1. Questions Delay Creationist Master's Degrees

Comment #113122 by CloudedHills on January 18, 2008 at 3:52 pm

I think this has been very cleverly handled. Say yes to the politicians and the religious lobbyists and then tie it up in bureaucracy so they never get to teach their silly course.

2. There Go The Dinosaurs

Comment #74847 by CloudedHills on September 30, 2007 at 10:22 pm

I lost brain cells in wading through that. I was certain it was going to build up to something funny, because at every point it just oozed conscious stupidity.

And it drowned in it, I'm afraid.

3. Lecture on Neo-Darwinism

Comment #52678 by CloudedHills on June 27, 2007 at 5:37 pm

It's pretty cool. Anyone else think that Dawkins should do his lectures dressed vaguely like an Oxford Professor though? Just thinking, just a little formality like in Root of All Evil goes a long way. Then again, if I had that t-shirt I'd wear it every day, so I can hardly blame him.

4. An Inquisition in science's name

Comment #51228 by CloudedHills on June 22, 2007 at 2:16 am

Democracy does not mean everybody is of the same opinion, it means that everybody is entitled to hold their opinions and to express them in whatever terms they like to others, provided in doing so they do not violate anybody else's rights. One does not go about "building democracy" by demanding a polite dismissal of issues as important as this; all ideas are equally permissible, but they are not equally defensible. To equate every single strong opinion, every single truth and falsehood, is to commit a grave, grave error.

5. We stand awed at the heights our people have achieved

Comment #50420 by CloudedHills on June 18, 2007 at 3:44 am

This essay is gold. I wish I could've said it better myself, but I couldn't and can't. My hat off to thee. Who is this person who wrote it? They deserve to get some prize.

6. We of little faith

Comment #48745 by CloudedHills on June 9, 2007 at 12:53 am

Many forms of Buddhism are entirely atheist. Stripping away mysticism, there is a lot to be said for it.

I really think Blackmore's hair is fantastic. Whoever said scientists couldn't be cool?

7. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46631 by CloudedHills on May 31, 2007 at 10:57 pm

"An atheistic theology posing as science?" What rubbish. If you don't have a theos, you don't need theology to study Him, do you now?

Another self-serving politician trying to appear expansive and intelligent, and merely betraying the fact that his morality rests on his belief in a friend in the sky. Makes me feel scared that he is already in a position of power and could gain infinitely more.

8. I Believe In Evolution, Except For The Whole Triassic Period

Comment #46360 by CloudedHills on May 31, 2007 at 3:06 am

This is hilarious.

If you thought this was serious, liven up. Seriously.

9. Science education requires overcoming childhood understanding

Comment #44541 by CloudedHills on May 25, 2007 at 4:10 am

This article is clearly right. We desperately need to educate people well to overcome the natural tendency to reject anything that lies outside their experience.

10. The Paradoxical Hatred of Christopher Hitchens

Comment #42843 by CloudedHills on May 20, 2007 at 12:55 am

Hitchens is a liberal?

Ok.

This article says nothing about Hitchens and everything about its writer.

11. The Creation Museum: Prepare to believe

Comment #41268 by CloudedHills on May 15, 2007 at 6:31 pm

What a joke. There are surely better things these people's time and money could've been spent on. Like reading more than one book in their lives.

12. Christopher Hitchens - God is Not Great

Comment #39823 by CloudedHills on May 12, 2007 at 3:49 am

Why oh why did I see this as I was just about to go to bed? Philip Adams is a very interesting person to listen to. Nice to see a bit of Australian stuff here too.

13. God . . . in other words

Comment #39111 by CloudedHills on May 10, 2007 at 2:49 am

How very refreshing. A journalist who knows what the word numinous means. A good start. This article was actually interesting because it actually concentrated on interviewing Dr D instead of just editorialising about him and taking soundbites from what always seems would have been a fascinating interview.

14. Better God-fearing than sneering

Comment #38668 by CloudedHills on May 8, 2007 at 10:55 pm

The catchy, if indeed sneering, title was the only part of this that actually seemed to have been thought through. At best it is nitpicking, and at worst, risible. Lint from the recesses of a journalist's deadline-fearing mind.

15. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #38105 by CloudedHills on May 7, 2007 at 1:46 am

This article is... excellent. What more can I say? He has the right tone, the right logic, the right conclusion, and says it at the right time. Ottawa just jumped up quite a bit in my estimation from a place I knew next to nothing about, to a place where I knew there was at least one person who thought like me.

Oh, and on the Dawkins' tone point: I wouldn't go so far as to draw the fingernails on a blackboard analogy, but there are certain passages in The God Delusion in particular which came across poorly. Just a minor thing, I did really quite like the book, but a few (and I mean a few: I can count them on one hand, citing page numbers if you like) of the sentences in teh book came across as not being terribly well thought out. I wouldn't go overboard though, if I wrote a dozen or so books, I'm sure there'd be far more turns of phrase far nastier than what Dawkins uses.

Oh, and damn is Dawkins a good public speaker. Never seen him in person, of course, living in Australia (hint hint, tour needed?), but they put a recording of him at the Beyond Belief conference on radio and it was some of the best speaking I've heard in years.

You can't look at Stalinist communism or German/Italian/Spanish fascism and say it isn't a wildly intolerant, faith-based ideology of hatred; the only difference is that where religion does it in service of something supernatural which doesn't exist, nationalism does it for an arbitrary area of land and group of people which doesn't exist except in peoples' minds.

16. Your favorite book in the last 25 years?

Comment #37309 by CloudedHills on May 4, 2007 at 4:06 am

I can't believe that Jared Diamond didn't feature once, and Dan Brown managed to sneak onto that list.

When I was younger, I really liked The Alchemist and Northern Lights, both on the list. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell has a certain whimsical charm, but all of the above couldn't really be counted as "serious" literature.

Of the serious books there, the only one I have both read and enjoyed is Ian McEwan's Enduring Love. That was very good, I'd recommend that. Coetzee's not bad, though I haven't read Disgrace which is on that list.

I'm going to have to stick my neck out a bit and say that while The God Delusion is important and pretty well sums up what I believe, it's neither Dawkins' best book, nor does it break new ground, and I can't really give my vote for it. Sorry, guys, it's good, but it's not as astounding as it's made out to be.

The books I think have been unfairly missed out are:

The Third Chimpanzee - Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins

David Crystal really deserves representation on that list but I'm hard pressed to pick just which book of his should be there.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing, on the tip of my tongue too.

Oh, and I haven't actually read anything by Feynman, though I plan to read his books as soon as they're returned to the library!

One last thing: I agree with above posters in that Guns, Germs and Steel is quite possibly the finest book of popular science I've ever read, bar none. The Third Chimpanzee's also good. Read some Diamond if you ever get a chance.

17. Army to EO Reps: 'Discrimination Against Atheists OK'

Comment #36377 by CloudedHills on May 1, 2007 at 2:38 am

Well done, Mr Adkins. A very brave thing, and right.

18. New Planet Could Be Earthlike, Scientists Say

Comment #35363 by CloudedHills on April 27, 2007 at 2:12 am

Alright, gravity is proportional to mass and inversely proportional to radius. Taking its mass as about 4.8E and its radius as about 1.5, which I remember from some report as being about it.

Acceleration due to gravity at the planet's surface thus should be about 2.1 earth gravities.

Then we have it perhaps tidally locked to a star, meaning the portion that is likely to be habitable is just a little bit on either side of the permanent terminus.

Also, forgive me if I've missed somewhere, but they haven't actually found any water there.

To quote Xavier Delfosse, "On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X."

Perhaps it would be a little better to say:

On the treasure map of funding applications, one would be tempted to exaggerate just a little.

19. Memo: Stop teaching evolution

Comment #22963 by CloudedHills on February 25, 2007 at 2:08 am

Is this a joke? A Pharisee religion? I'm sincerely hoping that this isn't serious. It's very funny until you realise that somebody quite possibly believes this...