1. The Sea Turtle's Tale: Back to the sea, and back again to the land

Comment #286578 by Jesse. on November 19, 2008 at 12:31 am

I love these additional stories to the ancestors tale. It's my favorite among his books by far. My thanks to the professor for writing and posting this.

2. Quentin Letts ranks Dawkins 30th on list of 'people who have wrecked Britain'

Comment #278673 by Jesse. on November 5, 2008 at 1:51 am

A man less obsessed with himself and with the narrow calculations of men in white coats might realise that religion (..) can sugar catastrophe and brighten chasms.

Maybe he can read the articles about the 13 yo. child that was stoned to death and explain to me how religion can 'sugar' and 'brighten' this catastrophe. I wonder how much 'shelter' she found in the end.
Goddamn sick fuckwit. How can people not see how grotesk this all is?

I wish Richard all the succes in fighting the stupid but sometimes I despair.

3. Teaching hate in UK schools

Comment #275206 by Jesse. on October 31, 2008 at 12:29 am

If you allow private faith schools, financed by the saudi government for fuck sake; what else would you expect?

4. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #273683 by Jesse. on October 29, 2008 at 6:02 am

I got this from the pharyngula website a while ago. It's great fun!

http://www.palinaspresident.us

5. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #273601 by Jesse. on October 29, 2008 at 1:12 am

53. Comment #273554 by quantum_flux

You are joking, right?

You are not actually that stupid, right?

You'd make Sarah Palin look smart

6. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272974 by Jesse. on October 28, 2008 at 1:15 am

Comment #272279 by gcdavis

Come on Richard get back into the debate, this is the first time that a substantial number of your supporters have disagreed with you, isn't that interesting?.

You're missing the point here. Richard said that research would be interesting and speculated a little about the outcome. Nobody disagrees, we've just added hypothesis and speculated about the outcome too.

Taht being said, existing research shows that fantasy and pretend play is very important for the emotional and mental development of children. The fact that it is universal suggests that there is an evolutionary factor involved.
Also many animals play (at hunting for example) allthough wether they pretend or fantasize is impossible to tell.

So fantasy and pretend play are 'good' for children. Wether fairy tales also are hasn't been researched yet (to my knowledge at least). I have an suggestion about it (not the same as the one Richard gave) and it also depends on what you define as 'good'.

It really remains an open question until the research is done allthough I find the speculation quite fascinating.

7. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272106 by Jesse. on October 27, 2008 at 2:12 am

Comment #272103 by Lumifish

-chest swells-

Yeah, we've got a tough job but somebody's got to do it.

Comment #272092 by Diacanu

That was my experience as a kid.
Bible stories couldn't contend with Star Wars, and Hulk.
:P

I was a huge comic book fan myself when I was a kid. Also Terry Pratchett's bromeliad trilogy an later Tolkien where great. Oh, how I'd like to have read Harry Potter as a kid. Kid's have it all these days.

8. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272098 by Jesse. on October 27, 2008 at 1:55 am

Comment #272094 by Lumifish

It might be difficult but it's not impossible. You don't have to control for every possible exposure to fantasy that the controlgroup gets.

You just read fantasy stories at bedtime to one group for say, a year, and other types of stories to the controlgroup. Presumably the uncontrolled 'daytime' fantasy exposure in the two groups would be the same and so cancel eachother out. The hard part would be getting the parents to cooperate in such a study.

9. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272087 by Jesse. on October 27, 2008 at 1:35 am

If I might add a hypothesis to such research: it is possible that reading fantasy and fairy tales inoculates one against future religious indoctrination. After reading enough fairy tales you might more easily recognize the bible/torah/koran/... for what it is: fantasy, and badly written at that.

10. Central Texas Man's Death Sentence Upheld Despite Bible In Jury Room

Comment #234285 by Jesse. on August 21, 2008 at 4:57 am

@vijaykrishnan
You would be hard pressed to find many studies that show deterrence works, especially in the context of murder. The vast majority of studies shows that the concept of deterrence is just not supported. I can look up the articles and meta-analyses later if you want them.

As a psychologist and a researcher on the subject of aggression I always cringe when someone uses deterrence as an argument for more severe punishments. It just doesn't work.

11. Biologist Teaches the Nation's Judges About Genetics

Comment #203004 by Jesse. on July 2, 2008 at 8:28 am

8teist said:

"only a matter of time before we get,"not my fault its in my genes" defense, that is,if it has`nt already been used. "

I don't see that as a problem. I think the question if it was or wasn't someones fault is not that important in cases of violence. If someone, through his genetic predisposition, couldn't control his aggressive behavior in a given situation this would imply that said person should receive compulsory treatment to better deal with his condition. Legal systems in civilized countries have closed facilities for such treatment. The question of fault, or responsability for ones actions then becomes irrelevant.

12. Ben Stein 1, Yoko Ono 0 in 'Expelled' copyright spat

Comment #188123 by Jesse. on June 3, 2008 at 8:44 am

I thought the lawsuit for the shameless copying of that fragment out off 'the inner life of the cell' looked far more promising than this one, yet I haven't heard anything about that for a long time. Does anyone know more about that?

13. Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory

Comment #182778 by Jesse. on May 21, 2008 at 12:55 am

"Jackson, who must prove a viable pathway for that contamination, is working with Oxford to test samples of linen under the various conditions the shroud has endured, such as outdoor exhibitions and exposure to extreme heat during a 1532 fire"

Sounds like mr. jackson will try to contaminate a piece of linen in a lab anyway he can and then of course go on to conclude that the 'real' shroud has somehow endured the same treatment. Nothing like a bit of circular reasoning and data-mining to prove your favourite conclusion

14. Mayor challenges pope during Genoa visit

Comment #182181 by Jesse. on May 19, 2008 at 10:41 am

I don't mind the pro-abortion. I think it is an accurate description. However, I always cringe when I read "pro-life". As if their opponents are against life or something. I think that's a huge distortion of reality.

15. Bonobo Handshake: What Makes Our Chimp-like Cousins So Cooperative?

Comment #68061 by Jesse. on September 6, 2007 at 12:42 am

@Beth:

Weren't bonobos the ones who showed war-like behaviours in stead of chimps? I vaguely remember a theory about a connection between some sexual behaviour characteristic humans and bonobos shared and their mutual capacity to wage war.

16. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63596 by Jesse. on August 15, 2007 at 3:32 am

Darwin2: "Failed solar systems and natural disasters are caused by bad individual and collective Karma."

My first thought after reading that was: "Oh god" so I guess he nearly converted me with his arguments :-)

17. The Bible's literary sins

Comment #63348 by Jesse. on August 14, 2007 at 2:08 am

When I was a kid I attended sunday school for three or four years. There they gave me a children´s bible. Being an insatiable reader from a very early age I read it and found the stories very entertaining. Even then, when I really believed in god, I read it as a book of (reasonably good) fairy tales and didn't take it really serious. When I later picked up a real bible and read it I was horrified and couldn't understand why the book was allowed to be sold.

18. Islamic creationist group launches glitzy, global blitz

Comment #61163 by Jesse. on August 4, 2007 at 2:08 am

You can laugh this off as anonther example of religious stupidity but I think there's a more general problem here.

The proponents of atheïsm, rationalism and evolution normally make rational arguments targeted at an intellectual and reasonably intelligent audience. Even the god delusion, RD's book that is the easiest to read, is aimed at such an audience. A lot of people however are not that intelligent. I can see the tactics of this foundation for 'scientific research' and more generally, the sheer stupidity and rethoric of priests, imams, etc. be far more effective with the less intelligent part of the population than the tactics of the prominent atheïsts.

This is not to say that RD or any of the others should change their tactics but there would be a place in our 'atheïstic movement' for something aimed at the less intelligent and/or educated part of the population. Something simple, easy and in your face, like the religious do, except off course they're lying and we wouldn't be :-)

The rational response squad seems tot do some work on this part on you tube with clear and very simple arguments against creationism and other stuff but this sort of thing seems to me not to happen enough on a global scale. Maybe we should try more to fight the religious on their own turf. I don't no exactly how yet, but I'm thinking something like billboards and stuff. I'd like to know what others think about this.

19. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46009 by Jesse. on May 30, 2007 at 2:36 am

I don't think this was one of the best performances of Hitchens. Usually he's much better. There were a number of subjects he could have burned down this Prager fellow on. For example

"There is more idiocy in the university than at your local church"

How could Hitchens not challenge him on that one? All the stuff your local stupidity farm / church teaches versus the stuff any real university teaches? Oh, come on. Hitchens let him off the hook far to many times imo.

20. Angry atheists are hot authors

Comment #44486 by Jesse. on May 25, 2007 at 12:55 am

I just read Hitchens vs Wilson and I agree with peahix, Hitchens seemed a bit bored. I got bored to, reading Wilsons arguments. One passage in particular annoyed me.
Wilson said: "I am quite prepared to cheerfully grant (and not for the sake of the argument) that you are my intellectual superior. But our discussion is not about who has more horsepower under his intellectual hood—the point of discussion is whether your superior car is on the right road."
This type of reasoning happens a lot with the religious, also in my personal experience with theists. They say: "OK, your arguments are better than mine. But that's just because you're smarter than me. It doesn't mean I'm wrong"
WTF? So now winning the argument has no bearing on the matter at all?? This really, really annoys me.

21. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42272 by Jesse. on May 18, 2007 at 2:29 am

OK, I tried to understand the 'argumentation' in this article, just for fun. If I understand correctly it goes something like this:
1) Every inquiry has its limits, assumptions and definitions
2) one of the limits of the utterly evil tactic of free inquiry is that it precludes mutually exclusive contradictory statements.
3) the religious man assumes there are such paradoxes and thus there are realms of knowledge reason can not penetrate
4) therefore: God

22. Among the Disbelievers

Comment #40793 by Jesse. on May 15, 2007 at 2:18 am

Oh god or other preferred deity of choice, what utter crap

" Hence, "my life is meaningful" is itself meaningful only to the degree that other people view it as such and see their own lives the same way. Hence, meaning can be achieved only via a collective act of self-creation in which humanity creates new conditions for itself so that humanity as a whole can flourish. As a corollary, Eagleton adds that "since there can be no true reciprocity except among equals, oppression and inequality are in the long run self-thwarting as well." Freedom and equality are necessary for humanity to create a meaningful existence for itself.

In short, humanity creates meaning for itself by liberating itself so that it can fulfill itself."

I understand the words but not the sentences. This reads like a Sokal hoax to me.

@rokort:
Did you know that said vice-president recently subsidized an organization called "youth for christ" with 300.000 euro? It's an organization with the goal to:"make young people familiar with Jesus Christ and to help them live according to his intentions." I'm deeply concerned about the lack of nationwide outrage this caused.