1. Monkey, Business

Comment #105181 by Axulus on December 30, 2007 at 8:30 pm

I don't think that Shermer is arguing that free market capitalism will lead to optimal environmental outcomes (a clear case of a market failure). I think he is going to talk more about scenarios tend toward economically efficient outcomes that we have an intuitive distrust of. Such things would likely include outsourcing and downsizing, international trade, employment levels, farm subsidies, and the like. He will probably explore where these intuitions come from evolutionarily speaking and show why they are misplaced.

That's my guess though. If he is arguing for free market environmentalism, I think there will be some serious flaws/biases in his argument.

2. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #98006 by Axulus on December 13, 2007 at 1:38 am

Where does the ideology that if one is offended, he must defend his honor in any way possible (via violence etc.), come from? I think this is a pervasive problem throughout the Islamic world. Does it come from the religion itself, or is it rooted more so in the culture itself?

3. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #98004 by Axulus on December 13, 2007 at 1:33 am

Unbelievable that they censor the part about where Timothy talks about it being OK offend. I think it does however demonstrate the sad state of affairs we are in when someone's voice is censored in the media in a legitimate debate due to being afraid to offend.

4. This Friday: Debate between Dan Dennett and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #91639 by Axulus on November 28, 2007 at 7:29 pm

I really hope Dan Dennett rebuts the B.S. about how science runs on faith because it assumes that everything can be described by mathematics and that our workings of our brain correspond to reality and that only God can account for such. I know he is going to use this idiotic argument again.

5. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #82067 by Axulus on October 25, 2007 at 4:00 pm

"I hate to have to say this, but Douglas Adams was wrong. The problem can't be solved in this way. The fine tuning has to be very fine even to get any kind of structure or stability at all in the universe - to use Adams' metaphor, the puddle is entitled to wonder why there are even atoms to form the pothole."

The point is to demonstrate the non sequitor of concluding a designer. It doesn't explain why the universe appears fine tuned, just that it is a non sequitor to assume it must have been/could only have been a designer.

6. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81988 by Axulus on October 25, 2007 at 1:44 pm

In my opinion, the most convincing rebuttal would be something along these lines:

The difference between atrocities that have been committed by those who believe in a religion and those who are atheists are the following:

Those atrocities committed by people of religion can be logically derived from their religion and associated dogma, and since it is almost always believed on faith, there is no way to convince such a person otherwise. For example, the inquisition is a logical consequence of believing that there really is a hell and heaven. It is completely logical to torture people in this life if you truly believe it will save them and send them to heaven and prevent them from going to hell. It is perfectly logical to burn a witch if you believe that God has commanded that such be done and that such a God holds the keys to heaven. It is perfectly logical to not care about the possibility of nuclear war or environmental issues if you believe that Jesus will come out of the clouds to the rescue.

However, atheism is defined by a lack of belief in a deity. As such, there are no logical consequences that result from such a lack of belief (any such so called consequences would need to be rebutted individually). Can you tell me how it logically follows that, if there is no God, then the Aryan race is superior? If there is no God, then communism and totalitarianism is the best system? No, the atheism of such a person is completely irrelevant.

7. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #81969 by Axulus on October 25, 2007 at 1:07 pm

I like Douglas Adam's rebuttal to the form of the argument that "if any constant were different in the universe, life/planets/stars etc. would not have formed."

IIRC, the rebuttal went something like this:

This is like a puddle that has formed in a pothole thinking to itself: "This pothole is just the perfect size/shape for me, if this pothole were only slightly different, I would never exist. This pothole was clearly formed by an intelligent designer since its parameters are perfect for me."

8. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #81962 by Axulus on October 25, 2007 at 12:58 pm

Here is a somewhat concise rebuttal to this argument, perhaps it can be better refined:

Are you using reason/logic for this argument of yours? You can not use reason/logic to say that a rational universe can only exist on the foundation of an all knowing being since you have not yet shown that reason/logic is a way to arrive at knowledge. We must both start with the assumption that we can gain knowledge by reasoning things out in a logical/rational way or else we must conclude that nothing can be known. Is it your position that nothing can be known?

9. Enemies of Reason

Comment #65117 by Axulus on August 22, 2007 at 11:53 pm

Thank you very much for making these available. I know that there often copyright issues with things like this, but I am very happy to see that RD.net is really trying to spread knowledge for free as much as possible. Thank you very much to Richard and the whole support team for making this documentary, I enjoyed it very much.

10. Messiah

Comment #52598 by Axulus on June 27, 2007 at 12:16 pm

While I'm also a fan of Derren Brown, I just wanted to comment on the idea that he can plant ideas in people's heads by using carefully selected words to influence them. This idea is unscientific, there is little if any truth to subliminal messages or ideas being able to be planted in the brain, it just simply is not how the brain works. He uses these techniques to confuse his audience on how he really does his tricks. However, people being highly suggestible in certain states of mind is a legitimate hypnosis type trick.

See a good article about this here:
http://www.simonsingh.net/Derren_Brown_Article.html

11. Hamas Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony

Comment #47521 by Axulus on June 4, 2007 at 8:51 pm

Harlon57,

Such abuse is already a crime in most Western countries, its called contributing to the delinquency of a child and can result in the child being taken away from the parents in extreme circumstances. We treat actions toward children differently than we do adults. The crime is not the thoughts of the adults, it is what is being forced upon these children. This is a very extreme form of contributing to the delinquency of a child, and it most certainly should be a crime.

12. Hamas Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony

Comment #47516 by Axulus on June 4, 2007 at 7:55 pm

This sort of psychological child abuse needs to be condemned by every country, and especially by the U.N. The fact that the U.N. sits mostly silent while this kind of crap goes on does not lend it much credence in my eyes. It's time to arrest the people that do this kind of thing to children for crimes against humanity.

13. Teachers rebel over atheism promotion

Comment #45107 by Axulus on May 26, 2007 at 12:02 pm

I'm not really understanding why everyone thinks that this camp is going to indoctrinate kids. Aren't critical thinking skills supposed to prevent indoctrination, or is the validity of critical thinking just another religion?

14. Science education requires overcoming childhood understanding

Comment #44825 by Axulus on May 25, 2007 at 10:57 am

The majority of education is taught by college educated teachers in public schools. My question is, why don't the universities emphasize teaching critical thinking skills to children? I thought Universities and other private colleges had much more freedom to design their curriculum the way they want with input from the best academics in the field. If this is so, why is it emphasized so little at the university level to prospective new teachers? It should be drilled in to these teachers the importance of critical thinking skills as opposed to rote memorization of facts. The teachers should be taught all about these studies this article discusses.

So the question becomes, why are the universities, which typically have much academic freedom, failing us?

15. Species extinction

Comment #44821 by Axulus on May 25, 2007 at 10:47 am

To play a sort of devil's advocate here, why is it that we are so sad, angry, think it is immoral etc. when an entire species goes extinct? Doesn't each individual life form that is not an exact copy have a unique DNA code? If so, and we don't feel the same outrage when that life form with the unique DNA eventually dies, why do we feel so outraged when a group of life forms having much of their DNA code closely in common goes extinct? What is so unique about a particular species that is not also true of an individual with its own unique DNA sequences? Is it only because we feel emotional about it, because we don't get to enjoy the species for our own pleasure any more, because it might harm our ecosystem and thus harm us? Or is there something more to it? How about the 98% of all species that ever existed that have gone extinct? Why should we be outraged when such species extinction is a normal part of nature? Is it because we feel partly responsible? Aren't we also part of nature as well? Nature created us in the first place, thus, it is nature destroying part of itself, which has occurred though out the history of life.

16. Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

Comment #42120 by Axulus on May 17, 2007 at 4:39 pm

This reminds me of a game on a local radio show called "passage or porno". The hosts read a few sentences either from a porno script or from a passage in the bible, and the caller is supposed to guess which it is from. It's pretty funny when the caller thinks its from a porno and its actually from the bible.

17. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38676 by Axulus on May 8, 2007 at 11:25 pm

I enjoyed listening to CH in this debate.

The one thing that really bugs me is that he didn't go on the attack to AS's assertions about his alleged god, who apparently created everything, being great. He should have pointed out that diseases, disasters, not preventing spectacular atrocities, and not giving us any evidence of his/her/its existance,creating us in a very flawed manner (xenophobic, racist, agressive, illogical tendencies for many) and basically just leaving us alone is not a sign of a being that is "great". I'm sure CH could make the argument more witty.

18. Boxmind E-Lectures

Comment #35804 by Axulus on April 28, 2007 at 11:18 pm

The internet bubble must have killed it. They even received 8 million pounds in financing and still folded.

http://www.elearnity.com/A555F3/research/research.nsf/ByKey/DWIN556E6Y

19. Boxmind E-Lectures

Comment #35769 by Axulus on April 28, 2007 at 8:02 pm

Drat!

Anyone know if these lectures are still available anywhere?

20. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34284 by Axulus on April 23, 2007 at 6:03 pm

I thought the interview went alright. O'Reilly was more or less polite, but the interview was way too short for RD to be able to explain his position (and O'Reilly kept butting in while RD was talking). I think it was interesting how O'Reilly said his religion was "true for himself", I know a lot of fundies would have a hayday with that one. Also O'Reilly said that atheists do not have a moral foundation (that is why Stalin and Pol Pot did their thing), and the segment was cut off, not allowing RD to respond.

At least it may have piqued some people's curiousity.