251. 2007, a bad year for God squadders

Comment #101674 by Rational_G on December 20, 2007 at 6:01 pm

WTF???????????????

252. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #98897 by Rational_G on December 14, 2007 at 9:04 pm

Wow! What a treat!

How 'bout the Fab Four?

253. People who've experienced God KNOW that God exists

Comment #98484 by Rational_G on December 13, 2007 at 6:15 pm

I KNOW I dislike these debating points.

254. What is the role of free will to an atheist?

Comment #98481 by Rational_G on December 13, 2007 at 6:05 pm

I freely hate these debating points.

255. What are your qualifications to question religion anyway? Just who are you?

Comment #98478 by Rational_G on December 13, 2007 at 5:55 pm

Yeah, move these "debating tips" somewhere else. I don't remember asking to be coached. Just read TGD.

My first reaction to seeing all these postings was "WTF is this?"

256. Voyager 2 probe reaches solar system boundary

Comment #98471 by Rational_G on December 13, 2007 at 5:26 pm

This stuff makes me proud to be human being also. And proud to be an engineer.

I wouldn't be so hard on the shuttle. It was designed to be an all purpose space vehicle with the
inevitable tradeoffs. Comparing the space shuttle to Voyager is really comparing apples and oranges.

Voyager is a wonderful bird and its record speaks for itself. It is a relatively simple reliable design with a
well defined mission. The shuttle is a large complex system which must exit and enter the atmosphere on
every flight, fly hundreds of times, be man rated and be capable of carrying huge payloads. It also has to carry
a huge cryogenic fuel tank to fuel the most sophisticated liquid fuel engines every built along with those giant
Roman candle solid rocket motors. It has to be an orbiter and airplane both.

The design chosen (orbiter/booster/external tank) was not optimal, and driven in part by the dollars available.

I have a friend who worked on the shuttle and he likes to say the shuttle is not old technology but rather ahead of its
time. It's so complicated that we struggle to maintain and operate it. And the accidents occurred due to bad
management -not system failures. It's really a hypersonic transatmospheric experimental space vehicle. It's kind of
amazing there' s only been two accidents, and again, they were preventable.

I believe we will miss the Shuttle when it's retired.

Think about it. Would you lament a B747 as tired old sixties technology? I think not. It's avionics and airframe
have been constantly upgraded over the decades. Ditto the shuttle.

But back to Voyager. It, along with other interplanetary craft will certainly "outlive" homo sapiens, since they will be around a long, long time.
We will have gone extinct or evolved into something else by then.

Pretty cool, huh?


Note 1: While Voyager did not "pass Pluto" as in perform a close flyby, it did "pass" the orbit of Pluto a long time ago.

Note 2: I doubt we'll catch up to Voyager in 50 to 100 years

Note 3: The plan is for the New Horizons spacecraft to visit the Kuiper Belt after its Pluto/ Charon encounter. Awesome!

Note 4: I think it is a noble and healthy quest for humanity to support BOTH a robust robot and human spaceflight program.

Note 5: I'm looking forward to the final Hubble maintenance mission next year. Now there's a Shuttle mission we can all be proud of.

Note 6: There ain't nothing antiquated about launching rockets off the Earth.

257. A Call For a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology

Comment #97208 by Rational_G on December 11, 2007 at 6:06 pm

It ain't gonna happen

258. 'Boycott Worked': Compass Flops - Opening Weekend $26 Million; Narnia $63 Million

Comment #97200 by Rational_G on December 11, 2007 at 5:41 pm

Who gives a shit? Dumb movie vs. dumb religion.

........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

259. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #95983 by Rational_G on December 9, 2007 at 4:01 pm

It doesn't matter if Hitler or Stalin were religious.

They were dogmatic father figures demanding total obedience, professing omnipotence, and intolerant of any opposing point of view.

Sounds like a secular version of monotheistic religion, does it not?

No blood was spilled in the name of atheism, only in the name of Hitler and Stalin and their totalitarian cults.

Plenty of blood spilled throughout history in the name of God, though.

260. The art of the soluble

Comment #95771 by Rational_G on December 9, 2007 at 7:27 am

Dr. Benway: "Again with the fucking fine tuning"

Good one! Cracked me up.

The anthropic principle explains nothing.

261. Why debate dogma?

Comment #94419 by Rational_G on December 5, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Umm.... getting back to Mr. Conell's argument:

I agree pretty much with what the man is saying. The time is long overdue to stop being polite.

I'll trade a little rudeness to fight for freedom from religion any day.

This is a fight you know - not a intellectual debating exercise.

As our hero Mr. Dawkins has said: "...Stop being polite.....Let's all stop being so damned respectful...."

262. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90614 by Rational_G on November 25, 2007 at 8:10 pm

The "anthropic principle" explains nothing. It is totally underwhelming. "Gee, if the constants of the universe were different, we wouldn't be here!" Well, no shit, Sherlock. They are what they are and we are here. I guess someone must have rigged the numbers! Oh yeah, there's a rational start for explaining the cosmos. Can we please get over the conceit that the Universe was designed for homo sapiens in mind? Has the last 500 years of science taught us anything?

263. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90586 by Rational_G on November 25, 2007 at 4:48 pm

Arcturus:

Right on!

I encourage all readers of this thread to read the responses to Davies artice at the edge web site.

See what top scientists have to say about Davies' lame article!!

264. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90585 by Rational_G on November 25, 2007 at 4:38 pm

"But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

I find Davies' piece in the NYTimes disturbing. I am familiar with Davies, as I have read some of his books. Science is not based on faith - indeed some scientists are trying to figure out why the laws of the universe are the way they are. Science is based on evidence.

But to equate religious faith with some scientific "faith" does a disservice to the methods of science. This article can only serve religious people who can now say - "see, science is based on faith, too!" How sad. I agree that Davies knows what he is doing and his agenda is a "religious one". I think some of you are nieve if you think this article is not damaging or a distortion of the scientific method. Of couse, science makes assumptions. That is the only way you can isolate a problem for analysis. But these assumptions are not set in stone (unlike religious ones) and can and will be changed once more knowledge is gained.

A sad article. I think Davies just likes being a contrarian. And he is in bed with the Templeton crowd.

265. Sir David Attenborough on God

Comment #87268 by Rational_G on November 11, 2007 at 3:48 pm

"Why don't we take a look at the world around us?"

Indeed. You tell em', Sir David!

266. Huge Black Holes May Hold Keys to Galaxy Formation

Comment #84586 by Rational_G on November 2, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Great stuff. Just goes to show you what you can find out by building instruments (telescopes in this case) to observe nature.

Sure beats listening to men in robes trying to tell you what's going on.

267. Neanderthals May Have Had Gene for Speech

Comment #80051 by Rational_G on October 19, 2007 at 6:35 pm

Ridelo: Cheer up!

"Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow."

- Metrodorus, Greek philosopher, 4th century BC

268. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #79859 by Rational_G on October 18, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Transmitting information across interstellar space using the electromagnetic spectrum at speed c is a fundamental form of communication not likely to be totally abandoned
by any technological species. Even if the window for this form of communication is small, it might be picked up by a sensitive ear nonetheless. Remember, we may be able to eavesdrop, not just
listen for deliberate beacons. If there are 100 billion stars in the galaxy and only a million intelligent species, (that's only civilization per 100,000 stars if I did my math right) then the odds
that one of these million civilizations is not too far removed from us evolution-wise is certainly non-zero and radio (or optical laser) detection may be possible. It's all how you crunch the numbers
and there's enough slop and uncertainty as to not be able to come up with a definitive answer a priori.

So I say - look. Just look. Not just locally, but across the galaxy. Modestly, but continuously, for a long time. Only then can we make some firm conclusions based on a large data set.
Astronomy by its nature surpasses human time and length scales. You gotta think long term dude. A modest search, piggybacked on astronomical science (signal processing
can multitask) is something I think homo sapiens can endorse. And I think the public will come around eventually. In the meantime this mix of private funding and academia (with a little NSF money
thrown in ) seems reasonable.

Some thoughts of Philip Morrison:

"Most, though not all, of those who have looked into the matter agree that it is less useful now to estimate the chances of success from various a priori points of view
then to mount as powerful a search as possible. Certainly that is the lesson from astronomy as a whole. All the same it is useful to engage two particularly
well expressed criticisms of previous efforts.

The most direct is a position that argues no signal is likely to exist because no conceivable society would signal into the unknown for a time long enough
to have a chance of an answer, for perhaps thousands of years or even more. How could any government ever be concerned about posterity to such an extent?
One important rejoinder is this: the notion of protracted search is not a necessary part of the decision. It is enough for each generation to begin the task anew, or by
improvement upon the past. There is no requirement for absolute continuity; the game is a probabilistic one. Only the duty cycle really matters, how much of the total
time is spent in the signaling mode. Each new technique, each new insight, may bring a wave of activity. If the wave does not succeed, very likely it will die out, until
the next impetus. That is the lesson of our own science: the Greek philosophers were the forerunners of the particle physicists of today. The enterprise of the ultimate
analysis of matter is older than any government, university, or laboratory. If it dwindles for a while, it can grow again. Only a final end to all investigation can kill it.
Without making any claim to certainty, I will at least argue the possibility of such a course for the searchers after signals from afar, whether in the cheap receiving mode
or in the more advanced state of deliberate transmission. Leakage detection is also a minor possibility.

Much better known is the stance I have called Malthusian. It rests on the idea of the exponential improvement in all technology. That must entail, proponents say, an
eventual physical tour by crews or mere automata, of the whole Galaxy. Using various estimates, all of which really exploit mainly the unbounded quality of an exponential rise,
these critics say that we must be the first ever to think of beings afar. otherwise they would have been here already; and where are they? This argument is modified to deliberate
concealment, the "zoo" idea, in which we humans have been preserved, as unwitting pristine specimens, and more. All of this is interesting, but it shares the defect of Malthus.
In the real world, there are no unlimited exponentials. Something limits every growth. We are surely finite beings, and it is likely we will remain finite forever, unless in finite time
we disappear into zero. I do not know what the upper bound of our grasp can be; I suspect it fall short of making a rose garden out of the galaxy. With that finiteness the power of
the argument fades; it all becomes a discussion over the values of limiting parameters that none of us know.

No, the best means to seek the unknown is by experiment, absent a tested theory able to exclude the result we seek - and even then, be careful about the truncation of experience.
Consult any textbook for answers."

269. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #79824 by Rational_G on October 18, 2007 at 4:17 pm

In response to Teratornis:

Agree 100% that science projects should be up front and honest when asking for public funding.

If the public thinks it is not worth funding after the scientist's honest description of the work, then so be it.

For example, I think the space program should justify itself on its own merits, and not point to any "spinoffs' for justification.

All that being said, I would have to disagree that the study of nature, and the attempt to find man's place in it, is mere
entertainment.

To me, astronomy, evolutionary biology, microbiology, neuroscience, actually all good art & science for that matter, is a search for truth, for who we are,
how we came to be, and our place in the Universe. Entertaining, yes, but hopefully something more.


"Here it seems to me, lies the best answer to those petty-minded scrooges who are always asking what is the use of science. In one of those mythic
remarks of uncertain authorship, Michael Faraday is alleged to have been asked what was the use of science. 'Sir,' Faraday replied, 'Of what use is a new-born child?'
The obvious thing for Faraday (or Benjamin Franklin, or whoever it was) to have meant was that a baby might be no use for anything at present, but it has great potential
for the future. I now like to think that he meant something else too: What is the use of bringing a baby into the world if the only thing it does with its life is just work to go on
living? If everything is judged by how useful it is - useful for staying alive, that is - we are left facing a futile circularity. There must be some added value. At least part of that life
should be devoted to living that life, not just working to stop it ending. This is how we rightly justify spending taxpayers' money on the arts. It is one of those justifications properly
offered for conserving rare species and beautiful buildings. It is how we answer those barbarians who think that wild elephants and historic houses should be preserved only
if they 'pay their way'. And science is the same. Of course science pays its way; of course it is useful. But that is not all it is.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must
close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to understand the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"

- Richard Dawkins, from Unweaving the Rainbow

270. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #79556 by Rational_G on October 17, 2007 at 5:05 pm

Denevius:

Point well taken.

Perhaps I should switch to decaf.

And apologies to Teratornis if I went a bit over the top.

Cheers,

Rational_G

271. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #79295 by Rational_G on October 16, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Sorry Teratornis,

I'm not a gambler, so there won't be any wagers.

I don't know if there will be a detection in ten years, 50 years, a hundred years, or never.

And neither do you.

To compare the folly of a perpetual motion machine to a SETI search which is deemed reasonable by a significant portion
of the scientific community is ridiculous.

A modest search, largely privately funded, to try to answer a question of such importance is a perfectly
reasonable thing to do.

Your super aliens with their self replicating robot hordes have this amazing power to colonize the galaxy in an instant,
but at the same time you argue that they won't bother to send out some beacons to candidate star systems, a far
cheaper and easier thing to do. You can't have it both ways.

The aliens are not in our laps, so therefore there are no aliens? And we shouldn't take a look? Give me a break.

And this idea that we have already done an exhaustive search - wrong. We have only just begun to do serious searches
based on frequency coverage, spatial coverage, and time on target, a far cry from the millions of stars you assume astronomers
have "probably observed" .

My Drake quote is accurate - you can look it up in his book "Is Anyone Out There?".

Your Feynman reference, on the other hand, is misleading.

Yeah, radio astronomy produces no practical results, but Feynman's point is that this, and all science, is a worthwhile endeavor
WHETHER IT HAS PRACTICAL UTILITY OR NOT. Might as well lump particle physics and the study of ancient Greek literature in there as well.

And despite your claim, one can do radio astronomy and SETI searches simultaneously. These are not mutually exclusive activities.
Just ask the UCal Berkeley Astronomy Dept.

Whenever we look at a new place, with new sensors, we find things the experts never dreamed. This is simply another example of doing that.

Hmmm..... How did we discover the Big Bang? Oh yeah, it was radio astronomy. Pulsars and neutron stars? Oh yeah, radio astronomy.
Organic molecules in interstellar space? Oh yeah, radio astronomy. The structure of the Milky Way? Oh, yeah, radio astronomy

The Rare Earth Hypothesis is just that. It may be right. It may be wrong. I don't pretend to know the answer ahead of time with brilliant logic.
That is hubris.

So pull out all the debating points you want and talk about it all day. You win the debating prize.

I, on the other hand, will enjoy the fruits of discovery, whatever they may be, by supporting efforts to actually do something, measure something.

And guess what? The search is going to done. Along with efforts to image extrasolar planets directly, and determine the composition of their atmospheres.

Sure must be a lot of dumb scientists out there? eh? Guess they didn't get the memo that we already know all the answers.

272. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #78733 by Rational_G on October 14, 2007 at 3:44 pm

Teratornis:

Actually, it's more like $66 million so far, not a billion, and all privately raised. Plus the facility will contribute to mainstream radio astronomy as well.

And as we all know, allocation of money is not a zero sum game. Searching for radio signals has little impact on solving our
energy needs. That is much more a matter of political will.

I can't agree with your conclusion that the odds are so small as to render the search quixotic.

Your assumption is that we have only a tiny window between the acquisition of radio technology and then being overrun by exponential expansion.
I'm not so sure that that's all there is to it.

Yes all life on earth expands to fill every niche. But even exponential expansion reaches a limit eventually.
Exponential expansion of intelligence on a galactic scale is something we can only speculate about.

It's an assumption (albeit a possible one) to insist on intelligent life exponentially overrunning the galaxy.

Plus species go extinct, also a tenet of natural selection, so who knows?

The jury is still out, and the comparison of this effort to a perpetual motion machine seems a little over the top.
This is a serious scientific hypothesis, which should not be discarded by Mr. Fermi's thought experiment.
And this scientific experiment can, and will, be carried out relatively cheaply while simultaneously contributing to radio astronomy.

We have barely begun to look, so I wouldn't say we had " a million failures".

Don't have to assume ETs are spending millions to send out powerful omnidirectional beacons. The SETI search assumes an ability to detect their own radio
transmissions. Plus they could also do targeted broadcasts, having detected earth like atmospheres in planetary systems, suggestive of life.

To quote Barney Oliver (one of the original SETI pioneers and former VP of Research & Development at Hewlett-Packard),

"To me, SETI is a search for proof that natural selection and evolution are ubiquitous and that they frequently lead to beings as
complicated as humans. We SETI buffs are enthralled by the knowledge that on this little planet the wonderful laws of physics,
have, in a few billion years, converted the ravening chaos of the Big Bang into the most delicate and complex of structures; into
spider webs and apple blossoms and leaping trout; and above all brains capable of modeling the exterior world and puzzling out
its origin. We want to know if this astonishing transformation is a local freak of nature or an inherent property of the Universe.
We very much suspect the latter."

And Frank Drake:

"Bracewell (robot) probes are an enormously expensive and grandiose enterprise. To succeed you have to send out (or replicate) millions of
probes, each which is a sophisticated spacecraft, that can travel fast, enter a planetary system, and put itself into orbit there. Then the
probes have to wait around for millions of years, functioning perfectly, while the home planet monitors them for updates."

It doesn't really pay to transport things through space as long as you can transport information at the speed of light.

Your microscopic self replicating continuously learning million year old perfectly functioning robot hordes? Well, maybe. and maybe not.
Maybe they're here already! But maybe we're still too primitive to be worth contacting, what with our constant warring and belief in supernatural beings!

You can come up with lots of scenarios. Instead of all this, we will just look and find out at relatively little expense. And still have lots of money left over
to find your oil substitute.


Cheers,

Rational_G

273. Stretching the Search for Signs of Life

Comment #78713 by Rational_G on October 14, 2007 at 12:52 pm

I love these armchair philosophers here, who, by their briiliant analysis, have already decided that there is no intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy. The only honest answer is that we simply do not know. The energy costs of moving across the galaxy are much greater than most people imagine. The ETs just might decide it's not worth the cost. Or they may prefer to keep, for the most part, quiet. Anyway it's all speculation!

Are we going to be like the ancient Greeks, and decide everything by rhetoric? Or will we continue in the spirit of Galilleo, and perform the experiment?

The only intelligent thing, the only scientific thing, the only rational thing, is to perform the experiment and do the search!

We will only enrich ourselves in the process.

274. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused

Comment #77558 by Rational_G on October 9, 2007 at 4:48 pm

I agree with Sam Harris. Labels are BS. Just ask any serious musician about labels. Labels are meant to divide, limit. control. They are a convenient way to stir up hatred and fear.

Being inducted into the "Atheist Club" just doesn't seem right to me - even though I do not believe in the supernatural.

You wanna label me something - how about a rational human being capable of independent, critical thought. Isn't that enough?

275. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #76931 by Rational_G on October 7, 2007 at 9:14 pm

Is it just me, or is this Lionel guy rather annoying?

276. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #71917 by Rational_G on September 20, 2007 at 12:09 am

"There are questions science cannot answer"

Not yet. But we're working on it.... you ignorant fool.

277. God Talk on 'The View'

Comment #71910 by Rational_G on September 19, 2007 at 11:52 pm

This shit is pathetic.

But then again, all TV is shallow, annoying nonsense.

I can't watch it for more than 15 seconds.

It's either dumbed down fluff or telling you what to think, what to buy, what to love, what to hate, how to look at the world.

What BS. I no longer own a TV.

To quote Frank Zappa:

I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed and deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I'm the tool of the government
And industry too
And I am destined to rule and to regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Can you guess me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out of your TV set

You may obey when I heed you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't run for help. No one you heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been pressed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold.

That;'s right folks! Don't touch that dial!

I am the slime from your video
Oozin' along on the living room floor

I am the slime from your video
Can;t stop the slime people look at me go!

278. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69149 by Rational_G on September 9, 2007 at 7:41 pm

Good point, Yorker.

I guess we need to convince the masses to fear the religious loonies more than us.

Like, we may scare you with our big words but we ain't gonna blow you up.

279. Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing

Comment #69087 by Rational_G on September 9, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Happy Hominid:

I agree! More science! After all RD is a "professor for the understanding of science". The more we are exposed to and understand the real world, the more we realize how it's so much more wonderful it is than any religious fairy tale.

And to quote Feynman with his NYC accent: "...it's really, really there!"

True artists understand this also. I've read quotes by Monet and Van Gogh about trying to capture a landsacape. They get it! They understand how important it is to contemplate and try to capture the reality which is right there but which we all too often ignore.

A favorite Rodin quote:

"The realities of nature surpass our most ambitious dreams."

280. We need a more intelligent religion debate

Comment #68823 by Rational_G on September 8, 2007 at 8:02 pm

More poor writing and extremely vague arguments from the fluffy "moderate" religious crowd.....

What incoherent nonsense!

281. Court bans Christian cross on private land in public park

Comment #68794 by Rational_G on September 8, 2007 at 3:36 pm

"prompting Congress to pass a law allowing a trade so its immediate area would become private land."

Politicians will do anything if they think it will win them votes. They are despicable.

282. At Fermilab, the Race Is on for the 'God Particle'

Comment #68786 by Rational_G on September 8, 2007 at 2:58 pm

I agree the Higgs theory seems a bit overcooked. Too many free parameters. I'm all for the LHC however. Experimental science at its finest. Only way to find out is to do the experiments. They'll probably find something they never expected. Good luck to them.

283. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #68718 by Rational_G on September 8, 2007 at 8:52 am

Radio astronomer Frank Drake (who also worked on the Voyager record) used the 1000 foot Arecibo radio telescope to send a message aimed at the Globular Cluster M13 in 1974. He sent a 3 minute message (all 1's and 0's mind you) during a rededication ceromony of the Arecibo telescope after a major upgrade. Why M13? It is a dense concentation of around 300,000 stars (and probably many planets) and it just happened to be overhead during the rededication ceromony!

M13 is 21,000 light years away so any reply will take awhile.

284. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #68706 by Rational_G on September 8, 2007 at 8:02 am

Sagan, Ferris, et al put out a book on the contents of the Voyager record in 1978 (after Voyagers were launched but before either reached Jupiter). Try picking it up on Amazon - it's called "Murmurs of Earth".

As mentioned ealier, Pioneer 10 and 11 (which are also leaving the solar system) have attached to them identical 6x9 inch gold anodized aluminum plaques containing info about us. The Voyagers are farthest out, but the Pioneer spacecraft - the first ones to transition the asteroid belt and flyby Jupiter and Saturn - are also headed for interstellar space.

285. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #68057 by Rational_G on September 5, 2007 at 11:38 pm

Other great books by Ferris include "Seeing in the Dark" and "Coming of Age in the Milky Way".

And yes, let's educate, not berate those who don't know much science. Unfortunately. our education system fails to emphasize scientific fundamentals, so let those of us who are scientifically savvy lend a helping hand.

286. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #68056 by Rational_G on September 5, 2007 at 11:29 pm

The Voyager spacecraft are a most wonderful achievement of the human species and one in which we should all be proud. They will outlast homo sapiens - after all, we will either become extinct or evolve into something else a billion years from now.

What a sense of perspective this brings. The farthest flung human artifact, saying: "We were here." And we decided to reach out to the cosmos, to embrace it, and not retreat into superstition. May we continue to do so. The Carl Sagans, the Timothy Ferrises and the Richard Dawkins of the world have been leading the way.

287. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67475 by Rational_G on September 3, 2007 at 2:39 pm

"Faith is the light of the moon above and that light in the sea, reality and spirituality, both making you tremblingly conscious of forces vast and beyond words. Impertinent scientists cannot know what they speak of."

Oh really? Listen to Richard Feynman ( a hero of mine) talk about beauty:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3664155826340753553&q=richard+feynman&total=73&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7


or the fact that we atheists "know" everything:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2907291740005829752&q=richard+feynman&total=73&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=8

288. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67457 by Rational_G on September 3, 2007 at 1:45 pm

More lightweight ignorant fluff from the so called progressive religious community.

We are not infected by "the virus of faith". We reject faith!! We demand reason and evidence!

I'm sure Ms. A-B can find a nice, gentile, serene place to rest on Sundays in some New Age community where she can let the breeze blow gently between her ears.

289. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67099 by Rational_G on September 2, 2007 at 12:15 am

After a careful and precise analysis of Sally Vicker's review, I have cone to the following scientific conclusion:

"What a f**king airhead!!!!"

290. Anger at Malaysia 'Jesus cartoon'

Comment #66105 by Rational_G on August 28, 2007 at 7:40 pm

What brand does Jesus smoke?

Why, New Testament, of course!

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Rumfb5kyU

291. Rational Atheism

Comment #65740 by Rational_G on August 26, 2007 at 8:14 am

You know, we rationalists have been "polite" for too long.

Ohh, musn't offend!

Time to confront people with their ridiculous delusions.
These delusions help support religious institutions which are agents of suffering and roadblocks to the progress of homo sapiens.

I think one can challenge something without being "rude".

Plus I'd trade off a little rudeness foe some social progress.

What a milk toast fluff article.

292. A hole lot of nothing found by astronomers

Comment #65735 by Rational_G on August 26, 2007 at 7:51 am

Nothin's gonna change my world...
wah wah wah wah wah wah wah
Nothin's gonna change my world...

293. In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens

Comment #65704 by Rational_G on August 25, 2007 at 8:57 pm

Nice, but much better to go out and observe the real sky with your own eyes. The universe is literally right in front of us but few of us bother to look.

Looking at a computer is, well, looking at a computer.

Having the photons from celestial objects directly hit your eye well - there's no comparison.

Live in the city? No excuse - the motion and phases of the moon, the planets, all can be seen and tracked throughout the year. Many times at dusk or dawn Venus flies in formation with a thin crescent moon. You just have to look up and have an attention span of more than a few minutes.

Learn the sky by experiencing it directly.

"To gaze is to think." - Salvador Dali

294. Enemies of Reason

Comment #65406 by Rational_G on August 24, 2007 at 5:07 am

Thank God (oops!) I mean thank the Enlightenment! for Richard Dawkins!!!

Can't complain enough about that pseudo-scientific New Age BS !

295. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64579 by Rational_G on August 20, 2007 at 7:08 pm

You don't even have to make life from scratch to come up with "synthetic" life. J Craig Venter and his team have already turned one species of bacteria into another, modifying the code as it were.

Pretty exciting stuff and promises to benefit us greatly.
We are learning how to write the genetic code.

As to how it all got started, that's a separate question - one worth pursuing via observation and experiment as well.

296. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #64573 by Rational_G on August 20, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Regarding the darwin2 vs. everyone else debate:

...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..........

297. Authors at Google: Christopher Hitchens

Comment #64265 by Rational_G on August 19, 2007 at 5:27 am

scooternye:

You make some valid points.

I agree that to do nothing is no solution.

Too bad what has been done has been done so poorly. That's what makes me angry.

Hopefully we can salvage something out of this mess.

Cheers.

298. The planet hunters

Comment #64235 by Rational_G on August 18, 2007 at 7:33 pm

Wonderful, inspirational science & engineering going on here.

Question: Is there alien life?
Answer: Build instruments and look for for it.

Homo sapiens at its finest.

Religion isn't wrong here - it's irrelevant!!

299. Authors at Google: Christopher Hitchens

Comment #64233 by Rational_G on August 18, 2007 at 7:07 pm

Whoops. I'll admit I'm incompetent at spelling.

300. Authors at Google: Christopher Hitchens

Comment #64231 by Rational_G on August 18, 2007 at 7:02 pm

I find it surprising that there are so many apologists here for the disaster that is the invasion of Iraq. The facts are the Bush administration is incomponent and the invasion of Iraq, however well intentioned, has been botched. Is the removal of one dictator worth the unleashing of a civil war and a destablization of the entire Middle east? Worth bogging down our army in Iraq instead of chasing Osama and his gang? Worth providing a propaganda bonanza for the Jihadists as well as a convenient training ground with Americans as targets?

This is what happenes when you have "junior" and his political hacks running the show.

All you lovers of rationalism and lucid thought - ponder this:

The American invasion of Iraq WAS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT.

Transfer some of your clever analysis to American foreign policy. I think you'll find it somewhat wanting.