1. Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home

Comment #164549 by RSP123 on April 20, 2008 at 12:03 pm

A nice example of the so-called Baldwin Effect, or "phenotypic plasticity" - in which the same genome can result in differing phenotypes, depending on the local environment. Any future genetic mutations that have an effect on cecal valves or bite strength or so on, will thus be selected for (or against) much more strongly than they would otherwise be.

2. EXPELLED!

Comment #147798 by RSP123 on March 21, 2008 at 9:25 am

Well, you certainly took the offence better than I would have. Why on earth are the police doing the idiot creationists' bidding? What concern is it of the police who sees a movie? Perhaps PZ was lucky not to be tazered...

3. For the glory of God

Comment #88492 by RSP123 on November 17, 2007 at 4:39 am

'..."Only religious nutcases take the Creation story literally," wrote Salley Vickers in The Times of London..."'

There are gazillions of nutcases around then.

As Sam Harris says, rather than just wail at them all, we should start exposing religious cant and hypocrisy by homing in on the stupidest ideas, and especially by pitting these people against each other. They usually believe different - and often fatally contradictory - things, so this shouldn't be too difficult, and besides, they don't listen to arguments from anyone labeled "Atheist". And think of the opportunities for getting nice, moderate religious believers to attack their more fundamentalist brethren who inhabit the darker stretches of Dawkins's "logical pathway". These "moderates" must be made to plant their poles in the sand: just where, exactly, does mild-mannered moderate faith end and fundamentalism begin? Which are the "ridiculous" ideas in their system, and which are "respectable"? Who decides? On what authority?

Nonsense belief systems (religious or political) can't be defeated en masse. They must be dismantled one stone at a time. Moreover, many of those who languish in the warm bath of delusion will need to be treated gently when they emerge into the chill of reality - the shock can be tremendous. Let's demolish bad ideas wherever we find them, as Harris says, but let's also look after those whose ideological homes we bulldoze.

4. Now Muslims Get Their Own Laws In Britian

Comment #36782 by RSP123 on May 2, 2007 at 9:50 am

More of this in Germany and Canada - see here:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2496657.ece

5. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Comment #14682 by RSP123 on December 24, 2006 at 8:54 am

One or two posters have made the point that Professor Eagleton - who is a heavyweight intellectual and has a pretty good track record of denouncing stupidity and brutality (even of the religious kind) should be taken seriously. I agree.

Eagleton wrote a piece in the Guardian in 2003 in which he savaged fundamentalism (http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,899641,00.html)
and in the New Statesman a year later he wrote: "one occasionally feels that brief, sudden drop in intelligence - as palpable as a sudden fall in room temperature - which occurs when ideology momentarily intervenes to blur the discourse of otherwise enlightened people." (http://www.newstatesman.com/200405170002). This is an important insight, and none of are immune to this shortcoming. Unfortunately, Eagleton's critique of The God Delusion falls into precisely into this pothole. The question isn't how well read one has to be before you can criticize something, it is simply that we need to satisfy Carl Sagan's old motto - that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Why should religious claims (which are extraordinary) be spared this obligation? Happy Christmas.

6. 20 Million Years and a Farewell

Comment #13532 by RSP123 on December 18, 2006 at 5:45 am

We throw the word "genocide" around quite a bit. This really is one.