I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.
So, on reading some work by fellow SINner David Osorio over at Avant Garde, I was alerted to this article by John Horgan about whether or not research supports benefits of meditation or not. It seems that it doesn’t, really.
“In a recently posted You Tube sermon, the pastor of Chalcedon Presbyterian Church, Dr. Joe Morecraft says in a Biblical…
I just learned from Jason Colavito that PBS NOVA the other day aired a documentary about the unraveling of one of the incredible enigmas of antiquity. And naming it after the German code machine isn’t a bad idea either, considering that this device is a marvel of gears and other mechanisms all working together.
Pain is a really important notion in conversations about subjective experience and qualia. I’ll have to think about how this…
Jerry Coyne reported this recently. It follows in a line of items in the news about TED and their speakers being somewhat unscientific. Well, in relation to this, TED have pulled their licence on a TEDx to have taken place in Hollywood. As Coyne reports:
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
I’ve always liked this quote from Arthur Schopenhauer, so much so that I thought I’d post it here, though it does have a few forms and is often misquoted, as I have no doubt done.
Here is another account in my series of real-life deconversion stories. They are often painful, psychological affairs, as you can…
So on the second post involving the infamous $10,000 bet about nested hierarchies in evolution, regular erudite commenter Daydreamer1 brought up some really good points about design, but not from a biological standpoint. With intelligent design theories, we often fail to look at them in contexts outside of biology, say, in the earth sciences. I think the criticisms of ID can really be pushed home in these contests, as DD1 shows:
Counter Apologist is a new blogger on the block with a lot of sensible stuff to say. I interviewed him recently and the video is now on You Tube for all to see, embedded here. We talked about his deconversion, heaven, hell and some other stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please check out his blog, he has a lot of good stuff to say.
Apr. 4, 2013 — A structural biologist at the Florida State University College of Medicine has made discoveries that could lead scientists a step closer to understanding how life first emerged on Earth billions of years ago.
I have spoken a little bit on conspiracy theories here. This, however, is a shocking indictment, if accurate, on the gullibility of modern US citizens. I think the media may have a lot to answer for with this, as conspiracies are perpetuated and given credibility. Here is ana article from The Atlantic reporting PPP survey results:
A few days ago, Cdesign proponentsist JoeG challenged me to a $10,000 bet over which one of us understands the concept of nested hierarchies better. I accepted his challenge and won and he decided to chicken out and lie about the bet.
Humans’ closest animal relatives, chimpanzees, have the ability to “think about thinking” — what is called “metacognition,” according to new research by scientists at Georgia State University and the University at Buffalo.
2012 Pew Research Results on American Religious Affiliation The Pew Research Center has released the 2012 results further marking the…
There has been a mammoth conversation going on over on another post, Creationist stakes $10,000 on contest between Bible and evolution. Regular IDist commenter, JoeG, a major proponent of pseudoscientific unguided evolution. That means to say he broadly agrees to evolution, but claims there is no evidence it is unguided and plenty of evidence it is guided. Apart from the fact that he neglects to ever provide any of this evidence whilst at the same time demanding that we provide positive evidence that evolution is unguided.
I was lucky enough to be asked back to the Dorset Humanists, based in Bournemouth, UK, to give a talk on free will. I had previously given them a talk on the Nativity, based on my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination. They appeared to enjoy it enough to ask me back, and I obliged.
Today at the White House, President Barak Obama unveiled the “BRAIN” Initiative — a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.
This piece of genius was sent to me. From whence it came, I know not: God made Adam and Eve…
One of the most, if not the most, common arguments I seem to be having online in various places is about the notion that the world is morally bankrupt, that we are in the end days. And this is not just from theists – it is commonplace with theists and nontheists alike. It annoys me because it is so blatantly wrong and exemplifies the rose-tinted fallacy completely.
I was recently sent a link to Thomas L. McDonald’s piece “The Origin of Man, Original Sin, and Why It’s…