1. Faith schools undermined by 'Government witch hunt'

Comment #202057 by julianstirling on June 30, 2008 at 6:34 pm

hungarianelephant :
"Seriously though, in the UK, most of the argument about faith schools is dancing round the point that this is really about Muslims.

I went to a CofE primary and a non-faith secondary. In religious terms, you'd be hard pressed to spot the difference. I guess it's that we saw a bit more of the rector at primary school. He was a delightful man, hugely popular with kids and parents alike. His purpose at the school seemed to be to teach ethics to under 11s. From what I can remember, this was an almost entirely religion-free exercise. If he starting banging on about hellfire and damnation, he wouldn't be sticking around long in the parish."



I went to a CofE middle school (Norfolk is the only county using the first middle and high school system as far as I know. Middle school is year 4 until year 11.) My CofE school taught about hell fire a fair few times. When I was in my first year they started reading the entire bible to us in monday assembly, one story each assembly, which was then interpreted by the vicar. I remember the moral of Sodom and Gomorrah was about obeying God, otherwise he will be pissed off.

At the end of each term we had to walk a mile to the local church for about 2 hours of service (Playing card games in church won you a detention and a confiscated pack of cards.).
Non Monday assemblies almost always had a religious theme, there was lots of singing, preying and being taught that the trinity made sense.

This is not a new Evangelical movement this is a small country parish of the CofE in Norfolk, one that must be semi liberal as the main vicar was a woman.

So I don't agree that the CofE and Catholic schools are fine and dandy, I know people who were taught contraception is bad for you in Catholic schools, others that had to go to shit schools because there local school was Catholic and they were not. Faith schools of all types can be very bad!

2. Psychiatrists: Least Religious But Most Interested In Patients' Religion

Comment #200522 by julianstirling on June 27, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Make a blank screened video with it as the soundtrack and put it on YouTube? Easy enough with windows movie maker, but would have to do it in 10 minute segments.

3. Non-religious summer camps develop niche

Comment #184285 by julianstirling on May 24, 2008 at 10:02 am

"It's clearly meant to teach that God cannot possibly exist," Chopich said. "... There's obviously some teaching going on, there's some philosophy there. It's not completely neutral."

The point is that a belief isn't automatically valid just because it can't be proven wrong.

4. Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?

Comment #184281 by julianstirling on May 24, 2008 at 9:44 am

"Although this statement may have some validity with respect to the sock drawer comment, it is not universally true. If those macroscopic objects effect the energetics of the system then all bets are off."

May have some validity? It IS true, and there is no doubt about that. By rearranging socks how much heat energy is being transferred into out our of the system? 0, therefore Î"S=0.
The only heat changes will be to the agents moving them, therefore increasing the entropy of the universe.

There is no tendency for macroscopic objects to become more disorderly by them selves.

Have a look at: http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/Issues/1999/Oct/abs1385.html
It is the link our lecturer gave us when complaining about the misuse of the second law.

5. Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?

Comment #184244 by julianstirling on May 24, 2008 at 5:49 am

Firstly
"Technically, it is the number of digits, or logarithm, of that number."
Number of digits? You are thinking of log base 10 not the natural log! It is the number of times you would have to multiply 2.7182818.... by itself to get the number of micro states. Then times by Boltzmann's constant 1.38x10^-23. (My thermodynamics exam was this week, I couldn't let that rest!)

NEXT
"I love entropy. It's apparent when I visit my sock draw."
Rearranging macroscopic objects does not increase the number of accessible microstates, therefore no change in entropy!

NEXT
"They can't rule it out, that doesn't make it science. Just like ID this isn't even wrong it's useless. It can't be tested or falsified, that means it isn't science, and it claims things are unnatural. "
Before you can test a theory in science you have to have a workable hypothesis, then you look at ways to test it. Once the hypothesis really comes together there may be certain predictions about the universe it can make. It is stupid to rule out something because it is at the edge of what we understand, if we did that science would never progress.

NEXT
"Oh, one more thing I left out. Since String Theory is so popular nowaday...."
It depends on who you talk to, many physicists think string theory is crap now, as one of it's only tested predictions was out by a larger factor than any other experiment in the history of science (120 orders of magnitude). And normally when they get a prediction, then they end up finding they have thousands of equally possible predictions. I am not saying it is wrong, it is just far less popular than the TV says it is.

6. Gimme that Old-Time Irreligion

Comment #181632 by julianstirling on May 17, 2008 at 6:14 pm

I have read Irreligion, it is a very short read, 150 small pages, but there is a lot there.

My one criticism is he has a tendency to loose interest during his arguments. He neatly lays out the topic to be discussed, he very neatly dissects the main framework, then he doesn't conclude his argument. You are expecting a nice conclusion summing up how this shows how totally ridiculous the argument is and he just moves on with no warning.
Of course you can piece the conclusion together yourself, but the book would be far more convincing to fence sitters if the conclusion was there.

7. Computer game's high score could earn the Nobel Prize in medicine

Comment #178758 by julianstirling on May 12, 2008 at 2:21 am

6. Comment #178409 by Alastor on May 11, 2008 at 11:13 am
I think he got it for his papers on the Brownian motion (strongest yet evidence of atoms)

I guess you mean the strongest evidence at the time for atoms? Because we can now isolate atoms, even lowly first year physics undergraduates can image atoms with a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (I got some fuzzy black blobs on my screen after 2 hours!).
People have even made the IBM logo, the Nottingham University logo and stick men by moving single atoms at a time.

8. Darwin's original theory of evolution goes online

Comment #163639 by julianstirling on April 18, 2008 at 5:07 pm

The book is called "On the Origin of Species" not "The Origin of Species". (Well there is also a subtitle.)

9. Leaving the Faith

Comment #136282 by julianstirling on February 29, 2008 at 5:17 pm

I find it hard to take a site seriously that has Deepak Chopra as one of the 3 "experts" displayed in the science section.

10. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127007 by julianstirling on February 14, 2008 at 4:36 pm

I personally think the point about the religious being a major political force for reform in the Philippines is exaggerated. I admit my knowledge is fairly limited, but from my experience the country while being very outwardly religious in the way it presents things. For example you hardly even see a single jeepney without a picture of Jesus on it, most houses have Jesus paintings in them. But when you talk to people, the only mentioning of Jesus was people addressing me as Jesus as of how I look. The rest of the time everyone seemed to function as a secularist.
The shops open Sunday, Easter Sunday AND CHRISTMAS! When my it came up in conversion once that I was an atheist no one even seemed to think it was even interesting.
So to say Philippine culture is very religious is outwardly evident in the aesthetics, but not when it comes to actual decision making.
(I may be wrong though, I only spent a month there, and it is a big place)

11. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111385 by julianstirling on January 14, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Get well soon!

12. The Moral Instinct

Comment #110729 by julianstirling on January 12, 2008 at 7:55 am

Diacanu:

Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug?

(Without reading further)

Borlaug!!

13. Researchers use neuroimaging to study ESP

Comment #107954 by julianstirling on January 5, 2008 at 4:42 pm

epeeist

It is impossible to affirm a null hypothesis. You cannot prove something doesn't exist, it is impossible scientifically.
So their experiment didn't fail, it did exactly what it set out to do.