Comments by Lithium_joe

Comment #252356 by Lithium_joe on September 23, 2008 at 1:38 am

I've just had it put to me that science

can't empirically prove that some force (let's call it God for argument's sake ) is not influencing evolution.

I'm preparing to reply along the lines of the universe with a god in it is a different universe to what we observe or that evidence supports, and also to raise the point about which god was responsible.

I was just wondering if I'm missing any better rebuttals?

2. Hadron Collider halted for months

Comment #251115 by Lithium_joe on September 21, 2008 at 5:13 am

Regarding 'doomsday merchants' the way I heard this sad story reported was in a tone which imparted 'Told you so. bloody expensive machine like that and what's the first thing it does? it breaksdown! Out for two months they say. What was the point?

I await with a modicum of dread the first clarion calls to be shouted over the parapet: "What else could we have spent the money on?" ( As happened on Newsnight the day it was activated)

The approach from the start in reporting this story in the news has struck me as peddling the nonsense and not carrying the inspiration of the scientific inquiry underway and now it is under repair the same crushing indifference just played to the cynicism about science.

The Cern spokesman who talks about warming it up to get in there, fix it, and then cooling it down again makes the sense of the delay if you know anything about super-conductivity and not that I expect the news to do much of this, but they didn't stop to make that point about low temperatures, it was just left unexplained.

The article above is slightly better - but the spoken news report was to my ears lacklustre.

I remember after it was switched on the news reader commented " it's not like launching a shuttle is it? when all the scientists looked rather pleased with themselves crammed into the LHC control room staring at banks of monitors.
That level of misunderstanding and disinterest typified for me the absence of enthusiasm which seems to infect the news when discussing the LHC.

And that makes me sad.

I hope the LHC is fixed soon and up and working again.

3. The Return of Religion

Comment #212791 by Lithium_joe on July 17, 2008 at 4:32 pm

"The evangelical atheists are subliminally aware that their abdication in the face of science does not make the universe more intelligible, nor does it provide an alternative answer to our metaphysical enquiries. It simply brings enquiry to a stop. And the religious person will feel that this stop is premature"

THis sounds like a re-casting of the 'god of the gaps' - only backwards!

Science brings enquiry to a stop but 'Maybe a god did it' doesn't?

Come on!

4. Weak US dollar hits papal profits

Comment #208845 by Lithium_joe on July 11, 2008 at 9:50 am

Funny thing speed reading.

I read that headline as 'Weak Us dollar hits Paypal pockets'

:-/

5. Carlin on Religion

Comment #198245 by Lithium_joe on June 23, 2008 at 12:37 pm

A sad day indeed.

George Carlin: Legend.

6. Karma comedians

Comment #187024 by Lithium_joe on June 1, 2008 at 5:39 am

I believe in karma.*

I do wicked things to people all day long and assume they deserve it.

*Not really.

7. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #151593 by Lithium_joe on March 29, 2008 at 3:18 am

Happy Birthday Richard.

This might amuse you - it's had me giggling for hours.

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

8. Banned From Church

Comment #115019 by Lithium_joe on January 23, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Hilarious.

The perverseness of the religious mindset never ceases to confound my expectations.

9. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103445 by Lithium_joe on December 25, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Reading the preview of Mclean's book I chuckled to myself when he said Atheism was a sign of weak paternal bonding.

Was sat in the car yesterday with my dad at 1am, much to our chagrin I might add, as we had to collect my frail, 94 year old gran from a midnight mass service for Christmas that she had insisted on attending. So naturally a theoloigcal debate ensued between us while we waited for kicking out time and for the first time in my life I listened to my dad describe himself as an atheist. I welcomed him to the club.

I can say I felt closer to my father at that point and snug as we were in my little car I can definitely say he wasn't absent.