Comments by Raiko

51. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224426 by Raiko on August 5, 2008 at 12:44 am

Okay, I want to meat the guy who made up "global earth theory", then and started this whole conspiracy. I mean, given the intelligence required to explain our observations via a completely made-up theory that even mathematically works and that we can rely on for meterology, cosmology and airplane traffic requires an IQ that would by far exceed Einstein's! *g*

52. Behe's Empty Box

Comment #223822 by Raiko on August 3, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Sorry about earlier - I confused the names.

benedigeidfran, thanks for explaining where this came from and what it said.

It seems stevencarrowrk has fled the scene, anyway. I think plyons put it very succinctly. If stevencarrwork ever comes back, the best is to refer him to plyons, then. It's still beyond me what Behe has to do with anything.

53. Evangelically Serious Science

Comment #223666 by Raiko on August 3, 2008 at 5:05 am

This is sooo much torture for all of us who happen to live in the wrong country to see this! Ah, sweet pain!

54. Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher

Comment #223323 by Raiko on August 2, 2008 at 2:57 am

..."scandalously" selected particular quotes from Einstein to back up his claims that God does not exist

He really has lost the ability to read a book.

55. Vicar supports Life of Brian ban

Comment #222832 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 1:24 am

Making fun of Jesus Christ, whom I love more than my wife, in a film is going to offend me."

That's great. Does he support gay marriage, then?

56. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222829 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 1:22 am

If you can't do the job that's required of you, work somewhere else.

... or at least don't be surprised or whine if you get fired. Really. What if I tell someone my religious conviction forbids me to do any work 4 days of the week? Do I get to whine about being fired?

57. What's wrong with science as religion

Comment #222828 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 1:19 am

It's so hard to grasp that adult people like Giberson still can't tell the difference between accepting or speculating based on where the facts point, and completely unsubstantiated faith.

58. Is Killing Liberals a Hate Crime?

Comment #222822 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 12:50 am

Isn't it great how someone can completely admit he committed a crime towards a group because he hates them, but because some paper/book/computer screen doesn't say it's a hate crime, it isn't?

59. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Thinking about Morality

Comment #221757 by Raiko on July 30, 2008 at 4:39 am

So, which yellow press is going to butcher these findings? I can think of various ways of how this can be done.

Anyway, it's a nice article.

60. Religions thrived to protect against disease

Comment #221675 by Raiko on July 30, 2008 at 1:49 am

I would imagine Richard being rather pleased with this - its a clue where religion comes from and what purpose it used to have - and a good pointer that religious doctrin is just as insane as it has always been. It's just the mean by which groups divide that has no rational value. Any rational value would have been poisoneous in this context. The more insane, the better it served the purpose, I suppose.

61. Council ban on atheist websites

Comment #221673 by Raiko on July 30, 2008 at 1:45 am

That aside, there are millions of reasons to look at websites of beliefs that you don't practice. Imagine it was the other way round and my university forbid me to view crazy religous sites! You wouldn't be able to see Answers in Genesis for a good laugh, for example! Wouldn't it be mean to keep the employees from such amusement?

62. Faith is not the answer

Comment #221671 by Raiko on July 30, 2008 at 1:41 am

No. It's the lack of bell-bottom pants and flowers. I am certain.

63. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220705 by Raiko on July 29, 2008 at 12:47 am

You know, this puzzles me.

If the church says no to birth control, but you think birth control is compatible with your faith, why not just use birth control.

Why do you need self-proclaimed spokespeople of faith to agree with you?

64. Obama Should Re-Think His Faith-Based Agenda

Comment #220704 by Raiko on July 29, 2008 at 12:45 am

Seems rather bad taste that Obama kept metioning "walls coming down" in Berlin unless he referred to the Berlin wall explicitly.

As a German I can only ask "why?". It seems a good rhetoric idea to use the images of walls coming down in a place where an actually wall being torn down was an important, positive historic event.

65. A third of Muslim students back killings

Comment #219992 by Raiko on July 27, 2008 at 11:29 pm

"This disgusting report is a reflection of the biases and prejudices of a right-wing think tank â€" not the views of Muslim students across Britain," he said. "Only 632 Muslim students were asked vague and misleading questions, and their answers were wilfully misinterpreted."

Now I'd really like to read the questions. For some of them I wonder how they could put them "vaguely"... I might learn something from that.

66. Write to UCF

Comment #219794 by Raiko on July 27, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Layla Nasreddin:

I see your dilemma and I feel the same. I am now starting to wonder (also because of a personal experience): What is it that does not make me want to tell people who say, think, believe, or do something stupid: This is stupid?

There are many answers to that - you mentioned people in power, for example, and another one could be personal reputation, in other words: Not seeming like an ass, because that makes us and others uncomfortable and unhappy, and brings us a lot of disadvantages in life.

What makes me uncomfortable is that I might call people stupid, who actually aren't, or whom I actually don't think are stupid (or can't honestly know whether they are). If I really knew they were altogether dumb, I wouldn't actually have a problem saying so.

So, how can we resolve the dilemma? Becoming someone we're even less happy with - someone like Matthew Nisbet?

I compromise by attempting to clearly make a point (even by pointing it out directly) that I do not think people are stupid, but certain ideas and actions are. Other actions, ideas and character traits might be awesome, smart, clever, etc... and it's that and many other aspects that make a person what they are. However, I think in the end it is a great virtue to be able to say "I respect you and I think you're a smart person, but concerning this certain aspect, you're being an idiot."

It's what I expect my friends to do to me.

67. Write to UCF

Comment #219785 by Raiko on July 27, 2008 at 2:22 pm

I think my comment got totally eaten by my slow connection when I tried to post it.

Anyway, what I'd say to President Hitt of UCF would be in the ranks of:

May you would not care for my letter, but this is what a student elsewhere in the world thinks when hearing why Benjamin Collard and Webster Cook have to endure for stealing (or standing by and consenting to the stealing) of one of billions identical wafers in one of millions or billions pretty identical ceremonies:

I am glad I am not, nor ever have been a student of your university. Unlike your students, I won't ever have to label myself or my CV with an institution that has either lost its sense for the correct measure, or is hypocritical enough to label itself secular, and yet is highly influenced by bigoted religious groups with an obviously disproportionate sense of judgment. As a student myself, I am sorry for all the young, eager minds at your university with a less distorted sense of judgment, who have no choice but to associate their name with your institution.

68. Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers'

Comment #218155 by Raiko on July 25, 2008 at 12:54 am

Oh great. We're just "Europe" here now.

69. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217125 by Raiko on July 24, 2008 at 1:00 am

If we have to insult people who actually suffer from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (two rather horrible diseases, I would say) by comparing their suffering to perfectly healthy people, I would at least say that those who have their mind severely clouded with religious prejudice against women and homosexuals are the ones with the more worrisome degenerative nerve disorders; even though those are most likely inflicted by their parents and themselves. The Anglican Community is rather healthy compared to that.

However, knowing cases of both diseases, I'd rather not ridicule their suffering with ludicrous comparisons, and I take it back.

70. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216300 by Raiko on July 23, 2008 at 12:42 am

I am very surprised by this verdict, and it must be quite frustrating to Richard. In all his books I have read he always stresses very, very much that he is using metaphors and that metaphors only work so far. He also very consciously drops metaphors and picks them back up (and even says so!), if they should become problematic.

There is barely much else a public science writer can do to make science both accessible to the general public and not too misleading at the same time.

71. Richard Dawkins on Al Jazeera English

Comment #215796 by Raiko on July 22, 2008 at 11:46 am

Comment #215775 by Kristopher

We'll talk to you after you went back home and had your mommy teach you how to behave like someone who is older than five. As long as you don't, you'll get the same crap back that you throw around.

As for the 'dearly held beliefs' - I think it is a question of maturity to be able to admit that what you believed, defended and accepted so far is really a bunch of nonsense - and that the people you trusted might be wrong or even have malicious intentions. It's not necessarily a coincidence that creationists often do come across as rather immature in their behavior, argumentation and reactions.

72. Losing Sight of Progress

Comment #215793 by Raiko on July 22, 2008 at 11:36 am

Am I the only one who didn't find this essay so spectacular? It seems like a blog entry on old news to me.

73. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214843 by Raiko on July 21, 2008 at 12:36 am

I needed someone to do the actual writing because I'm 84

Crammin' for the final?

74. Texas State Board of Education approves Bible course for high schools

Comment #214205 by Raiko on July 20, 2008 at 12:29 am

Don't forget to teach the controversy!

75. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213059 by Raiko on July 18, 2008 at 5:26 am

#212964 by EvidenceOnly

-- Paradoxical, isn't it? Someone who wants to die or something that doesn't care either way MUST be protected. But never mind about those who can decide for themselves that they WANT TO LIVE.

76. Anti-Darwinists turned away by Israeli academia

Comment #212278 by Raiko on July 17, 2008 at 12:58 am

hese are two serious scientists and not some religious Taliban preachers.

If they were indeed going to talk about something involving pro-creationism, this statement is questionable - especially the 'serious scientists' part.

77. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #210688 by Raiko on July 15, 2008 at 1:37 am

I assume this means it's ridiculous to think that a group of people who emphatically did NOT subscribe to the church's doctrines would in fact believe that the host turned into the body of Jesus. Add to the fact that they didn't believe in Jesus as anything other than a human being to begin with, and you end up with some pretty bizarre imputations of belief. "The Jews KNOW that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but they're just evil and so go on rejecting him!" Similar to the Muslim belief that the Jews in Medina did in fact "recognize" Muhammad as a prophet, but rejected him...presumably because they were stubborn, evil bastards, or something. I mean, that's pretty messed up! The idea that one might reject the whole notion of transubstantiation or of prophecy never seems to have entered their minds.

Somehow that brings me back to a certain cracker...
I also remember being spammed by some religious freaks with some Angel photograph on cheap paper and being asked to send the sacret image back if I did not want it. My trashcan DID want it, but even if not, why would anyone expect me to treat their icons like my icons, especially when they're forced upon me?

78. Periodic Table of Videos

Comment #210656 by Raiko on July 15, 2008 at 12:23 am

That's an awesome idea! I'm looking forward to the series.

79. An Irishman's Diary

Comment #210276 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 7:48 am

Layla Nasreddin: Speaking of grammatical pedantry, is there a reason that letters to the Times are addressed as "Sir" and not "Sir or Madam"? Is it just tradition?

Oddly enough, it's the same in Nature, I think even if the paper or article was written by a woman. Since it is capitalized "SIR", I was wonderinger whether it's an abbrevation for anything.

80. Behe's Empty Box

Comment #210204 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 4:42 am

A statue waving by movements of the atoms through some natural, physical cause seems by far more likely than a statue with supernatural powers. This doesn't necessarily have to be a chance process, in my opinion.

What's your point then?

It seems to me that Dawkins might have picked an absolutely unlikely, irrelevant event and then shown that even IF that event took place, it still wouldn't be a good idea to credit it to supernatural powers. However, I have yet to read The Blind Watchmaker, so I wouldn't know his motivation.

81. Religious bigotry upheld in court

Comment #210194 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 4:23 am

She appears to be able to hold a pen, fill in forms, walk people through the ceremonies and file things away later without her chats with the invisible man seeming to bother anyone.

...except when she's supposed to walk a gay couple through the ceremony and fill in forms for them, as he job asks her to do. She's unable to fulfill the requirements of her job, hence, if there are people available who can fulfill the above-mentioned requirements AND are willing to do all parts of the job, they should be employed in her place. I do see the fair procedure thing you mentioned, though. I would wish they'd give her the necessary fair process to throw her out.

If you were a female working in a beauty salon that did waxing, and the beauty salon decided to start letting males be waxed, it would be a change to the working conditions and they wouldn't be able to force you to do it.

But they could simply fire you. They could find someone else to do your job - someone who's willing to wax males. If I had the choice between an employee who's making things complicated for my company and one who doesn't, guess whom I'll take? I find that quite correct. What I wouldn't find correct, for example, is firing someone who refuses to work 50 hours while you pay them for 20, simply because someone else is willing to actually work under these conditions.

82. An Irishman's Diary

Comment #210188 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 4:16 am

To everyone who did the test...

I totally missed the "peers" part in the answer. I'm always reading over stuff too quickly, I suppose. :P

By the way, as I posted this I should probably share my results after I dug them out from where I saved them:

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 93% Expert!

In my hypothesis, non-native speakers are likely to score better on this test than a large deal of native speakers. We do other mistakes and we learn a word in speaking and writing at the same time, so we don't have to infer the spelling from pronounciation (and we usually don't have anyone around us use colloquial grammar, either).

83. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #210122 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 1:10 am

Oh, do I love wikipedia!

These accusations may have been based on the paradoxical belief that Jews considered the host the literal body of Jesus;...

(emphasis added)

Wikipedia knows best!

84. Church Cancels Teen Gun Giveaway

Comment #210118 by Raiko on July 14, 2008 at 1:07 am

"I don't want people thinking 'My goodness, we're putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn't respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'" said Ross. "That's not at all what we're trying to do."

It's just essentially what you were doing?

I can hand my baby sister a razor sharp kitchen knife and say "but this is not at all what I am trying to do" - and not do it next time? Great. Once is free!

Glad they canceled it.

85. An Irishman's Diary

Comment #208891 by Raiko on July 11, 2008 at 10:55 am

I suggest everyone should do the quiz:
Commonly confused words - before they get to write an article (unfortunately, addressing is not addressed in there...).

Though as a non-native speaker, I am confused. What is this all about? It sounds quite fine to me, but of course that's because the German translation from the dicitionary makes it seem just fine for this purpose.

86. Weak US dollar hits papal profits

Comment #208878 by Raiko on July 11, 2008 at 10:47 am

By the Vatican's standards, my family is very, very, very poor.

... never mind the three houses, of course.

87. Religious bigotry upheld in court

Comment #208445 by Raiko on July 11, 2008 at 12:30 am

"Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs," she said.

Religious bigotry should not by used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their personal love-life.

88. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208428 by Raiko on July 11, 2008 at 12:06 am

I sent him a letter from my university address, telling him I hope that some Catholics agenda against free speech won't change his view on PZ Myers as a scientist... and some addons how, as a biologist-to-be, I support PZ Myers public work.

89. Conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #207544 by Raiko on July 10, 2008 at 2:26 am

J.Anderson:

Some people are too polite to name it (like Richard Dawkins in the discussion), but I personally think there's no shame in calling Lennox a rambling, delusioned hot-air windbag who/which makes an idiot out of himself/itself [for grammatical correctness], babbles way too much, and has no substantial points - and someone whom Richard Dawkins should probably not have wasted his time on.

These points seem pretty well justified, after all.

90. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207495 by Raiko on July 10, 2008 at 12:21 am

We can only beg parents to cause uproar every time ID is actually taught by the teachers. It's STILL unconstitutional. It's not unconstitutional to reproduce debates between scientists where to stick this or that animal or fossil within evolution, but it IS unconstitutional to teach ID.

91. Degrees of religion

Comment #206247 by Raiko on July 8, 2008 at 7:38 am

Why not take the miniture leap and be a good person without thinking someone will end up judging you for it?

It would give you the special extra of not feeling guilty for refusing to act like a lunatic.

92. Christians challenge teaching of evolution

Comment #204671 by Raiko on July 5, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Science takes a theory and tries to establish it as the truth, and that's all this is.

... uhm... no.

93. Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?

Comment #203526 by Raiko on July 3, 2008 at 4:50 am

Tune in for the next issue:

Which is the better fuel? Kerosene or diesel?

94. Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

Comment #203493 by Raiko on July 3, 2008 at 3:00 am

Someone should tell them that the Scottish police isn't muslim. Oh, and please, dear Scottish police, don't you dare displaying a cute squirrel instead. In my personal religion of Achgukhnghlaheruff squirrles are considered unsweet and I'd feel highly offended!

95. Former state science director sues over intelligent design e-mail

Comment #203490 by Raiko on July 3, 2008 at 2:55 am

Good luck, Mrs. Comer! I'm glad she took this step and I hope the best for her!

96. Charles Darwin was not the father of atheism

Comment #201781 by Raiko on June 30, 2008 at 9:05 am

Less commas and more context, please.

97. The Science of Religion and the Religion of Science

Comment #200652 by Raiko on June 28, 2008 at 3:10 am

My four hour lonely ride home on Monday is SAVED! I for my part couldn't be happier that this is audio (and I am also German ;)).

98. The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Comment #200136 by Raiko on June 27, 2008 at 1:10 am

There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.

Wow. Has this person ever done any science? Where does he think the ideas come from where and how to start looking for useful data?

99. The Latest Wedge Document

Comment #200135 by Raiko on June 27, 2008 at 1:02 am

Talking about t-shirts - I need one that says

"~4 billion years of survival of the fittest - and I'm alive!"

On a more serious note - is there no way to very precisely clarify what controversies may be taught? Becauseif only scientifically valid controversies fell under a bill, it should be very well possible to throw out ID and creationism. ...nor can anyone really argue against the condition that such "controversies" should only include scientifically sound and valid points - and there'd still be an "open mind" in the classroom. In practice, there wouldn't be much to say, especially in the limited time of the classroom. I'm just wondering whether politically "yes, allow them to teach scientifically valid controversies" would be a better idea (or whether it would actually make it harder to keep creationism out of the classroom).

100. Science is not philosophy

Comment #198984 by Raiko on June 25, 2008 at 12:55 am

I am always amazed by people's claims on the way they're treated after proclaiming belief in ID. In many cases it's more or less an account of how they should be treated, rather than how they are treated.

If you're a journalist writing about science, or even worse an actual scientist, and declare ID scientifically valid, it's a strong indicator that you don't understand what science actually is and how it works. I don't see why such a person would expect this to not have any consequences.