1. Turkey bans biologist Richard Dawkins' website

Comment #249377 by Dace on September 18, 2008 at 4:18 am

Thanks for your post, Kaph.

If this is final, however, it might be an idea to shame the Turkish courts by providing them with an exhaustive list of sites which fall under their banning guidelines. I'm not quite sure how this would be done (I suppose it could be through satirical legal action), but I'm sure that you could include on the list of proposed sites to ban major ones such as CNN, Times Online, Wikipedia, etc. (in a satisfying twist, all those websites which reported the banning of richarddawkins.net would have to be banned themselves if they repeated Dawkin's opinion on Oktar's book).

Something to keep in mind, anyway.

2. Talk at today's meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

Comment #246286 by Dace on September 12, 2008 at 5:15 am

(Excellent comments, Donald.)
A few comments that have not been made:

1) "One very rarely changes one's worldview as a result of a 50 minute lesson, however well taught"
- If this is the case, why should we suppose that eductaion is worthwhile at all? And, secondly, how is that the students come to their worldviews in the first place except through education? What a terribly pessimistic opinion.
2) "My hope, rather, is simply to enable students to understand the scientific worldview with respect to origins, not necessarily to accept it. "
- I simply don't see how what Reiss suggests is anything different from what already must happen in the science classroom, unless he wishes the teacher to avoid from drawing the conclusion that, because a mountain of evidence bears out evolution, but not creationism, that creationism is likely false. But this is worrying - if the student does not see that she should base his beliefs on evidence, then why should she take evolution seriously? And if she doesn't, why then should we expect her to learn anything about evolution? What possible interest would the theory have for her?
3) I do think that there is a tactful way of presenting the evolutionary view to a child of creationist parents*, however. If the student insists on his creationist 'worldview', we should not rubbish his views but indulge him - admit that evolution may be false, but point out that this theory does not exist in isolation, and therefore that the student must likewise reject a host of other related propositions which support the theory of evolution. Just how much is he prepared to discard as false or the product of fallacy in order that he retain his belief? We should not let the opportunity slip by to inform the creationist of the poverty of his position, but neither do we need to bludgeon him with the facts and cause him to become defensive - we say our piece, which requires no response on his behalf, and let it sink in.

* Edited for consciousness-raising ;)

3. A flea we missed?

Comment #231230 by Dace on August 16, 2008 at 3:13 am

It's not only this one that's been missed. New Zealand has added it's own sprinkling of ignorance and bad argument to the melting pot with "The Divinity Code" by Ian Wishart. Out of all of the fleas, I say it takes 'The Worst Title' title - not only does it unashamedly recycle another phrase in popular culture, the phrase is the title of a book, "The Da Vinci Code" which has nothing to do with it.

Such stupidity demands recognition, doesn't it?

4. MnIndy interview: Unrepentant science-heathen PZ Myers still intends to prove 'this cracker is nothing'

Comment #211294 by Dace on July 15, 2008 at 5:53 pm

PZ should get hold of an unconsecrated cracker, do whatever he wants to it, and reveal the ruse after a time. This way, he can prove his point without, in the end, giving christians proper reason to be pissed at him. Such a cracker might not require deception to obtain, and as a bonus, he gets to show that christians can't tell the difference between the body of christ and a cracker.

5. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

Comment #177884 by Dace on May 9, 2008 at 10:15 pm

The cardinal's argument is silly: if reason inexorably leads to the dispicable dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler, then faith, if it does not, must be opposed to reason. Therefore, reason is opposed to faith, and cannot assure the faithful that his theological opinions are 'not unreasonable'.
Besides which, the regimes of Hitler and Stalin cannot both be 'reasonable', in the sense that reason inevitably endorses them. One was a facist, right-wing regime, the other was a hard left socialist regime. This fact alone tells us that, whether or not Hitler and Stalin were motivated by atheism, nothing follows about the kind of society in which atheism flourishes.

6. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #85658 by Dace on November 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm

"It is favorable to have a minimal set of faith-based beliefs." - SirMoogie.
I can see the point of this, but I wonder whether a theist might combat it by proclaiming that he only makes one assumption: that what to him seems self-evident is also true. For the atheist, the basic laws of logic, induction, reliability of perception, etc. will be admissible since these things are self-evident (though they will not always deliver truth).
But the theist adds more on the basis of this single assumption - it seems to him God exists therefore he does, that absolute good and evil exist, and so on.

On another note, we need some way of organizing these debate points - they will simply develop into threads otherwise. Perhaps each could have a moderator, who summarizes the points at the top of the page. Also useful, though it would take some work, might be to develop an 'argument tree' - showing the possible responses and replies to be made, depending upon the tack one's opponent takes. The summary points could then be linked to examples in transcripts of real debates...
That's a ton of work. But it would be useful.

7. Anthropologist finds cultural emphasis on group over individual might hinder democracy

Comment #78618 by Dace on October 13, 2007 at 10:23 pm

Fascinating stuff. It is an interesting question as to whether a nation like Tonga should be expected to move with the times, or whether aspects of it's identity such as a strong emphasis on one's group should be safeguarded for the future. I find myself thinking that change is inevitable, but I know that this is merely avoiding the question.

8. In the know

Comment #50995 by Dace on June 21, 2007 at 1:08 am

It is a constant irritation to me to continually see agnosticism painted as some kind of middle ground between atheism and theism, though I can understand it because I used to think the same.
Atheism and theism both refer to one's belief - whther or not there is any God.
In contrast, agnosticism (I suppose gnosticism would be it's antithesis, although I understand this also to be the name of a religious sect) refers to the question of whether we can know that a God exists, or whther such a fact is principally unknowable. Agnostics hold that we cannot know this.
So in fact you can be an agnostic theist, who personally believes that a God exists but we cannot know for sure, or you can be an agnostic atheist, who believes that there is no God, and that we nevertheless cannot know this for certain (how do we disprove something that does not exist, like Russell's teapot?).
Most of those who call themselves agnostic lack a belief in a God, and so are actually agnostic atheists. I am one of these. So was Einstein, Darwin and Russell (Russell's atheistically inclined agnosticism means precisely this)
There is in fact no middle ground. One either has a positive (though perhaps marginal) belief in a God, or one lacks such a belief.