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Comments by Szymanowski


1. 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #178788 by Szymanowski on May 12, 2008 at 3:53 am

gnomead - no worries, I used a terrible turn of phrase!

Yes this was an excellent interview aside from the video quality (a totally excusable issue, obviously). It'd be nice to get a transcript... I might even write one myself if I get the time.

2. 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #178774 by Szymanowski on May 12, 2008 at 3:01 am

What the hell??! I was making NO reference whatsoever to the skin colour of the interviewer! ONLY the darkness and graininess of the video! Sincere apologies for coming across in that way.

3. 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #178755 by Szymanowski on May 12, 2008 at 2:12 am

The video is a bit grainy! It seems like it was filmed in a cave in Pakistan :) ...

4. British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus

Comment #178281 by Szymanowski on May 11, 2008 at 4:42 am

FightingFalcon

Surely the FSM mandates the consumption of beef!!!


Good point. I will challenge BA on religious grounds next time I fly with them.

5. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176535 by Szymanowski on May 7, 2008 at 2:48 pm

I do recommend reading the whole article, though it requires a strong stomach.

Cartomancer: unfortunately it's one of the sacrifices of being in a civilized, liberal society that these things have to be allowed. The only premise I can think of for legal action would be "practising medicine without a licence" or something along those lines, but it's really not likely that they can be "expunged" unless a crime has actually been committed. Although... it seems like a situation ripe for a Lisa McPherson-like tragedy. :(

6. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175970 by Szymanowski on May 6, 2008 at 9:50 am

No, sorry, that's just not right. You can't add "ology" on the end of something to make it sound more "scientific" when it's actually a steaming pile of shit.

Just be honest and call yourself a ghostbuster.

7. Was the new finger a 'natural' miracle?

Comment #174667 by Szymanowski on May 3, 2008 at 6:39 am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health

The excellent Ben Goldacre trashes the whole story here.


Thanks.

Journalists who believe lies like that (e.g. Matthew Price of the BBC) should be fired.

8. Was the new finger a 'natural' miracle?

Comment #174408 by Szymanowski on May 2, 2008 at 11:42 am

I hope that teaches the BBC not to report extraordinary medical discoveries as if they're real before they've been peer-reviewed and published.

9. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #172545 by Szymanowski on April 29, 2008 at 5:37 pm

Digg it:
http://digg.com/movies/Anti_Evolution_Film_Misappropriates_the_Holocaust

10. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172161 by Szymanowski on April 29, 2008 at 9:31 am

Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.

"Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case," said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. "You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.


Any woman in the West who reads this and still supports Islam should have her brain confiscated.

Or man, for that matter.

11. Interview with Dan Dennett

Comment #169492 by Szymanowski on April 26, 2008 at 7:47 am

Minor point: is it legal to provide the mp3 for download here, when the BBC only allow streaming for a week?

12. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169448 by Szymanowski on April 26, 2008 at 5:57 am

I see no problem with this, provided that other students have the freedom to wear T-shirts that say "BE HAPPY, NOT CHRISTIAN".

13. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #169302 by Szymanowski on April 25, 2008 at 6:28 pm

#168718 by Chris Bell-

"An independent investigator will be hired to look into claims involving Freshwater, an eighth-grade teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School, the school board decided today. An administrator will monitor his classes until the probe ends."

The classes are being "monitored". What evidence can the investigator possibly gather from this against the teacher, whether the allegations are true or not?

14. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #168668 by Szymanowski on April 25, 2008 at 9:16 am

Hang on, this guy has been accused of very serious crimes and the only repercussion is that his own employer hires a (visible) "investigator" to monitor him temporarily?

15. Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future?

Comment #167056 by Szymanowski on April 23, 2008 at 3:15 pm

From a position of absolutely no knowledge: I think this sounds brilliant. Remember how sceptical everyone was about Wikipedia. Admittedly this is different, but the Web was designed for the free exchange of ideas in research, and I reckon that's what it will do best.

Why would a competitive scientist post raw results so his peers can spot the pattern and write up a paper before him/her ?
Hopefully the Creative Commons dimension won't allow people to claim sole authorship of papers which were researched via this method. Proprietary patents would be illegal under the CC licence. I guess?

16. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166296 by Szymanowski on April 23, 2008 at 5:23 am

dj2baduk

Steve, I understand your frustration at hearing ignorant people harp on with their bargain basement understanding. I'd make the distinction, as the previous poster suggests, that if they are actually trying to learn or gain an understanding of the subject - then speculation is OK no? Stating things as fact or as a 'gotcha' from a standpoint of ignorance on the other hand is to be stamped on and stamped out... by means of firm 're-education' you understand.


Absolutely. Ignorance is no crime, unless it's accompanied by arrogance.

17. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166186 by Szymanowski on April 23, 2008 at 1:34 am

Lord Winston IS God. QED

18. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165744 by Szymanowski on April 22, 2008 at 8:02 am

annabanana

This article left a bad taste in my mouth. Church was not a pleasant experience for me in childhood. Not any part of it. I have no desire to join in anything like it whether something about God is present or not. Why do people have to get the social aspect of their lives met through a church-like organization? There are plenty of other groups that offer the sense of community that don't have any church-like remnants other than the fact that they are composed of a group of people.

Quite. Sunday mornings are for sex and breakfast, nothing else. Humanism for me means stop wasting time talking and start doing; enjoy life. I'll join an atheistic church when I join a no-golf-players club, the Apathy Party or the Pacifist Army.

19. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165718 by Szymanowski on April 22, 2008 at 5:35 am

(sorry this is off-topic)

Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born."

It's a lovely quotation - where is it from exactly? From Googling it seems that the ascription is dubious.

20. Flea of the week

Comment #163854 by Szymanowski on April 19, 2008 at 7:30 am

FSM. There must be at least as many books claiming to have a 'fresh look on the gospel of Christ' than there are pages in the Bible itself.

21. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #162901 by Szymanowski on April 17, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Anyone know how to help this go viral?
Sex is good at spreading viruses, even though it blatantly doesn't cause babies.

(anyway... er I guess the answer is to blog it, perhaps with the text "Expelled" in any link to it like this: YouTube - Expelled trailer XD )

22. Beware the Believers

Comment #162465 by Szymanowski on April 17, 2008 at 2:30 am

I assume this has been posted already, but just to keep everyone informed of the origin of this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGdXAjlmG1I

23. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162444 by Szymanowski on April 17, 2008 at 1:37 am

j.mills - your italics have stuck! argh!

24. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #162337 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 4:24 pm

So the Catholic church hierarchy goes like this?

God
Jesus
Holy Ghost
Pope
Bishop
Cardinal
Rook
Knight
Priest (pedophile & non-pedophile)
Laymen
Don't forget the other ones with special powers: Mary, the Saints, cherubim and seraphim...

25. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #162193 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 9:52 am

AmericanGodless

Edit: What's the connection to the news article that started this thread?

The "relativism" discussion was started by this comment:
You commentators here are being very naive: you cannot judge another culture from your own culture's perspective.

'Human rights' is just a western notion that, like 'God', cannot be proven.

In other words, you're all acting like frenzied religious nutcases pushing your unjustified perspective on others.

26. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #162190 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 9:49 am

Except when he states quite bluntly that he wants to KILL religious faith. Here he is overshooting his runway.
Why?

27. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #162138 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 8:13 am

ft77

Thanks for posting this Josh.

The Quicktime versions did not work for me on Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) like they usually do though. I tried with mplayer, vlc and Totem.

They worked fine for me, using Kaffeine (a xine GUI). I don't know anything about Ubuntu but perhaps there were optional codecs to install when you last upgraded your multimedia packages?

You could always download the .mp4 versions from Google Video though it's more hassle.

Thanks for the subtitles Josh.

28. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #162074 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 5:58 am

This is Mark Ravenhill's page - yes, the "comment" version of the article has disappeared.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_ravenhill/index.html

29. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161999 by Szymanowski on April 16, 2008 at 1:50 am

But if we dishonestly deny the ultimately subjective and local nature of all human knowledge, if we allow the local meaning we have built from our personal and collective scientific judgement to become locked into dogmatic certainty, we will risk joining forces with those who "aspire to the knowledge of gods."

That's verging on the side of paranoia. With all due respect to the very poetic J Bronowski, "aspiring to the knowledge of gods" (whatever that means) had very very little to do with the atrocities of Auschwitz; the main cause was undeniably the cult of hostile racist nationalism. It is intellectually dishonest to claim scientific knowledge as absolute, yes, but it doesn't turn people into Nazis! And it's easy to confuse a pragmatic or relative "this is true" with an absolutist or 'dogmatic' one.

30. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161849 by Szymanowski on April 15, 2008 at 7:28 pm

If anyone can really be bothered to add to the derision of ASMarques's twaddle (#161825), do so on the other thread where he thinks he has the last word:
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2443,Richard-Dawkins-on-The-Big-Questions,BBC,page9#comments

31. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161814 by Szymanowski on April 15, 2008 at 5:59 pm

THIS video is not a debate, it's a chummy conversation. Plain and simple.

It is a "public discussion". RD described it as a "conversation" at the beginning of the video, and derided the concept of the classical "debate". I like "debates", but in my opinion they should be reserved for politicians, and teenagers practising public speaking.

32. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161811 by Szymanowski on April 15, 2008 at 5:53 pm

AmericanGodless

It is not "post-modernist drivel" to acknowledge the fallibility of all human knowledge. I learned it from Jacob Bronowski 30 years ago...
Lol. I learned it from me.
But human knowledge is approximate. Scientists invest their efforts to do what can be done to improve it, not to pretend that it is perfect as it is.
Right. So what was your problem?

33. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161772 by Szymanowski on April 15, 2008 at 4:30 pm

why not put up a free online edition of The God Delusion?
It is available for free online, unofficially - I've seen it in a PDF English version and a couple of translations. Google is your friend.

In the real world TGD would quite possibly reach a wider audience as a published book (i.e. independently approved) than as a website. Websites are ephemeral whereas books can permanently reside in libraries throughout the world. The publisher probably wouldn't be happy with making the book officially free online.

34. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161549 by Szymanowski on April 15, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Awesome, very interesting.

Minor gripe: I can't hear any of the questions in the Q&A - they all sound like "blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah".

I suggest using a torrent if the server is being overloaded.
Perhaps - not for me (torrents are banned at my university).

35. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #161045 by Szymanowski on April 14, 2008 at 5:27 pm

#161040 by clearmind-

Was any of that supposed to make sense?

36. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161037 by Szymanowski on April 14, 2008 at 5:18 pm

Simple error there - assertions of fact can be proven; assertions of value cannot. So therefore I can judge others' assertions of value to be meaningless whereas you cannot judge my assertions of fact as being so.
Hang on. Your judgement of others is itself an assertion of value, not of fact.

I myself think that assertions of value are fine: you are the one who thinks they oughtn't be made, and you are the one who insults strangers over the Internet using cod philosophy.

My quite slim and wholly British sandwich was lovely, thanks.

I shall simply end tonight by writing that any criticism leveled against me will be wrong: Pre-emptive strike.
Ridiculous.

37. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161012 by Szymanowski on April 14, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Henri Bergson

You commentators here are being very naive: you cannot judge another culture from your own culture's perspective.
1) Why not?
2) Do you not see the glaring irony in that comment?

'Human rights' is just a western notion that, like 'God', cannot be proven.
Nothing can be proven - including Eastern notions. Taste cannot be proven but I am almost certainly eating a really good peanut butter sandwich at the time of writing.

In other words, you're all acting like frenzied religious nutcases pushing your unjustified perspective on others.
Wrong. The "piss off atheists by comparing them to the religious" thing has been done to death. It's irritating. And to turn your own words against you:

You are being very naïve. You can't judge other people's posts from your own perspective. Your position is just a western notion that, like 'God', cannot be proven. In other words, you're acting like a sad sixth-form student who, having read more than two of Nietzsche's works, believes in his philosophical superiority over all others, and takes great pleasure in constructing and destroying absolutist/positivist/objectivist straw men.

38. A New Flea

Comment #160378 by Szymanowski on April 14, 2008 at 2:17 am

Isn't this the generic description for every flea's book?

[Insert name of flea here] demonstrates not only how Dawkins' arguments are flawed, but that a perfectly rational case can be made that there, almost certainly, is a God


Someone should buy it, read it, and see whether the publisher can be reported to Advertising Standards :)

39. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #160369 by Szymanowski on April 14, 2008 at 2:07 am

... guh

Obviously there's no need for Dawkins to respond. The offended straw man could write an angry letter though.

40. Inadequate, private and late apology with grotesquely inadequate excuse

Comment #159884 by Szymanowski on April 13, 2008 at 10:37 am

BFKate: If representative davis has done more than express a silly point of view then she should be brought to account. But she is entitled to say what she did and even how she did it.


Of course she is entitled to say what she did, but you should remember that by the very same token, everyone else is entitled to rip the shit out of her for saying it. Freedom of speech takes no sides.

41. Fleabytes

Comment #159476 by Szymanowski on April 12, 2008 at 9:07 am

@Bonzai (I'm jumping late in to this conversation)

Tyrannical?
Running society?
Control?
Classification?

I have to say I'm confused. Science is egalitarian, not tyrannical. It doesn't "control" any person or any society.

Or were you thinking of communism? Or the feudal system? Neither are particularly rational or scientific!

Everything would be measured and classified and controlled in a "rational" way.. when we actually know very little about what we are measuring and classifying.
Eh? Rationality doesn't claim to know everything; irrationality (a.k.a. religion) does.

42. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159338 by Szymanowski on April 12, 2008 at 1:33 am

Richard was very funny, but the clip will just add to the theist argument that atheists are smug and arrogant.

Since that's not an "argument", I couldn't care less!

Seriously. Anyone can see through the 'arrogance' thing. What atheist wears a three-foot-long hat and gold-trimmed robes?

(before any smart-arse pipes up - it's a rhetorical question...)

43. Reviews of Expelled

Comment #158222 by Szymanowski on April 10, 2008 at 8:26 am

"the company was nervous that they would not have enough people in the audience so they brought in extras. Members of the audience had to sign in and a staff member reports that no more than two to three Pepperdine students were in attendance. Mr. Stein's lecture on that topic was not an event sponsored by the university." And this is one of the least dishonest parts of the film.

Golden. Even "epic fail" wouldn't do this justice.

44. Commentary: Democrats finally getting religion on religion

Comment #157884 by Szymanowski on April 9, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Goldy I am in awe - how a civilisation can drain itself away from the world stage by seeking points for an afterlife that evidence suggests isn't there.


Seconded. Well said.

45. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #157211 by Szymanowski on April 8, 2008 at 5:20 pm

The Christian questioning at the end! is a Scottish incarnation of Alister McGrath! His voice goes up! at the end of every clause! like he is constantly surprised!

(sorry, this is totally off-topic... I found all the female Scots accents very sexy btw!)

46. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #157205 by Szymanowski on April 8, 2008 at 5:01 pm

Argh the guy asking about the LHC in part 2 has a verbosity issue! I'm still waiting for him to finish...

... aha :)

47. Richard Dawkins: 'Growth in creationist beliefs a problem for schools'

Comment #156421 by Szymanowski on April 7, 2008 at 2:11 pm

It is no small error - it is equivalent to someone believing, despite the evidence, that the width of North America from one coast to the other is only 7.8 yards.

7.1 METRES! Richard, don't turn into an American!

48. Upside-down church sculpture on hit list

Comment #155230 by Szymanowski on April 4, 2008 at 8:53 am

I'm from Dublin, I never heard anyone say much about the 'Tart with the Cart' or the 'Hags with the Bags.'
Always hated the floosy in the jacoussi though.


It looks like there's a niche in the market for a strumpet with a crumpet. Or perhaps a wench on a bench (in the stench of a trench, with a wrench).

49. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155104 by Szymanowski on April 4, 2008 at 7:15 am

"Mr Dawkins is the devil's speaker..."


Not "speaker" - CHAPLAIN!

50. Upside-down church sculpture on hit list

Comment #154731 by Szymanowski on April 3, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Did anyone complain when the sculpture was created, ELEVEN years ago?

http://www.dennis-oppenheim.com/browse.php?cat=5&id=211

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