun nanotechnology'
Are they really that concerned about the
potential to create life at a nano scale without divine intervention
Maybe they are worried about the competition and that some creatures will be worshipping the Great Creator Craig Venter in a few million years.
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Morality
I get really fed up with religious people telling us that the reasons for the ills in today's society are due to our rejection of religion. See today's moan by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor for example.
The UK is certainly less religious than it used to be, say 50 years ago, and our society is probably worse now than it was then. The problems in the US are a lot worse when you look at measures such as murder, teen pregnancies and drug addiction. Is the US less religious than it used to be? I don't know.
It's interesting that there are studies like those of Gregory Paul that show there is a correlation between sociological problems and religiousness and there is also the work of Phil Zuckerman who has shown that the most stable, balanced, safe, societies are the most secular, non-religious ones such as the Scandinavian countries.
Here's my take on this issue. Societies that have historically had their morality imposed on them from religious authorities have never been forced to think for themselves. It's the equivalent of a parent telling a child to do something 'because I say so'. Once that religious authority loses its influence, then there could well be a loss of moral direction, in the same way as a child might misbehave once a parent loses control.
In a society where morality isn't imposed and could be said to be somewhat subjective, you have to consider for yourself what the consequences of your actions are and take full responsibility for your actions. This internally generated morality will always stay with you.
The UK is certainly less religious than it used to be, say 50 years ago, and our society is probably worse now than it was then. The problems in the US are a lot worse when you look at measures such as murder, teen pregnancies and drug addiction. Is the US less religious than it used to be? I don't know.
It's interesting that there are studies like those of Gregory Paul that show there is a correlation between sociological problems and religiousness and there is also the work of Phil Zuckerman who has shown that the most stable, balanced, safe, societies are the most secular, non-religious ones such as the Scandinavian countries.
Here's my take on this issue. Societies that have historically had their morality imposed on them from religious authorities have never been forced to think for themselves. It's the equivalent of a parent telling a child to do something 'because I say so'. Once that religious authority loses its influence, then there could well be a loss of moral direction, in the same way as a child might misbehave once a parent loses control.
In a society where morality isn't imposed and could be said to be somewhat subjective, you have to consider for yourself what the consequences of your actions are and take full responsibility for your actions. This internally generated morality will always stay with you.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
The Age of Reason
I don't know how I've gone this long without reading it, but I've finally started to read The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. It's very interesting so far and an easy read. It's written from a deist point of view and is as scathing of organized religion as anything from the atheists of today such as Dawkins and Hitchens. I wonder if the deists of the 18th century who became the founding fathers of America would be atheists today when it's not so much of a terrible sin to denounce completely denounce god and religion.
Even in the first few pages, I've found some choice quotes on religion in general
and the Old Testament
The worst thing is that I probably won't have enough time to finish the book until Christmas.
Edit: It just struck me that Thomas Paine looked familiar
Even in the first few pages, I've found some choice quotes on religion in general
The un-natural anything is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration
and the Old Testament
It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
The worst thing is that I probably won't have enough time to finish the book until Christmas.
Edit: It just struck me that Thomas Paine looked familiar
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Catch them while they're young
I've been wondering whether it's easier to decide on your philosophy of life, a particular religion or lack of religion, when you are older or younger.
Like most people in the UK I was brought up in a culturally Christian household. The rest of the family believed in the religion they had been brought with, but didn't go to church and religion didn't really have any effect on our daily lives.
At the age of about 11-12, I decided to take myself off to the local Baptist church and Sunday school to find out what this religion business was all about. I began to realise that I couldn't take all the parables literally, as everyone seemed to, and the whole story started to make less and less sense.
Not long after my church experience, we were given a course in Comparative Religions in school. This finally convinced me that religion was a made-made phenomenon and that all the believers around me were just following the religion that they were brought up in.
So, by the age of 13 I was a devout atheist (although strictly I should say a strong agnostic - just to be logically consistent!). Maybe I was lucky as my parents hadn't forced religion on me, but I didn't ever feel that I had wasted any time or intellectual effort on believing. My 'belief' was just something that I went along with, like Santa or the tooth fairy and giving it up didn't worry me.
I can imagine that if I had truly believed what people had been telling me and I had run my life on that basis, that it would be very difficult to make such a change in philosophy later in life. I guess the longer you follow a particular way of thinking the harder it is to change. Also, you get comfortable with your way of thinking and you may not want to start thinking about it too deeply in case you realise you have been wasting your time.
I'm not saying that everyone ought to believe the same as me, but as most children are brought up in a society that is culturally religious, they should be given full sight of all the alternative viewpoints (through comparative religion or critical thinking courses) so they realise there is a choice and they don't have to believe everything they have been told.
Like most people in the UK I was brought up in a culturally Christian household. The rest of the family believed in the religion they had been brought with, but didn't go to church and religion didn't really have any effect on our daily lives.
At the age of about 11-12, I decided to take myself off to the local Baptist church and Sunday school to find out what this religion business was all about. I began to realise that I couldn't take all the parables literally, as everyone seemed to, and the whole story started to make less and less sense.
Not long after my church experience, we were given a course in Comparative Religions in school. This finally convinced me that religion was a made-made phenomenon and that all the believers around me were just following the religion that they were brought up in.
So, by the age of 13 I was a devout atheist (although strictly I should say a strong agnostic - just to be logically consistent!). Maybe I was lucky as my parents hadn't forced religion on me, but I didn't ever feel that I had wasted any time or intellectual effort on believing. My 'belief' was just something that I went along with, like Santa or the tooth fairy and giving it up didn't worry me.
I can imagine that if I had truly believed what people had been telling me and I had run my life on that basis, that it would be very difficult to make such a change in philosophy later in life. I guess the longer you follow a particular way of thinking the harder it is to change. Also, you get comfortable with your way of thinking and you may not want to start thinking about it too deeply in case you realise you have been wasting your time.
I'm not saying that everyone ought to believe the same as me, but as most children are brought up in a society that is culturally religious, they should be given full sight of all the alternative viewpoints (through comparative religion or critical thinking courses) so they realise there is a choice and they don't have to believe everything they have been told.
Friday, 21 November 2008
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Machines Like Us 2
A few months ago I found an interesting site called Machines Like Us. It covers a whole range of subjects that I'm interested in - Atheism, Science, Technology, Robotics and Artificial Life/Artificial Intelligence. It looks like they have now started to keep the site up to date, so I'm going to keep a closer eye on it.
By the way, still no news on this front...
By the way, still no news on this front...
Sunday, 16 November 2008
The Dinosaurs Went in Two by Two
I must be a glutton for punishment. Last year we took the children to Noah's Ark Farm Zoo at Wraxall near Bristol. At the time, we thought it was just a standard play farm, but it turned out to be much more than that. The place is run by creationists, so the walls are full of creationist posters and there is a big exhibition of the story of Noah's Ark (which of course is literally true). Anyway, a few months ago we won a prize in a raffle. It was two tickets to Noah's Ark. We decided to go along yesterday for a day out as the children enjoyed themselves last time and I would be more prepared this time around.
Before we got to the main play area where the posters were, we saw a number of other notices pinned up, like:
and a long list titled
This was taken from the book 'The Origin of Man' by Professor Stuart Burgess of Bristol University. This person is actually a real life professor in a good department in a good university. Surprisingly, given the subject matter of his books, he is not a biologist, but a mechanical engineer. When I googled him, I found this very unflattering description by the British Centre for Science Education.
In the Ark Exhibition room there was a curious diagram showing how all the animals would be arranged. It was interesting that the T-Rex was located between the Giraffe and the hay store (and underneath the fresh water tank). Doesn't look like good planning to me.
Of course, any logical consideration of the ark story obviously falls apart very quickly. What about all the insects, worms, birds, etc? How anyone can believe this is literally true is incomprehensible.
We managed to pick up a couple of good leaflets. One was entitled 'Can Life arise Spontaneously' and was produced by the Creation Science Movement and the other was 'Evolution - A Theory in Crisis' actually produced by the farm itself.
From reading around Noah's Ark and looking at the leaflets and websites they refer to (especially http://www.earthhistory.org.uk) it seems like the theory they subscribe to is a weird variation on creationism called Recolonisation Theory. Basically, it is a compromised half-baked idea that admits that standard creationism doesn't make sense, but, as they are committed to their religious view of history, they have to use the same tactics of twisting facts to fit their bizarre story.
The basic facts seem to be:
and
There's a section on the Earth History website called In-Depth Discussions which doesn't discuss anything, just gives their own view of the deal.
Anyway, Answers in Genesis don't like it, so it can't be all that bad!
Before we got to the main play area where the posters were, we saw a number of other notices pinned up, like:
Rhinos appear, like other mammal families, suddenly in the fossil records. Rhino fossils appear in the Eocene era, in the same geological period as camels, dogs, cats, shrews, moles, horses and many other mammals that we would recognise today. A few changes have taken place in each, but they are largely as they were then.
and a long list titled
33 reasons why humans did NOT come from Apes
This was taken from the book 'The Origin of Man' by Professor Stuart Burgess of Bristol University. This person is actually a real life professor in a good department in a good university. Surprisingly, given the subject matter of his books, he is not a biologist, but a mechanical engineer. When I googled him, I found this very unflattering description by the British Centre for Science Education.
In the Ark Exhibition room there was a curious diagram showing how all the animals would be arranged. It was interesting that the T-Rex was located between the Giraffe and the hay store (and underneath the fresh water tank). Doesn't look like good planning to me.
Of course, any logical consideration of the ark story obviously falls apart very quickly. What about all the insects, worms, birds, etc? How anyone can believe this is literally true is incomprehensible.
We managed to pick up a couple of good leaflets. One was entitled 'Can Life arise Spontaneously' and was produced by the Creation Science Movement and the other was 'Evolution - A Theory in Crisis' actually produced by the farm itself.
From reading around Noah's Ark and looking at the leaflets and websites they refer to (especially http://www.earthhistory.org.uk) it seems like the theory they subscribe to is a weird variation on creationism called Recolonisation Theory. Basically, it is a compromised half-baked idea that admits that standard creationism doesn't make sense, but, as they are committed to their religious view of history, they have to use the same tactics of twisting facts to fit their bizarre story.
The basic facts seem to be:
- After The Creation, all life on earth was destroyed by cataclysms from above in the form of asteroids and from below in the form of water rising up
- Did I say 'all life'? I forgot to say, a 600 year old man built a big boat and saved a pair of each living creature
- There is a fossil record showing a development of life over a number of years. However, they compress the timescale into thousands of years rather than millions (obviously you have to accept that all radio isotope dating and astronomy is wrong)
- To accept the above you need to accept that the speed of light used to be a lot faster than it is now (I liked this one!). Here's a couple of quotes
Rates of radioactive decay are proportional to c. Accordingly, these rates would also have been higher
and
It is currently unclear whether the value of c was highest at the time of the Creation or at the Cataclysm. It had declined to close to its present value by the second millennium BC.
- Certain creatures, such as mammals and birds appear suddenly in the fossil record with no predecessors
There's a section on the Earth History website called In-Depth Discussions which doesn't discuss anything, just gives their own view of the deal.
Anyway, Answers in Genesis don't like it, so it can't be all that bad!
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Am I a bad parent?
I know Richard Dawkins has referred to the labelling of children as Christian or Muslim as a form of mental child abuse. I've just converted my children (4 and 7) to using Linux instead of Windows. Am I just as bad? I guess I'll have to do the same as I do when I talk to them about religion.
'Lots of people around the world use different operating systems. Just because Daddy using Linux, then don't feel you need to do the same. I'll love you just as much if you use Windows when you grow up. Just don't go all weird and start experimenting with a Mac'
'Lots of people around the world use different operating systems. Just because Daddy using Linux, then don't feel you need to do the same. I'll love you just as much if you use Windows when you grow up. Just don't go all weird and start experimenting with a Mac'
Restoring My Faith in Human Nature
One of the big discussion points between atheists and theists is 'do you need religion in order to be moral?'. Hmm, just saw this headline from the BBC pop up on my news aggregator...
Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine
Funny, I don't remember seeing anything like 'Atheists and agnostics brawl at science museum'.
Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine
Funny, I don't remember seeing anything like 'Atheists and agnostics brawl at science museum'.
MythTV
I haven't been blogging for the last few weeks as my spare time (normally late at night) has been taken up with experimenting with MythTV. MythTV is a really neat collection of programs for turning a Linux computer into personal video recorder (PDR).
I've been playing around with Linux for a year or so, but I haven't found anything in particular that I could really test my Linux system with. About a month ago I saw a Linux magazine that featured Mythbuntu. This is a special release of Ubuntu with all the MythTV software bundled in. After reading the magazine, I thought I'd give it a go.
I installed the most recent release of Ubuntu 8.10, installed the MythTV software and bought a cheap Hauppage WinTV tuner card from EBay. As I have found with all things Linux, nothing is easy. I followed the helpful guide here to get going, but there are lots of annoying little details that need to be sorted out that you don't get told about. E.g. changing ownership of files and sorting out video card settings.
I have just about got it working the way I want to. I can schedule recordings and watch them back, watch (and pause) live TV and watch pre-recorded videos (with added IMDB meta data). There are a couple of things that I haven't quite figured out yet.
The first two of these are reasonably standard features, I just need to spend a little more time fiddling around. The third one is proving more difficult. I running Ubuntu on my old Toshiba laptop. My thinking was that, once I had recorded programs, I could take the laptop away and watch the programs at my convenience. Also, it makes it easier if I need to use a keyboard to enter data. The problem is that the laptop has a Trident Cyberblade video card and, as far as I can tell, Ubuntu only has decent support for nVidia and ATI video cards. There doesn't appear to be any way to get an output from my s-video output. I have found that I can get a VGA output working, so there may be a workaround with this bit of kit. I don't give up easily!
If I get all this working, the next thing will be to connect up a remote control and connect up my regular media player (previously my best ever gadget buy) to the MythTV setup as external storage for my movies.
As I normally do, I'll spend weeks of late nights playing around with some new gadget, then lose interest for a while. I think I'll keep at this one for a while though. We'll see...
I've been playing around with Linux for a year or so, but I haven't found anything in particular that I could really test my Linux system with. About a month ago I saw a Linux magazine that featured Mythbuntu. This is a special release of Ubuntu with all the MythTV software bundled in. After reading the magazine, I thought I'd give it a go.
I installed the most recent release of Ubuntu 8.10, installed the MythTV software and bought a cheap Hauppage WinTV tuner card from EBay. As I have found with all things Linux, nothing is easy. I followed the helpful guide here to get going, but there are lots of annoying little details that need to be sorted out that you don't get told about. E.g. changing ownership of files and sorting out video card settings.
I have just about got it working the way I want to. I can schedule recordings and watch them back, watch (and pause) live TV and watch pre-recorded videos (with added IMDB meta data). There are a couple of things that I haven't quite figured out yet.
- Automatically stripping adverts from a recorded TV show
- Transcoding the standard MPEG2 format into DIVX (The standard format takes about 2GB an hour)
- Playing back through the TV
The first two of these are reasonably standard features, I just need to spend a little more time fiddling around. The third one is proving more difficult. I running Ubuntu on my old Toshiba laptop. My thinking was that, once I had recorded programs, I could take the laptop away and watch the programs at my convenience. Also, it makes it easier if I need to use a keyboard to enter data. The problem is that the laptop has a Trident Cyberblade video card and, as far as I can tell, Ubuntu only has decent support for nVidia and ATI video cards. There doesn't appear to be any way to get an output from my s-video output. I have found that I can get a VGA output working, so there may be a workaround with this bit of kit. I don't give up easily!
If I get all this working, the next thing will be to connect up a remote control and connect up my regular media player (previously my best ever gadget buy) to the MythTV setup as external storage for my movies.
As I normally do, I'll spend weeks of late nights playing around with some new gadget, then lose interest for a while. I think I'll keep at this one for a while though. We'll see...
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Don't just read the headlines
I'm normally a fan of the BBC, particularly the News website. However, even they let through some sloppy journalism sometimes. There was health story earlier this week about a man in a coma who apparently experienced a miraculous recovery due to some unusual treatment. My radar is well tuned to quackery and poor science, so I took a look.
Magnetic field 'aids coma victim'
Generally, any treatment or intervention that seems to be too good to be true, is just that. Maybe this treatment works, maybe it doesn't. However, this appears to be an unconventional treatment applied to just one person. This is not how a scientific trial of a treatment should work. Reporting on a single case like this is bad enough. What made it worse was that the BBC pulled out a quote from another scientist, Dr John Whyte of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia and stuck that prominently on the article:
This seems to be an endorsement of the treatment. However, when you read the full article, this quote is topped and tailed by the following quotes:
and
This is quite a different view and is the reasonable response I would expect from a scientist. Maybe I'm being harsh on the person who wrote the article as they probably wouldn't be responsible for the headline and the quote extraction.
Magnetic field 'aids coma victim'
Generally, any treatment or intervention that seems to be too good to be true, is just that. Maybe this treatment works, maybe it doesn't. However, this appears to be an unconventional treatment applied to just one person. This is not how a scientific trial of a treatment should work. Reporting on a single case like this is bad enough. What made it worse was that the BBC pulled out a quote from another scientist, Dr John Whyte of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia and stuck that prominently on the article:
I believe that electromagnetic treatments such as deep brain stimulation, direct current transcranial stimulation, and TMS may all have therapeutic promise
This seems to be an endorsement of the treatment. However, when you read the full article, this quote is topped and tailed by the following quotes:
even eight months after a brain injury, spontaneous improvement of this type was "not uncommon".
and
single cases provide very weak evidence except when treatment occurs very late (so spontaneous recovery should be minimal) and the patient is studied for a considerable interval both before and after the treatment.
This is quite a different view and is the reasonable response I would expect from a scientist. Maybe I'm being harsh on the person who wrote the article as they probably wouldn't be responsible for the headline and the quote extraction.
Monday, 6 October 2008
3 for the price of 1
When I checked the BBC News website today, the top 3 emailed news report were all related to religion and none of them showed the subject in a great light.
The first one, here, was the most interesting. It concerns the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known copy of the Bible. Quoting the article,
It's interesting that some of the comments on the article concede that the bible was written by man, not god, but that it was 'guided' by god. It seems obvious that here's a collection of odds and ends that has been collated over hundreds of years, many years after the events are alleged to have taken place. The crazy part is that some people believe that their version of the book is absolutely 100% true and they will live their life by it. What do they do when different versions of the book appear? Do their heads explode?
The second story was titled 'Pope criticises pursuit of wealth'. I'm not sure which palace the leader of this multi-million (billion?) dollar organisation was speaking from. I hope the credit crunch doesn't effect them too much.
The third story was a bit weird. Another example of religious people wrapping themselves in knots trying to reconcile Bronze Age ideas with the real world. This one was about ultra-orthodox Jews making sure their mobile phones are kosher. I suppose that any group that deliberately puts itself at a disadvantage will eventually fade away.
The first one, here, was the most interesting. It concerns the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known copy of the Bible. Quoting the article,
For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there will be some very uncomfortable questions to answer. It shows there have been thousands of alterations to today's bible.
It's interesting that some of the comments on the article concede that the bible was written by man, not god, but that it was 'guided' by god. It seems obvious that here's a collection of odds and ends that has been collated over hundreds of years, many years after the events are alleged to have taken place. The crazy part is that some people believe that their version of the book is absolutely 100% true and they will live their life by it. What do they do when different versions of the book appear? Do their heads explode?
The second story was titled 'Pope criticises pursuit of wealth'. I'm not sure which palace the leader of this multi-million (billion?) dollar organisation was speaking from. I hope the credit crunch doesn't effect them too much.
The third story was a bit weird. Another example of religious people wrapping themselves in knots trying to reconcile Bronze Age ideas with the real world. This one was about ultra-orthodox Jews making sure their mobile phones are kosher. I suppose that any group that deliberately puts itself at a disadvantage will eventually fade away.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
From sauna to supernatural
After finishing in the gym tonight, I popped into the sauna. The gym supplies all the daily national and local newspapers, and someone had left a copy of the Western Daily Press in the sauna. It was a bit crinkly, but I thought I'd have a flick through as it was there.
There was a bizarre article about a local businessman who stood to win £1,000,000 from a £100 bet. The bet was that life after death would be proven by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the story didn't appear in the online version of the newspaper, but I made a note of his website, Now That's Weird, and looked it up later and did a few other searches on the guy in question, Ross Hemsworth (a "well known paranormal radio and TV presenter, scientific investigator of anomalous phenomena and an intriguing and entertaining speaker at events worldwide" according to his website). There was a story about the bet here (No, Paranormal Review isn't one of my regular reads). His website promotes Glastonbury Radio. Glastonbury is just down the road from me (and definitely is weird), so perhaps I ought to have a listen!
It looks like his bet is related to this piece of research at the University of Southampton. The title of the article mentions 'life after death', although the article itself actually talks about near-death and out-of-body experiences. I'm going to keep an eye on this, but I have a feeling that we are not going to hear much more.
When I did a search for Ross Hemsworth on Google, it came up with a entry from the great man himself, James Randi. I've included the text here.
This dates back a bit, I wonder if the JREF has had any recent communication with Mr Hemsworth
There was a bizarre article about a local businessman who stood to win £1,000,000 from a £100 bet. The bet was that life after death would be proven by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the story didn't appear in the online version of the newspaper, but I made a note of his website, Now That's Weird, and looked it up later and did a few other searches on the guy in question, Ross Hemsworth (a "well known paranormal radio and TV presenter, scientific investigator of anomalous phenomena and an intriguing and entertaining speaker at events worldwide" according to his website). There was a story about the bet here (No, Paranormal Review isn't one of my regular reads). His website promotes Glastonbury Radio. Glastonbury is just down the road from me (and definitely is weird), so perhaps I ought to have a listen!
It looks like his bet is related to this piece of research at the University of Southampton. The title of the article mentions 'life after death', although the article itself actually talks about near-death and out-of-body experiences. I'm going to keep an eye on this, but I have a feeling that we are not going to hear much more.
When I did a search for Ross Hemsworth on Google, it came up with a entry from the great man himself, James Randi. I've included the text here.
Reader Barry Moyle informs me:Barry, you must recognize that the million-dollar challenge is probably the single most-feared element in the belief system these people have constructed. They can't respond to it, because they know they can't perform as they fantasize they can. This delusion is so cherished, so important to them, that they will invent, distort, and lie in order to avoid facing the truth. Indeed, truth is their greatest enemy, and it is brought up to them by the JREF challenge, every day.
You may be aware of the website www.phantomorfraud.com. I sent an e-mail to these people questioning their statement: "Dowsing works, that has been proven time & again." "Dowsing" is listed as a topic on left hand side of their home page. I also suggested they should apply for your million dollar prize & forwarded a copy of your "The matter of Dowsing" from Swift, vol.2 no 3/4. January 1999.
I received a somewhat rude reply, addressed to "Mr. Eyes Closed", from a Mr. Ross Hemsworth. Amongst other things, he said "it's not our job to convince other skeptics, or indeed to chase money from other skeptics who require convincing" and "being a dowser myself, I KNOW it works"!
However, what interested me is his saying "I am in daily contact with James Randi, and he is very aware of the research we are doing." I know you are a busy man Mr. Randi but I would be very pleased to have your comment on that. He also asks that I do not waste his time by further contacting him because I do not have an open mind. I shall oblige him.
Ross Hemsworth has written me only once — on an entirely different matter — but I am certainly not "in daily contact" with him. He makes such claims because he is alarmed, but understandably so, because he sees the great threat that is offered to his self-delusion, if he is in any way called upon to face reality.
This dates back a bit, I wonder if the JREF has had any recent communication with Mr Hemsworth
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Spot the logical fallacy
This week I've spotted a couple of daft articles and letters that demonstrate the general lack of critical thinking around today.
The first one was in the National Trust magazine. There were a couple of letters in response to a recent NT article on gardening by the phases of the moon. On the face of it, it sounds a bit weird, but should be testable.
I found a couple of interesting resources on moon-planting. One is a calendar that advises which things to plant according to the phase of the moon and other astrological signs.
Here's the letter
I was interested in the article on planting by the moon. This is something I've been doing for years - and have been teased because of it! But I swear by the method Ed Ikin described, and to prove it, this year I planted some runner beans before the end of April - although the new moon was to be later in May. Result: only two beans germinated. I planted a second batch on 5 May and within less than a fortnight had 90 per cent germination. The best method is to cut the inside of a kitchen roll into three, fill with soil and pop a bean into each. The whole lot can then be planted with little disturbance to the roots.
Apart from the obvious point that the second batch were planted at a later date (probably warmer condition, though it's hard to tell in this country), it's so typical that someone will try a particular technique, find it works and then prescribe the success to that technique without considering the other factors at play.
The other item was in my local paper, The Weston Mercury. It concerned the sad story of a couple who have both recently contracted cancer. She was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma in November 2007 and he was diagnosed with leukaemia in February 2008. It's an awful thing to happen to anyone - my dad died of cancer, but the reason for the story being in the paper was that they claim that their illnesses result from being caught up in the Asian tsunami in 2004.
They say they can
trace their ill health back to the day when they were forced to shelter on an iron roof after the wave struck.
They
asked doctors if there could be a link - they told her it was possible but nothing could be proved
The wife says
I'm convinced it has something to do with it. Before the tsunami I was fit and healthy, but afterwards I was having five or six weeks off work at a time...It was like I had my immune system lowered. I would get ill all the time
The husband says
I'm a bit more scientific about it, but the tsunami is the only common factor. Everything has gone downhill since that date and we have not been able to pull ourselves out of it
It's a weird kind of non-story. They don't appear to be trying to gain anything from the story, just stating what they think is to blame for their illnesses.
Maybe cancer can be triggered by stress, maybe not. I'm not doctor (well, not that sort of doctor). The point in both these cases is that people seem to be happier if they can find some pattern or reason for what happens to them or around them. I'm there are more than one logical fallacy in each of these cases, but they definitely seem to come under post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e. assuming that a temporal relationship between two event implies a causal relationship.
Monday, 8 September 2008
More business for Claims Direct?
Now here's an interesting development...
The church of scientology is being taken to court in France for 'organized fraud'. There are some more details in here on the BBC and here in the Washington Post. This particular case is related to a woman being persuaded to hand over money in return for items such as courses and books that would, I guess, improve her mental and spiritual condition. She then claimed that these were fraudulent. I'm not really up on scientology, but are their claims for the wellbeing of their 'clients' significantly different to that of any other religion?
Would it be possible to sue the church of scientology if their claims were accepted to be true? Would it be equally possible to sue some other religions based on their claims?
The church of scientology is being taken to court in France for 'organized fraud'. There are some more details in here on the BBC and here in the Washington Post. This particular case is related to a woman being persuaded to hand over money in return for items such as courses and books that would, I guess, improve her mental and spiritual condition. She then claimed that these were fraudulent. I'm not really up on scientology, but are their claims for the wellbeing of their 'clients' significantly different to that of any other religion?
Would it be possible to sue the church of scientology if their claims were accepted to be true? Would it be equally possible to sue some other religions based on their claims?
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Leave them kids alone
As the parent of a child who attends a local village school (and a second one starting this week) that has the misfortune to be Church of England Voluntary Controlled, I was concerned to see this report from the National Secular Society. We don't send our children to a VC school out of choice - the church controls almost all village schools in the area. In fact, a quick check on the net shows that there are 7 primary/first schools in the area and they are all controlled by the Church of England. To compound the problem, the middle school and secondary school that take children from the area are also C of E.
The history of the VC and VA (Voluntary Aided) status seems to be a hangover from the donation of land or buildings by the church in the distant past. The annoying thing is that the church still gets a say in the running of the school and the appointment of teachers even though they don't contribute anything towards the upkeep of the school or the teachers' salaries. The money comes from our taxes
The report from the NSS shows that the government are trying to make the situation worse. It's bad enough that the schools are obliged to employ a teacher who can teach RE. Now a proposed change in the law makes it possible for a VC school to restrict the post of head teacher to someone who has the 'right' religious views. Previously, it was not permitted for a school to restrict the head post to so-called 'reserved teacher'. The actual definition in the Act (School Standards and Framework Act 1998) is
The proposed law change means that it is possible for a school to reserve the head teacher role for someone who meets the criteria above. So, now the head teacher has to live a 'Christian' life in and out of school and if the governors of the school decide so, no non-Christian would be allowed to take the role of head. By the way, the local vicar always gets a seat on the board of governors.
To be fair in our case, the amount of religion that the children are 'taught' is minimal and so far we have managed to counter it in our son by letting him know that people believe lots of different things and that you shouldn't believe something just because someone important tells you that it is true. He knows that we don't believe in god, but we aren't telling him what to think, just that he is allowed to work it out for himself.
There has been a lot of discussion in the media over the last few weeks about faith schools (like here and here). A big problem I have with the supporters of faith schools is when they talk about the ethos of the school as if there are certain aspects of behaviour, ethics or morality that could be taught in a religious context. I've found through a recent diocesan inspection of our local school that you pick out all the good bits, like politeness, good manners and hard work and call them Christian values. Parents who send their children to religious schools do so because they appear to get better results. Of course, allowing a school to select its pupils on any grounds gives it the opportunity to weed out less able pupils and less interested (and possibly less wealthy) parents. The sooner we removed all religion from schools (apart from some healthy Comparative Religion classes), the better. If anyone can provide some evidence that faith schools are better because of their faith, then I'd like to see it.
The history of the VC and VA (Voluntary Aided) status seems to be a hangover from the donation of land or buildings by the church in the distant past. The annoying thing is that the church still gets a say in the running of the school and the appointment of teachers even though they don't contribute anything towards the upkeep of the school or the teachers' salaries. The money comes from our taxes
The report from the NSS shows that the government are trying to make the situation worse. It's bad enough that the schools are obliged to employ a teacher who can teach RE. Now a proposed change in the law makes it possible for a VC school to restrict the post of head teacher to someone who has the 'right' religious views. Previously, it was not permitted for a school to restrict the head post to so-called 'reserved teacher'. The actual definition in the Act (School Standards and Framework Act 1998) is
(5) If the school is a voluntary aided school—
(a) preference may be given, in connection with the appointment, remuneration or promotion of teachers at the school, to persons—
(i) whose religious opinions are in accordance with the tenets of the religion or religious denomination specified in relation to the school under section 69(4), or
(ii) who attend religious worship in accordance with those tenets, or
(iii) who give, or are willing to give, religious education at the school in accordance with those tenets; and
(b) regard may be had, in connection with the termination of the employment of any teacher at the school, to any conduct on his part which is incompatible with the precepts, or with the upholding of the tenets, of the religion or religious denomination so specified.
The proposed law change means that it is possible for a school to reserve the head teacher role for someone who meets the criteria above. So, now the head teacher has to live a 'Christian' life in and out of school and if the governors of the school decide so, no non-Christian would be allowed to take the role of head. By the way, the local vicar always gets a seat on the board of governors.
To be fair in our case, the amount of religion that the children are 'taught' is minimal and so far we have managed to counter it in our son by letting him know that people believe lots of different things and that you shouldn't believe something just because someone important tells you that it is true. He knows that we don't believe in god, but we aren't telling him what to think, just that he is allowed to work it out for himself.
There has been a lot of discussion in the media over the last few weeks about faith schools (like here and here). A big problem I have with the supporters of faith schools is when they talk about the ethos of the school as if there are certain aspects of behaviour, ethics or morality that could be taught in a religious context. I've found through a recent diocesan inspection of our local school that you pick out all the good bits, like politeness, good manners and hard work and call them Christian values. Parents who send their children to religious schools do so because they appear to get better results. Of course, allowing a school to select its pupils on any grounds gives it the opportunity to weed out less able pupils and less interested (and possibly less wealthy) parents. The sooner we removed all religion from schools (apart from some healthy Comparative Religion classes), the better. If anyone can provide some evidence that faith schools are better because of their faith, then I'd like to see it.
Monday, 18 August 2008
The Genius of Charles Darwin
Just watched the 3rd part of The Genius of Charles Darwin (presented by Richard Dawkins) and I must say that this was Richard's best TV performance yet.The tone and pace of the programme was perfect. I'm now getting less frustrated by the collection of ignorant creationists, as Richard's technique of letting them talk their way into deeper and deeper holes just makes them look like the idiots they are.
I was not impressed by the wishy-washy science teachers who didn't want to offend the feelings of their students by emphasizing the truth of scientific evidence over the 'evidence' of their religious beliefs.
I thought the segment with the Archbish of C was quite funny. He really was squirming when Richard pushed him on whether he thought that the virgin birth was a scientific fact and all but admitted that his views were a bit silly and didn't make any sense as a truthful representation of the world. It was good of him to appear on the programme, but if he is the top guy in the C of E, then we don't have much to worry about!
I was not impressed by the wishy-washy science teachers who didn't want to offend the feelings of their students by emphasizing the truth of scientific evidence over the 'evidence' of their religious beliefs.
I thought the segment with the Archbish of C was quite funny. He really was squirming when Richard pushed him on whether he thought that the virgin birth was a scientific fact and all but admitted that his views were a bit silly and didn't make any sense as a truthful representation of the world. It was good of him to appear on the programme, but if he is the top guy in the C of E, then we don't have much to worry about!
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Why does ethics have to equal religion?
I've been keeping a close eye on the lead up to the US elections. I'm not sure whether I've become more politically aware, or whether I've just been following more US blogs and podcasts over the last few months. One story that I spotted today was on the good old BBC, however. It was a debate between McCain and Obama. Nothing unusual so far. The odd thing in this case was that it was billed as a 'religious forum', hosted by the pastor of a mega church (that phrase makes me shudder) called Rick Warren.
The reports I've read so far don't really spell out why the questions asked of the candidates were particularly religious and why they couldn't have equally been asked in a secular context on the ethical and moral beliefs of the two men. Abortion, same-sex marriage, teen pregnancies and, more personally, "What was your greatest moral failure?", "Who are the three wisest people in your life?", "Why do you want to be president?".
Why do questions like this need to be asked in a religious setting? If I wanted to vote for someone, I would want to know how he came to hold his views on a particular subject. If somebody is against same-sex marriage or abortion in any situation, then I'd expect to hear reasonable argument about why that is a sensible position to hold. Just saying "That's my position because my religion says so" doesn't give me a lot of confidence in someone who has to make important decisions based on many sources of evidence and opinion.
To pick out one of these "moral" issues, I find the obsession with same-sex marriage particularly annoying. Apart from the obvious point that it's nothing to do with anyone else, the argument often seems to over a matter of semantics. Obama was quoted as saying that marriage should only be a "union between a man and a woman", but he supported same-sex civil unions. If there is no legal difference between a marriage and a civil union, then is the argument just over m-word? Some even argue that the only true marriage is a religious one. Of course, what they mean by this is a Christian marriage ceremony, pushing away other religions as well as secularists.
I once heard someone from one of the humanist organizations suggesting that we could leave the word 'marriage' as the description for the Christian ceremony and everyone still goes has to go through a civil process to formalize their union. At first I thought this was a good idea. Of course, everyone would still refer to the civil unions as 'marriages' and 'weddings', whatever the formal designation. The other reason it would be a bad idea is that marriage didn't ever start off with religious connotations. Marriages were going on long before it became a Christian ceremony in the Middle Ages. The Romans even had legal same-sex marriages!
It would be interesting if any politican who made a statement on a moral matter actually explained why they held that view rather than just refering to the standard line of the party they belong to or the religion they happened to be born into.
The reports I've read so far don't really spell out why the questions asked of the candidates were particularly religious and why they couldn't have equally been asked in a secular context on the ethical and moral beliefs of the two men. Abortion, same-sex marriage, teen pregnancies and, more personally, "What was your greatest moral failure?", "Who are the three wisest people in your life?", "Why do you want to be president?".
Why do questions like this need to be asked in a religious setting? If I wanted to vote for someone, I would want to know how he came to hold his views on a particular subject. If somebody is against same-sex marriage or abortion in any situation, then I'd expect to hear reasonable argument about why that is a sensible position to hold. Just saying "That's my position because my religion says so" doesn't give me a lot of confidence in someone who has to make important decisions based on many sources of evidence and opinion.
To pick out one of these "moral" issues, I find the obsession with same-sex marriage particularly annoying. Apart from the obvious point that it's nothing to do with anyone else, the argument often seems to over a matter of semantics. Obama was quoted as saying that marriage should only be a "union between a man and a woman", but he supported same-sex civil unions. If there is no legal difference between a marriage and a civil union, then is the argument just over m-word? Some even argue that the only true marriage is a religious one. Of course, what they mean by this is a Christian marriage ceremony, pushing away other religions as well as secularists.
I once heard someone from one of the humanist organizations suggesting that we could leave the word 'marriage' as the description for the Christian ceremony and everyone still goes has to go through a civil process to formalize their union. At first I thought this was a good idea. Of course, everyone would still refer to the civil unions as 'marriages' and 'weddings', whatever the formal designation. The other reason it would be a bad idea is that marriage didn't ever start off with religious connotations. Marriages were going on long before it became a Christian ceremony in the Middle Ages. The Romans even had legal same-sex marriages!
It would be interesting if any politican who made a statement on a moral matter actually explained why they held that view rather than just refering to the standard line of the party they belong to or the religion they happened to be born into.
Monday, 11 August 2008
Atheist Blogroll
My blog has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Name that tune
When I was watching the Olympic highlights on the BBC yesterday, I thought I recognized the music they were playing. I realised that it was Hong Kong Garden by Siouxie and the Banshees (incidentally, the first single I ever bought), but played in a plinky-plonky Chinese style. I wonder what they are planning for London 2012? Anarchy in the UK performed by the London Symphony Orchestra?
Liquid Engineering?
I've never quite understood advertising and sponsorship deals. I was looking at the Castrol website for work the other day and I found out that Castrol were the official suppliers of engine oil to the Euro 2008 Championships. Would you be more inclined to put certain oil in your car (or, in our particular case, aircraft landing gear) because they were connected with football? Anyway, at least we now know what Christiano Ronaldo puts on his hair...
Thursday, 7 August 2008
No, No, No (Noe, Know...?)
Common spelling mistakes should be accepted into everyday use, not corrected, a lecturer has said. Ken Smith of Bucks New University says the most common mistakes should be accepted as "variant spellings".
I'll accept this when I accept that Bucks New University (formerly High Wycombe Discount Carpet Warehouse) is a genuine centre of learning.
More ALife
I posted yesterday about the Artificial Life conference in the UK this week and I was surprised about how little the subject seems to have moved on since I was involved a decade ago. One of the things I did back then was to interview a futurologist at BT, Chris Winter. Chris had a tank full of ants in his office and he told me how he was studying them so he could use the ants' method of simple individuals following a small number of simple rules to produce a complex, self-regulatory, self-repairing network.
BBC's second ALife story in two days talks about the same ideas from BT and they don't seem to have got much further either...
BBC's second ALife story in two days talks about the same ideas from BT and they don't seem to have got much further either...
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
That's (Artificial) Life
My news aggregator picked up this story today. It's all about the efforts of a German university to use Artificial Life techniques to evolve realistic animal and human motion. The basic idea is that you build a model that has the same constraints as a real system, then genetic algorithms and neural networks to get your model come up with the best solution to the goal that you have set. It looks quite nice, but it doesn't seem to have moved on a great deal since the work of Karl Sims that I first encountered a decade ago. This was back in the good old days when I was involved with Artificial Life as part of my job.
The reason that the BBC picked up the story is because ALife XI is taking part in Winchester this week. I attended Alife V in Los Angeles a few years back and it was great fun. It was such a contrast to the normal academic conferences that I was used to. As well as the engineers and scientists there were also biologists, film makers and performance artists. Watching how the evolution of biological systems or whole ecosystems could be modelled and powerful and efficient the evolutionary process could be was fascinating.
Perhaps the brainwashed closed-minded students that Richard Dawkins had to deal with in his latest TV program would benefit from seeing how exciting and interesting ALife and evolution can be.
The reason that the BBC picked up the story is because ALife XI is taking part in Winchester this week. I attended Alife V in Los Angeles a few years back and it was great fun. It was such a contrast to the normal academic conferences that I was used to. As well as the engineers and scientists there were also biologists, film makers and performance artists. Watching how the evolution of biological systems or whole ecosystems could be modelled and powerful and efficient the evolutionary process could be was fascinating.
Perhaps the brainwashed closed-minded students that Richard Dawkins had to deal with in his latest TV program would benefit from seeing how exciting and interesting ALife and evolution can be.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Was school always like this?
I had my son's end of year school report yesterday (he is 7 1/2). While he was rated as above average in all subjects (of course!), the teachers were critical in one particular area - something that they had previously brought up with us. They said that he always wants to take time over his work, particularly writing and drawing, and likes to make sure it is correct and accurate before he finishes it. When they first mentioned this a few months ago we took it as a compliment! They felt it that wasn't a good trait and it was far more important to get something finished, however badly, in the little time available while they rushed from one subject to another, rather than spend time doing something properly.
Even at home he will spend hours drawing very detailed pictures or building complex models out of lego. If he gets something wrong, he will scrap it and start over again.
I always thought that attention to detail and the ability to concentrate on one task for a long period were good things. It's bad enough that today's internet culture is giving a generation of children with the attention span of a goldfish - it's another thing when this is reinforced by schools.
Even at home he will spend hours drawing very detailed pictures or building complex models out of lego. If he gets something wrong, he will scrap it and start over again.
I always thought that attention to detail and the ability to concentrate on one task for a long period were good things. It's bad enough that today's internet culture is giving a generation of children with the attention span of a goldfish - it's another thing when this is reinforced by schools.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Freedom to be wrong
I'm currently reading "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill and there is one section early on that jumped out at me.
It's that last sentence that I found particularly interesting. The first example that came to mind was of the debate between those who accept evolution and those who believe in a religious version of creation. Does it strengthen the position of a true viewpoint to be tested against a falsehood rather than avoiding the debate? I know Richard Dawkins refuses to debate creationists because it is not possible to hold a sensible debate based on evidence and reasoned argument against someone who doesn't play by the same rules of evidence and reason. After hearing 'debates' between biologists and creationists who refuse to accept the existence of transitional fossils I can see his point.
I'm wondering if the nature of public debate was really different in Mill's time or whether he was only involved in debates with other educated people. The problem these days is that you don't have to have any understanding of a subject or hold any evidence in order to put your case to a mass audience. Witness the case of the MMR scare where one dodgy study put one side of the case, but there was an overwhelming number of studies that showed the opposite. If you just looked at the mass media, the simple fact that there were two sides to the argument was treated as if both sides were of equal merit. This story just won't go away, Americans are now getting 'advice' on the safety of vaccines from those bastions of the medical profession, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, on Oprah.
Was Mills correct that debate between two opposing positions - 'true' and 'false' is a benefit to the side of the truth? Or have we got to a point in society today where the lack of critical thinking and the persuasiveness of the mass media means that 'truth' doesn't mean anything and that any point of view that is put forward on TV must automatically be valid? Also, there doesn't seem to be any real argument - everyone's position is equal, so there is never any reason to be persuaded to change your mind. Without trying to sound like a Monty Python sketch, there's more to an argument than saying 'No, it isn't'.
Was there ever a golden age of civilized debate when, to win an argument, it was enough just to be right?
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is; that is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
It's that last sentence that I found particularly interesting. The first example that came to mind was of the debate between those who accept evolution and those who believe in a religious version of creation. Does it strengthen the position of a true viewpoint to be tested against a falsehood rather than avoiding the debate? I know Richard Dawkins refuses to debate creationists because it is not possible to hold a sensible debate based on evidence and reasoned argument against someone who doesn't play by the same rules of evidence and reason. After hearing 'debates' between biologists and creationists who refuse to accept the existence of transitional fossils I can see his point.
I'm wondering if the nature of public debate was really different in Mill's time or whether he was only involved in debates with other educated people. The problem these days is that you don't have to have any understanding of a subject or hold any evidence in order to put your case to a mass audience. Witness the case of the MMR scare where one dodgy study put one side of the case, but there was an overwhelming number of studies that showed the opposite. If you just looked at the mass media, the simple fact that there were two sides to the argument was treated as if both sides were of equal merit. This story just won't go away, Americans are now getting 'advice' on the safety of vaccines from those bastions of the medical profession, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, on Oprah.
Was Mills correct that debate between two opposing positions - 'true' and 'false' is a benefit to the side of the truth? Or have we got to a point in society today where the lack of critical thinking and the persuasiveness of the mass media means that 'truth' doesn't mean anything and that any point of view that is put forward on TV must automatically be valid? Also, there doesn't seem to be any real argument - everyone's position is equal, so there is never any reason to be persuaded to change your mind. Without trying to sound like a Monty Python sketch, there's more to an argument than saying 'No, it isn't'.
Was there ever a golden age of civilized debate when, to win an argument, it was enough just to be right?
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
No posts, then some Blasphemy
I've been too busy at work to write any blog posts recently. I have been planning a big post inspired by the book I'm reading at the moment - On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. I wish I had read this book years ago. It's full of ideas that coincide with the way my view on the world has evolved over the years. There was a section early on in the book about why we should be open to debate controversial issues because the truth is strengthened by being compared to falsehoods. I've had some thoughts about why this often doesn't work in the real world. It needs some more work, so watch this space...
In the meantime, I was directed (via Pharyngula) to this funny site of irreverent cartoons. I only had a chance to look at a few random ones, but I liked this one...
In the meantime, I was directed (via Pharyngula) to this funny site of irreverent cartoons. I only had a chance to look at a few random ones, but I liked this one...
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Spaceplanes
This evening I listened to the latest Guardian Science podcast that contained an interview with Piers Bizony. He was promoting his book How to Build Your Own Spaceship. I haven't seen the book yet, but everything he said in the interview seemed very similar to the work and the opinions of David Ashford of Bristol Spaceplanes. David came to talk to a few of us at work a few years back and gave me a copy of his spaceplanes book. My naive question to him was "If this is such a good idea, why haven't NASA been working on it?". His answer seems to be the same as Piers Bizony. Back in the days of the USA/USSR space race, there was a lot of pressure to get something up in space quickly, so not much time and money was spent on development. The result was that large industries were then built on the old-fashioned rocket technology that came out of this race. The story from Ashford and Bizony regarding why there are no spaceplanes yet is partly the practicalities of an entrenched industry and partly suggestions of a conspiracy theory that I don't think helps their ideas gain credibility.
The claim of people in the spaceplane business (what there is of it) is that, if they had just a tiny fraction of one percent of NASA's budget, they could build a working spaceplane. I'd like to see them get a fair crack to try out their ideas. If there is going to be a spaceplane business in the future, Bristol seems like a good place to have it!
Edit: I found David Ashford's book at work. It's called 'Spaceflight Revolution' and it was published by Imperial College Press in 2003.
The claim of people in the spaceplane business (what there is of it) is that, if they had just a tiny fraction of one percent of NASA's budget, they could build a working spaceplane. I'd like to see them get a fair crack to try out their ideas. If there is going to be a spaceplane business in the future, Bristol seems like a good place to have it!
Edit: I found David Ashford's book at work. It's called 'Spaceflight Revolution' and it was published by Imperial College Press in 2003.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Machines Like Us I like
I recently stumbled across a website that brings together quite a few of my interests - science, technology, skepticism, articles on life (real and artificial) and evolution. Their people section links to some of the characters I got to know when I was working with Artificial Life. It also features a nice little app that is worth going back to just to check if anything has changed :-)
The weird thing is that Google Ads is obviously getting a bit carried away and missing the website's target audience. A couple of the automated ads that Google put on the site are:
"Atheism against the law? Scientific proof that atheism requires a belief in miracles. "
"2008: God's Final Witness Unprecedented destruction will come in 2008, leading to America's fall. "
I wonder how many hits these sites got from this site?
Machines Like Us is a nice looking site with some good content, but I don't know if it gets visited or updated very often and the forum is a bit sparse. Perhaps I'll have to start stirring them up a bit.
The weird thing is that Google Ads is obviously getting a bit carried away and missing the website's target audience. A couple of the automated ads that Google put on the site are:
"Atheism against the law? Scientific proof that atheism requires a belief in miracles. "
"2008: God's Final Witness Unprecedented destruction will come in 2008, leading to America's fall. "
I wonder how many hits these sites got from this site?
Machines Like Us is a nice looking site with some good content, but I don't know if it gets visited or updated very often and the forum is a bit sparse. Perhaps I'll have to start stirring them up a bit.
Twit
Well, I've signed myself up for Twitter (http://twitter.com/sdhancock), but I haven't quite worked out the point of it yet. Maybe if I had more friends...
or, to be specific, if more of my friends were geeks like me
or, to be specific, if more of my friends were geeks like me
St Tony to save the world
Our late lamented leader, Tony Blair, has now decided to devote his life to faith. He is setting up a new faith foundation that will "attempt to bring religions together to tackle global issues". The first issue will be to tackle malaria.
Blair said "Mr Blair said: "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be."
(Note to Tony - the other word you were looking for was synagogue)
Maybe there's a point in that you can get access to large groups of people through religious organizations, but, if you really are interested in eradicating malaria, why do you need to drag religion into it? Why not just say you want to get everyone to help, rather than mentioning specific religious groups?
Incidentally, I noticed that Blair didn't include athiests, agnostics, humanists, etc. in his list of people he would try to recruit to his cause. Perhaps he realises that some people do get involved in altruistic charitable work without needing 'encouragement' from religious leaders. Then again, he might be ignoring us because he thinks we are all selfish heathens who would never offer to help and we are all going to hell anyway.
Blair said "Mr Blair said: "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be."
(Note to Tony - the other word you were looking for was synagogue)
Maybe there's a point in that you can get access to large groups of people through religious organizations, but, if you really are interested in eradicating malaria, why do you need to drag religion into it? Why not just say you want to get everyone to help, rather than mentioning specific religious groups?
Incidentally, I noticed that Blair didn't include athiests, agnostics, humanists, etc. in his list of people he would try to recruit to his cause. Perhaps he realises that some people do get involved in altruistic charitable work without needing 'encouragement' from religious leaders. Then again, he might be ignoring us because he thinks we are all selfish heathens who would never offer to help and we are all going to hell anyway.
Is this the right way round?
The British Humanist Association recently published a statement saying that any child of ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ to be given the right to withdraw from compulsory religious worship in school, rather than the previous case where only sixth formers were allowed to withdraw themselves and younger children would need the backing of their parents. I'm not sure what the BHA is thinking here - their recommendation seems a bit wishy-washy. Surely the sensible situation should be that someone would have to show ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ before they could take part in voluntary worship.
Maybe this is a way for the BHA to highlight the 'compulsory' part. The phrase 'compulsory religious worship' makes me feel uneasy. Even some religious organisations have a similar opinion. Ekklesia, who are described as a religious think-tank (oh, the irony) say "Mandating common worship is inappropriate for public institutions made up of people from different world views and faith backgrounds. It is also a misrepresentation of what worship actually is. Worship is a freely offered act of faith arising from a believing community. It is not something that can be imposed or required of everybody." Couldn't have said it better myself.
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Some people are never grateful
I found this article on the BBC website a few weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to blog for a while (computer problems and holidays). What caught my eye was that some students were complaining about the level of tuition they were receiving for their fees. Particularly, arts students thought they should pay less than science students because they received less tuition. Surely they can't be saying that their arts degrees are worth less than a science or engineering degree? That would certainly be the impression if science, engineering and medicine degrees were charged at a higher rate than arts subjects.
What has always been the case, even when I finished my first degree 20 years ago, is that arts students are always the ones who complain because they are the ones with all the time on their hands, while the science and engineering students are busy working! It was interesting to see the breakdown of the Bristol student jury, especially as they make a point of saying "In particular, efforts were made to ensure a reasonable diversity with regard to...subject matter"
The subjects studied by the students were English, Statistics and combined studies, Economics, Law, Classics , Med in TESOL (No, I don't know what this means either), Local governance, English, Psychology and criminology, English literature & cultural media studies, Sport management, Music composition, Business management, European law, Economics.
Hardly the most balanced set of students is it?
What has always been the case, even when I finished my first degree 20 years ago, is that arts students are always the ones who complain because they are the ones with all the time on their hands, while the science and engineering students are busy working! It was interesting to see the breakdown of the Bristol student jury, especially as they make a point of saying "In particular, efforts were made to ensure a reasonable diversity with regard to...subject matter"
The subjects studied by the students were English, Statistics and combined studies, Economics, Law, Classics , Med in TESOL (No, I don't know what this means either), Local governance, English, Psychology and criminology, English literature & cultural media studies, Sport management, Music composition, Business management, European law, Economics.
Hardly the most balanced set of students is it?
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Green, but not green
We are keen on green issues, organic food, recycling, saving energy, etc. Somehow, in the green media, these issues get conflated with everything else alternative as if they all have equal merit. I was recently reading Green Parent magazine which is generally pretty good. However, there is a section on children's health. In the section, they were discussing croup. Croup is pretty unpleasant (I suffered from it when I was young). The resident 'health adviser' gives the following advice for parents "Constitutional homeopathy is one of the most effective ways of preventing reoccuring croup so I would suggest seeing a local homeopath if possible".
Obviously, I needed to call them out on this, so I sent the following email
I'm still waiting for an answer.
Obviously, I needed to call them out on this, so I sent the following email
Hi,
I read your magazine regularly and generally I agree with the ideas and philosophies contained in it. The one area I've always been a bit concerned with is that of alternative therapies. In my reading of the subject, there have never been any conclusive well run scientific trials that show that any of these therapies actually work.
The Ask Auromina section of the Children's Health section normally starts well enough with general advice on improving diet, reducing stress levels, etc, but then often suggests a particular therapy for a given disorder. For example, in the most recent issue it states "Constitutional homeopathy is one of the most effective ways of preventing reoccuring croup so I would suggest seeing a local homeopath if possible". This is presented as a fact, but there are no references to back up this claim. Is it possible for you to provide any evidence of any clinical trials that show that homeopathy is effective for preventing croup?
I'm still waiting for an answer.
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
It's that man again
The face of Jesus has appeared in a hospital prayer garden. Full story here. Maybe story should be in quotes. The headline adds the extra information '...prompts emails'. Wow. I think the word they are looking for is pareidolia.
When someone claims to see the face of Jesus or Mary in a cloud or piece of toast, I think 'How do you know what they looked like?'. (Setting their fictional status aside for a moment)
I wonder when our current collective image of this 'Jesus' person first appeared. I've always guessed that it probably first appeared in medieval times. In the same way that our image of Santa is really the 1930's Coca Cola advert, the standard Jesus is probably just some generic long-haired bearded hippy as sketched by Leonardo da Vinci or one of his friends.
When someone claims to see the face of Jesus or Mary in a cloud or piece of toast, I think 'How do you know what they looked like?'. (Setting their fictional status aside for a moment)
I wonder when our current collective image of this 'Jesus' person first appeared. I've always guessed that it probably first appeared in medieval times. In the same way that our image of Santa is really the 1930's Coca Cola advert, the standard Jesus is probably just some generic long-haired bearded hippy as sketched by Leonardo da Vinci or one of his friends.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Lies, damned lies and numerology
Just when I thought I couldn't be any more suprised at the rubbish people believe, I heard an article about numerology on the Radio podcast More or Less. There's a follow-up article on the BBC website. I had heard a bit about numerology in the past, but it hadn't occured to me that people were using it to make decisions in the same way that other poor fools use astrology.
In the article, it mentions that Anita Roddick's daughter, Samantha used numerology in organising her business and that her 'consultant' numerologist Sonia Ducie also gets called in by companies to use her 'skills' to help with recruitment.
I just can't comprehend what goes on in people's heads that would make them see anything in these bizarre ideas.
In the article, it mentions that Anita Roddick's daughter, Samantha used numerology in organising her business and that her 'consultant' numerologist Sonia Ducie also gets called in by companies to use her 'skills' to help with recruitment.
I just can't comprehend what goes on in people's heads that would make them see anything in these bizarre ideas.
Monday, 7 April 2008
There's a sucker born every minute
I was forwarded an email by a friend today...
My first thought was "That sounds unlikely". My second thought was 'Google'
I Googled 'Ericsson free laptop' and got a page of results like this one describing this old hoax. A sceptical frame of mind and a decent search engine can save you lots of wasted time and potential embarrassment. All the time you save can then be wasted blogging about how much time you have saved.
Hello All
The Ericsson Company is distributing free computer lap tops in an attempt to match what Nokia has already done. Ericsson hopes to increase its popularity this way. For this reason, they are giving away the WAP Laptops.
All you need to qualify is to send this email to 8 people you know. Within 2 weeks, you will receive Ericsson T18. But if you can send it to 20 people or more, you will receive Ericsson R320.There are people within our building who have received their laptops so I thought I would share this information with you in hopes that you get one before they give them all out.
Make sure you send a copy to anna.swelung@ericsson.com
Cheers and enjoy your laptop when it arrives.
My first thought was "That sounds unlikely". My second thought was 'Google'
I Googled 'Ericsson free laptop' and got a page of results like this one describing this old hoax. A sceptical frame of mind and a decent search engine can save you lots of wasted time and potential embarrassment. All the time you save can then be wasted blogging about how much time you have saved.
Friday, 4 April 2008
You shouldn't mock the afflicted...
There was a story in the Times today about the leader of a Doomsday cult who attempted suicide after realising his world-ending prediction may not be correct. In the report it says that members of his religious group have been hiding in a cave since November, believing that the world would end in May. I'm not sure why he decided to get out now, rather than wait the extra month. Perhaps he couldn't face the potential embarrassment...
While it's unkind to mock those with an obvious mental problem, his method of attempted suicide was interesting. He was found with his head on a tree stump, bashing himself on the head with a log. The images this conjures up are like something from a Monty Python sketch.
The article goes on to say that members of the sect were provided with a cow for milk, as they refused to drink from a carton that had a bar code on it. I found another report on Reuters that explains this. Apparently, food packaging barcodes (and credit cards) are "satanic". It's weird enough that one person can come up with these wacky ideas, but how would you manage to convince others?
While it's unkind to mock those with an obvious mental problem, his method of attempted suicide was interesting. He was found with his head on a tree stump, bashing himself on the head with a log. The images this conjures up are like something from a Monty Python sketch.
The article goes on to say that members of the sect were provided with a cow for milk, as they refused to drink from a carton that had a bar code on it. I found another report on Reuters that explains this. Apparently, food packaging barcodes (and credit cards) are "satanic". It's weird enough that one person can come up with these wacky ideas, but how would you manage to convince others?
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Podcasts
Since my car radio started playing up and I also started using my MP3 in the gym, I've been listening to lots of podcasts. Here's my top 10
1. Skeptics Guide to The Universe from the New England Skeptical Society
2. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from US National Public Radio
3. Answer Me This
4. Freethought Radio
5. Skeptoid
6. Guardian Science Weekly
7. Real Time With Bill Maher
8. Point of Inquiry
9. Golf Better @ Edwin Watts Golf
10. Fighting Talk
Probably the best podcasts I ever listened to were the Danny Baker shows that appeared last year. The All Day Breakfast Show and the Baker & Kelly football shows were amazing and I even managed to get some of my stories onto their shows. Unfotunately, there were some contractual problems with Wippit which resulted in the shows being pulled. There's always hope that he will be back one day.
1. Skeptics Guide to The Universe from the New England Skeptical Society
2. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from US National Public Radio
3. Answer Me This
4. Freethought Radio
5. Skeptoid
6. Guardian Science Weekly
7. Real Time With Bill Maher
8. Point of Inquiry
9. Golf Better @ Edwin Watts Golf
10. Fighting Talk
Probably the best podcasts I ever listened to were the Danny Baker shows that appeared last year. The All Day Breakfast Show and the Baker & Kelly football shows were amazing and I even managed to get some of my stories onto their shows. Unfotunately, there were some contractual problems with Wippit which resulted in the shows being pulled. There's always hope that he will be back one day.
Some people really are sick
An 11 year old from Wisconsin died last week from diabetic ketoacidosis after her parents decided not to get medical attention, but instead 'prayed for healing. The autopsy stated that she had probably been ill for about 30 days. The full story is here.
Some people shouldn't be allowed to keep pets, never mind children. Probably the worst part about the story was the comment from the local police chief, concerning the dead girl's three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16. "They are still in the home," he said. "There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see."
If denying medical help to a sick child is not abuse, then what is?
Some people shouldn't be allowed to keep pets, never mind children. Probably the worst part about the story was the comment from the local police chief, concerning the dead girl's three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16. "They are still in the home," he said. "There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see."
If denying medical help to a sick child is not abuse, then what is?
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
More interesting than Plato
Another podcast pointed me in the direction of a fantastic website. It's huge, but I've only just found out about it...
http://icanhascheezburger.com
and it has genius pictures like this
see more crazy cat pics
http://icanhascheezburger.com
and it has genius pictures like this
see more crazy cat pics
Plato v Popper
I was listening to one of my many podcasts on the way home from work yesterday and actually found something that was genuinely thought-provoking rather than just interesting. The podcast was Philosophy Bites and it was an interview with Melissa Lane discussing Karl Popper's views on Plato's Republic. I read the Republic a few years back, but I think I must have forgotten most of it.
Anyway, Popper's view was that Plato's ideal city state was totalitarian (I'm assuming he thought this was a bad idea). I guess that, technically it was based on state control of people's lives. However, the rulers in this state would be the philosopher guardians who the intellectual elite of the state. I think Plato tended to refer to philosopher as someone who was generally intelligent and was competent to govern the lesser plebs, rather than the narrow way we use the term today.
The view at the time seemed to be that democracy couldn't ever work because the lower orders would inevitably vote to satisfy their crude base instincts. Perhaps we ought to take on some of his ideas - I wouldn't care to give up on democracy completely and lose my right to vote for my representative, but maybe we could have an entrance exam for MPs. Give them all a test on world affairs, economics and throw in some science and maths questions too. Probably worth doing some personality tests to make sure we weed out the egomaniacs. Only those who pass the test would be allowed to stand.
Anyway, Popper's view was that Plato's ideal city state was totalitarian (I'm assuming he thought this was a bad idea). I guess that, technically it was based on state control of people's lives. However, the rulers in this state would be the philosopher guardians who the intellectual elite of the state. I think Plato tended to refer to philosopher as someone who was generally intelligent and was competent to govern the lesser plebs, rather than the narrow way we use the term today.
The view at the time seemed to be that democracy couldn't ever work because the lower orders would inevitably vote to satisfy their crude base instincts. Perhaps we ought to take on some of his ideas - I wouldn't care to give up on democracy completely and lose my right to vote for my representative, but maybe we could have an entrance exam for MPs. Give them all a test on world affairs, economics and throw in some science and maths questions too. Probably worth doing some personality tests to make sure we weed out the egomaniacs. Only those who pass the test would be allowed to stand.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Does religion make you happier?
There was a report on the BBC today on a study by the Paris School of Economics that people who have a religious belief lead a more contented life. I think I'll wait to read the full details of their survey before I can really understand what they are getting at. A lot of these surveys don't factor out other effects and correlations. The implication is that suddenly switching to a religious outlook on life would make you happier, although Pascal's Wager never did look like a good bet to me! It could be that the sort of people who are naturally attracted to religion are less likely to think too much about their philosophy on life, morality, fairness, justice, etc. and are happier because they don't have to worry about these things.
On a superficial level, it's quite obvious that, if someone really believes that there is a supernatual force looking out for them, then they will be more contented. (As long as they try to ignore studies that prove them wrong). On the other hand, if I really believed that Spiderman and Captain America were out there battling Evil, I'd probably sleep easier too...
As George Bernard Shaw said "The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one"
On a superficial level, it's quite obvious that, if someone really believes that there is a supernatual force looking out for them, then they will be more contented. (As long as they try to ignore studies that prove them wrong). On the other hand, if I really believed that Spiderman and Captain America were out there battling Evil, I'd probably sleep easier too...
As George Bernard Shaw said "The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one"
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Your Knicked
Here is something that always bugs me...
My son went to Beavers last week and the local police turned up give them some safety advice and help them get their Safety badges. Here's the certificate:
Maybe attention to detail isn't so important in the police these days
My son went to Beavers last week and the local police turned up give them some safety advice and help them get their Safety badges. Here's the certificate:
Maybe attention to detail isn't so important in the police these days
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Grand Slam
I wanted to check that I could embed links in my posts, so this is as good a one as any.
It's always nerve-wracking watching Wales, but they deserved this one.
It's always nerve-wracking watching Wales, but they deserved this one.
First post on my new blog
Well, well, well. Who would have thought that I would eventually get round to putting something on my website? Not only the start of some content, but something using PHP and MySQL. Just working out how to set the thing up is quite enough for one day.
I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Wales try to win the Grand Slam and worry about Swansea throwing away even more of their lead at the top of League One.
I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Wales try to win the Grand Slam and worry about Swansea throwing away even more of their lead at the top of League One.
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