1. Turkish edition of The Ancestor's Tale sells out within a day!

Comment #250760 by errm... on September 20, 2008 at 9:33 am

Yes Paine, when cardinal Wolsey's boys bought up all copies of an english bible printed in the low countries it paid for a new edition with woodcut illustrations!
As to the book itself; it was published on the first day of my holiday that year and I don't recall much else about the holiday.

2. Sharia courts operating in Britain

Comment #247317 by errm... on September 14, 2008 at 10:04 am

Sheer bloody lunacy! Does Brown think that he can save his skin with the Muslim vote or what?

3. 'The Genius of Charles Darwin' DVD (PAL Region 2) Available Now

Comment #240929 by errm... on September 1, 2008 at 10:02 am

I like what it says on the back cover of the DVD: "He takes us to Lambeth Palace... to visit that spectacularly well preserved fossil... the Archbishop of Canterbury". Or did my eye slip a line there?

4. Daniel Dennett's Darwinian Mind: An Interview with a 'Dangerous' Man

Comment #232940 by errm... on August 19, 2008 at 12:49 am

Dear Professor Dennett (should you see this). I love your books but please see P G Wodehouse on endnotes and footnotes. You will find the relevant passage in his book 'America, I like you'.

5. After Bibles seized, U.S. group won't leave Chinese airport

Comment #232937 by errm... on August 19, 2008 at 12:32 am

Why not just attach the Bibles to Helium balloons and float them in the Popoff way?
Seriously: I agree that the censorship was wrong but I also suspect a publicity stunt.

6. Father, son and holy toast

Comment #227545 by errm... on August 10, 2008 at 8:25 am

Can someone please start finding Richard Dawkins' face appearing miraculously? Or Hitchens' or Dennett or Sam Harris. Ayan Hirsi Ali would be nice!

7. On TV: The Genius of Charles Darwin: Presented by Richard Dawkins

Comment #224735 by errm... on August 5, 2008 at 1:09 pm

In case nobody's mentioned it, the DVD's available from 1st September at Amazon UK at £13. I presume that RDF will sell it but I can't find the pre-order yet.

8. The BBC announces a major season marking the life and work of Charles Darwin

Comment #207924 by errm... on July 10, 2008 at 10:02 am

Good! we're just getting a new aerial system, including satellite dish, installed.
Re Comment #207266 by alexmzk. Or perhaps they could get professional (as distinct from amateur) comedians to play these parts? Who would you cast as "Te-he and Dumbski"?

9. Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?

Comment #204905 by errm... on July 6, 2008 at 6:28 am

Comment #204688 by decius

Decius,

I've just looked at Wiseman's "Quirkology" (chapter 3)and he cites: C L Sheridan and R G King Jnr. "Obedience to authority with an authentic victim" Proceedings of the 80th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, pages 165-6 1972 and refers to "several equally striking follow-up studies" without any citations. The Oxford Companion to the Mind discusses the experiment on pages 566-568 but mentions only criticisms on ethical grounds. I hope that this helps. The Sheridan & King experiment used puppies as victims by the way.

10. 'In Our Time': Trofim Lysenko

Comment #192011 by errm... on June 12, 2008 at 10:02 am

There's a reference to Lysenko in "The Blind Watchmaker"("Second-rate plant-breeder"), a chapter in Gardner's "Fad's and Fallacies in the name of science" and I've just received Nils Roll-Hansen's "The Lysenko Effect" which looks very promising, so there's plenty of good reading on this subject. I believe that Steve Jones referred to the 'Swedish Effect' in "The Language of the Genes" but can't get at my copy... too many books!

11. New British Petition: Stop the Nightmares

Comment #191600 by errm... on June 11, 2008 at 9:35 am

I signed, but they'll weasle their way out of it with definitions and political correctness. Would anyone want to go as far as the USSR which, according The Gulag Archipeligo, had very severe penalties for parents indoctrinating children so long as it wasn't Marxism/Leninism? How far is it fair to go? Let's concentrate on exposing the lies that they tell for what they are!

12. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #189990 by errm... on June 8, 2008 at 4:35 am

Of course what believers will say when another religion produces 'miracles' is that the devil did it to deceive them into that 'false religion' (tautology of course). All we need is Hume's argument.
Has anyone got around to blaming the gay community for Burma and/or Szechuan yet?

13. The day of judgment

Comment #189563 by errm... on June 6, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Now see the appendix of Randi's "Encyclopaedia of claims, frauds and hoaxes".
Yes, these nutters want the end and they want to share it with all of us. I haven't bought any McEwan yet; where do recommend I start please?

14. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185735 by errm... on May 28, 2008 at 11:51 am

Border Collie: I certainly wasn't commenting on your post when I referred to "Cretin". I hadn't seen it when I wrote mine. I was referring to the piece of mediaeval "political correctness" that called these unfortunates "Chretiens", i.e. "Christians" to make people treat them decently. It didn't seem to work and all that we're left is is a term that equates a thyroid-derived mental incapacity with a major religion. And no, I don't consider being religious means people should be treated contemptuously or badly in any way.
As to my intelligence: my four British 'O' levels equate to "can walk and chew gum simulataneously without falling over... very often" in US terms.

15. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185678 by errm... on May 28, 2008 at 9:49 am

Has anyone ever persuaded these nutters to give a possible means of falsifying creationism? It seem that they're perfectly ready to call evolution unfalsifiable but not offer up their own ideas to the test. I'm sure that they still insist that they have Haldane's "rabbit in the creataceous" and will refuse to see that their own myth is either unfalsifiable ("faith justifies all") or has been falsified ("well the evidence is doubtful").
PJG, can we add the "Christofascists" from last week's "Dispatches" to that export shipment of creationists please?
I would like to suggest that the review and citicise is extended to all subjects but having to argue that on basic matters would waste teachers' time when they might be usefully explaining the etymology of "Cretin".

16. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #181480 by errm... on May 17, 2008 at 9:26 am

If you accept shouting as a sign of fervent belief, then I suppose "People believe in that which is seen to be fervently believed in" or something like that. I can't check it because I can't get at my copy of Speer and I can't even tell you who said it because he's taboo!

17. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #105316 by errm... on December 31, 2007 at 8:42 am

It was the "mystic" bit that amused me. Brights have a mysticism-free world view.
Yes, the assumption that to be good you either have to be be a believer or somehow infected by the believers in order to be good is patronising.
Isn't it amazing how these people turn everything that Science finds out into a "God Issue"? I suppose that it's their job.
As to the archbish, he does seems to tie himself in knots, "The Boneless Dr Williams" perhaps!
Happy New Year to everyone by the way!

18. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103584 by errm... on December 26, 2007 at 8:17 am

Re Comment #102996 by ADH on December 24, 2007 at 6:29 am.
ADH,
Hitler wasn't an atheist; anyone who gets Austin Cline's posts knows that. He closed the German Freethinkers' Union, boasted that he had abolished atheism and won the praise of the Catholics who ordered a day of thanksgiving for him. I can't remember where I read that but I think it's in Hitchen. He seems to have believed in some sort of higher guiding power though I don't think the Vatican would have approved had they known the details. Speer, if we can trust him, says somewhere that he would have preferred an Islamic Europe. If you want bad atheists, try Enver Hoxha; though I'm an atheist myself I'd have hated life under him, though he liked classical music as do I. Sorry I can't do links but computers still fox me.

19. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99013 by errm... on December 15, 2007 at 7:59 am

Of course! That explains the tree. It should be an apple but the red, green and golden balls represent apples and the coloured lights are for his work on the spectrum. We have a star on top which is also appropriate. I suppose chocolate coins stand for his work at the mint.
By the by, does anyone remember Alan Coren's article "A happy Saturnalia to all our readers"? Very funny and showing how things 'might' have been. Froeliche Weihnachten zu Allen! Or Io Saturnalia if you insist (a lot too violent in some ways for me)!

20. Inferior Design: Richard Dawkins reviews Behe's lastest book

Comment #53382 by errm... on July 1, 2007 at 6:38 am

A lovely article! Stephen (comment#53332) Is that "TeeHee" as in "TeeHee & Dumbski"?

21. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44373 by errm... on May 24, 2007 at 12:52 pm

"Surely this was Jesus intervening to save his followers?" If no one's tried this one yet then they soon will. "If you believe that then you'll believe anything" (1st Duke of Wellington).

22. The Fastest-Growing Religion

Comment #42579 by errm... on May 18, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Very interesting! Frazer's "The Golden Bough" seems to regard true paganism as a "proto-religion" from which the rest evolved. Maybe this time they'll evolve into something worthwhile!
Does anyone else recall a catholic youth festival in Glastonbury (Eng) getting out of hand last year? Some of them got over-enthusiastic and (I believe) threatened to burn the local pagans out of town. The (RC) own organisers apologised for the excess.