1. Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'

Comment #182610 by Tagred on May 20, 2008 at 4:10 pm

They're all a bunch of cults.

2. Brown says embryo research is key to life

Comment #181974 by Tagred on May 19, 2008 at 1:43 am

bah i cant edit my post, now i made it look like Prof. Dawkins said stuff he didn't...doh.

3. Brown says embryo research is key to life

Comment #181971 by Tagred on May 19, 2008 at 1:13 am

23. Comment #181968 by Rawhard Dickins on May 19, 2008 at 12:43 am

Isn't this what retroviruses have been doing for eons?

There seems to be great opposition from some quarters to accept that humans are animals too!Here here. I suppose by the mere fact that nucleus and egg could result in a hybrid would blur the lines even for theists showing that we are similar enough, and therefore are part of the animal kingdom.

What do i know, I'm trained in geology, i care about rocks, and of course a cure for ageing.

what ever happened to those telemeres being revitalised?

4. Group finds Starbucks logo too hot to handle

Comment #180848 by Tagred on May 16, 2008 at 12:51 am

How do these people actually populate the planet?

5. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179935 by Tagred on May 14, 2008 at 2:34 am

I agree with you AtheistJon. It seems that transport could be an easy hit when in reality it's a much deeper problem. Aerospace is in for a grilling now as the next big thing, even though emissions in the past 20yrs from jet engines have come down by about 15% or more, and targeted (in my company anyway) to be reduced by 50% in the next 10yrs or so.

A full integrated fuel poilicy is needed and much more help in funding alternatives. Flatulance from cows and paddy fields releasing methane is as big a problem as vehicles.

there are other issues though when environemntalists start to moan about wind farms and other energy sources, it sort of makes people think that they dont know what they want. They dont want fuel but dont want alternatives to be used, seems no-one can win.

I'm sure in the next 20yrs technology will resolve some of these issues.

6. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179922 by Tagred on May 14, 2008 at 1:57 am

Pretty sure petrol has passed the $10 dollar per gallon ($2.50/£1.25 per litre) price in London, UK

Personally as a non-driver I think the price isnt high enough. If the roads are crowded then obviously petrol prices are too cheap. I'm prepared to accept there are vital users but for the majority its just an enviromentally unfriendly luxury. Cars have no long term future in Europe that is pretty obvious

This is the issue. it isn't that petrol prices are too cheap it isnt the prices that cause congestion.

In the UK the roads are congested because the government like most governments cannot see passed their noses. the last time that roads were built to take the capacity and have margin for future use was in the 1950's. since then transport has been "improved" to just about take current capacity never with forethought. Example M25, the week it opened it was congested and has been every single day ever since, and was spouted as being the saviour of the southeast for congestion.

The price of oil is artificially high, as set by the cartel of OPEC. It is less about classic supply/demand, but more about captive markets, so any price can be charged and any price must be paid, there is unfortunately little alternative. Renewable energy is still too inefficient unless u happen to live in greenland or iceland.

Even if fuel does go up to $200 a barrel alternatives are still years away from being able to make the difference. this means that the cartel can effectively extort importing nations and utilise the lag. There is a lot more oil than people think and it can be easily provided, there really isnt a fuel shortage just yet.

the problem, especially in the UK is that the government pretend to be "green" by increasing taxes on everything, particularly fuel to falsely claim they are doing it in the interests of the environment. We cannot drop our reliance on the car because there is no alternative, our public transport system is basically non-existant, it is old, unreliable and expensive, and most importantly does not get you to where you want to go.

In my opinion before a government wants people to use alternative transport, they must make it worthwhile first, then tax people out of their cars. At the moment even though we are taxed more than ever in history we have little choice but to use the car.

7. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179914 by Tagred on May 14, 2008 at 1:43 am

27. Comment #179188 by Goldy on May 12, 2008 at 8:58 pm

markg, I know. And we've been laughing at them for years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4950680.stm
97 pence a litre in the UK. That's US$1.89/L or about US$7.15/US gallon.
And they complain? Sheesh!

Where is this cheap petrol because its well over £1.05 a litre in the UK now, thats nearly $10 a gallon, so you lot think it's exensive? lol, you have no idea.

I want to sell up and move over there so i can live like a king for a few years :P, it's insane how cheap things look in America to us over the pond

8. Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Comment #169714 by Tagred on April 26, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Time scales seem a bit short for me for the "out of africa" movement, but then im trained in geology, so we usually take a longer term view of things.

Meh, 70k yrs, thats like 5 minutes :oP

9. Tyrannosaurus rex protein proves dinosaurs evolved into birds

Comment #169710 by Tagred on April 26, 2008 at 4:11 pm

The cladogram is a tree diagram that arranges taxa in a nested series of sister groups to show the relative relationship between them. The tree is rooted to an outgroup taxa, which is very distantly related to the other taxa in the tree (in this case "Raja" on the far left).

The values between 0 and 1 on the tree may be "bootstrap values", which indicate the degree of confidence that the relationship is correct i.e. 1 = complete confidence, 0.8 = 80% confidence

I have a pdf of a cladogram, but it is not complete, nevertheless you have to zoom into at least x3200 to really see whats going on. I don't know if you can add attachments to posts, but if anyone wants it then by all means contact me.

Oh and its not your cxlassic cladogram either its circular, some of you clever folks will be able to tell me if its rubbish or not, id be happy to share it with you.

10. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #169703 by Tagred on April 26, 2008 at 3:58 pm

6. Comment #168712 by Adam Morrison on April 25, 2008 at 10:03 am

Well, he should be up on charges for burning crosses into peoples arms.

Or for assault at the least

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

Comment #168341 by Tagred on April 25, 2008 at 4:04 am

Mitchell Gilks
So yes, I agree, if someone just invents ideas on how they think reality operates, and then developes arguments based on what they pulled out of their ass, then they are fools and charlatans.

I agree with this. however, isn't part of a scientists jos to educate? i dont mean as in teach, most of them are absolutely useless as teachers, but instead of treating people who are genuinely ignorant with disdain tyr to help, which i'm happy to say lots of you guys actually do.

those people who refuse to learn and do make up stuff on the basis of non-evidence then deserve all the derision you can muster.

I understand steve's position, but i also understand the position of a person who is ignorant or misguided, hell i'm one of them, i just have a very basic knowledge of physics & biology, a megre degree in geology 10yrs ago (which had quite a bit of evolution in it), i need to learn and want to, so it does put me off a little when clever people find it difficult to empathise with others. I have enough trouble working with a guy who is far too clever for his own good and cant understand why no-one else gets what he does.

Anywho, seems like i'm on the fence but i really think the best way forward is to keep banging the message and keep explaining simply how it really is. It's ok to get frustrated now and again, and we have seen the good Prof. do that, but we should save our comtempt for those really stupid enough to make up and believe the utter nonsense they spout. We need educators and we need to be educated.

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

Comment #167387 by Tagred on April 24, 2008 at 1:34 am

I jsut made a rather large post about my opinions and responses to this thread, and it has disappeared.

I just can't be bothered to re-draft it, shame really. Can somoene in admin please try to sort out the lost posting issue, it is very annoying.

And no, why should i need to copy & paste before posting it is a failing of the site.

sorry for the dig

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

Comment #166189 by Tagred on April 23, 2008 at 1:36 am

Steve / Stryer

I think you both have an argument, however, i also have a problem with what's being said here.

My education was in lowly geology and post grad in environmental mangement, yet throughout my life I had read countless journals and books on cosmology, astrophysics, biology, history and astronomy and was a committee member of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science)for a short period.

I am by no means very intelligent, just an average guy with an interest, and do my best to learn things when i can. It does not mean that i want to stand up in front of Stephen Hawkins and muse about his thoeries of the first nansecond of the expansion of the universe and for the calculations to be written out assuming that i know everything he does.

Yes science is hard, that's the nature of the beast and that's why we have scientists. The whole point (i thought) about Prof. Dawkins and his position at Oxford was precisely to get the general public's understanding of science improved. It does not mean that you have to give them nothing but the raw data and the science speak to prove a point. This is why science had been suffering for so long in the UK, fascinating as it is, no-one cares about the technical data in its ultimately complex form.

I believe you have to water it down to make it more understandable, science MUST be accessible to everyone and it must be conveyed in such a way that people can understand the concept first before the detail.

Any businessman is not interested in the detail of how their business is running, all they need to know is the executive summary, it is for the people who know to sort out the technicalities and provide that summary.

We have our elites, and that's perfectly acceptable, but everyone should be allowed to speculate, even if they know very little, after all isnt that the whole point of science? Dont scientists always begin by asking the most basic questions when embarking on a new theory or new evidence? Isn't that how scientists became scientists?

Enough of this stuff about only certain people should question, it is exactly the opposite of what atheists are saying. We want free thinking, let people speculate, and let the scientists educate so that those questions can be answered but do it in a way that includes all people.

Scientists can be elistest all they like within scientific circles, but i think we need to include people in on it, and I hope that you would all agree.

Sorry, just my laymans rant

14. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #162014 by Tagred on April 16, 2008 at 2:11 am

18. Comment #161506 by Mitchell Gilks on April 15, 2008 at 10:58 am

This is just a reason why religiously based schools need to die a quiet death.

Don't worry, buck up, as social acceptance of homosexuality gets to the point that it becomes a real problem for the church, they will magically figure out that "lying with a man as you would a women" doesn't mean homosexuality at all, but something completely different.

Well Laurel and Hardy did it, and no-one seemd to mind

15. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161256 by Tagred on April 15, 2008 at 4:34 am

I too wouldnt want things like the bible banned or anything, we just need to lose the shackles of it being reported as a truth, which it clearly isn't. Though i'm an atheist i can certainly appreciate the art and architecture of religious belief. I read a lot of other fantasy and sci-fi which nine times out of ten is written as if it was a historical truth, but theres no need to regard it as true, and so it is with the quran, bible torah etc etc.

Religious books are part of human historical culture but they are not real history. Nothing wrong with reading them, but it's wrong to believe them. If it inspires great works of art that's fine, so does sci-fi, look at Chris Foss paintings or Geiger. None of it means that any sort of deity suddenly gave someone the knowledge or skill to paint or build.

The human imagination is breathtaking, it is why we explore space and ask questions about the universe and everything in it, and if I may be so bold, it is a small part of the basis for many people who become scientists. After all sometimes the truth IS stranger than fiction.

hmmm, have i gone round in circles here?

16. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161220 by Tagred on April 15, 2008 at 3:38 am

Steve Zara
I find it ironic that someone who worries so much about energy resources wishes to do away with a wonderful almost zero-energy method of preserving information and allowing it to be read.

Books are beautiful, and important.

Here here Steve. I personally think that books are one of the most powerful tools for disseminating and recording history or fiction or any type of information.

Example. We can still read literature well over 4 thousand years old with relative ease. Pick up a 5.25 inch floppy magnetic disc and you will have great difficulty in being able to read the information on it, indeed, if you could find a computer that still had that type of drive try finding the program to be able to read it.

Technology changes, which is great, but paper or written text is the proven best way to store information. The written word has been in existance for well over 6 thousand years and there has been nothing that comes close to being as efficient, tangible and elegant for holding whatever information.

It is still much easier to use pen and paper to give information to someone stood next to you than it is to use technology.

Until such time that technology is so cheap, practical, versatile and has a resolution as good as or better than paper, it is still in my opinion the best way to read information. There is nothing better than reading a good book and feeling those pages turn as you progress. I still prefer it to reading books online and refuse to have a laptop weighing on my lap and squinting when i try to read for a certain amount of time.

And I think hungarianelephant put it nicely. we still print stuff from computers, if the tech was that good we wouldnt need to anyway. long may design and technology move forward, but it is far from the panacea yet

17. CEAI Action Alert for Science Teachers

Comment #154320 by Tagred on April 3, 2008 at 5:19 am

Adam #154295

Would that be the european or African version?

18. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #147243 by Tagred on March 20, 2008 at 4:23 am

goldy #126530
Given the taxes put on some foods and ciggies, I'd not be surprised if being a smoking fat bastard on the couch with a beer isn't actually making the government more money that being some uber-fit runner!

I fo believe that some official governmental figures realesed about 2yrs ago or so showed that the taxes gained from smoking far outweighed the cost of treatments for smoking related diseases, and then some.

I cant find that piece of information right now, but around 75% of the average price of ciggies in the uk is tax, and it easily can pay for the NHS on its own. Origianlly the argument for costing the NHS too much money was used as a reason for introducing the smoking bans in the UK until it was found to be nonsense. In reality its apolitical thing, buit thats another thread/argument, even forum.

19. New Atheists Are Not Great

Comment #146693 by Tagred on March 19, 2008 at 9:26 am

"The ethical principles that undergird the Ten Commandments' prohibitions against stealing and murder are recognized by people in New York, New Guinea, Timbuktu, and even bin Laden's cave"

Oh really? So the 3,000 plus people who died in September 11th 2001 were not murdered then?

Once again, Mr D'Souza deliberatly misleads and dare i say it, lies, or otherwise ensures that the facts are twisted so that they no longer resemble what they originally represent.

Again, I say unto Mr D'Souza, you sir are wrong, utterly wrong and are deliberately misleading with your so call facts.

I seem to recall that your apparently truthful scripture also tells a story where god had wiped out the entire planet of all living things except 2 of each species and 5 human beings or so.

I grief like any other human, and i have emotion like any other human. I would like for once for you to actually come up with some sort of factual real evidence to support your ludicrous claims.

It would also be nice if you could give us an account of your materially confused and illogical thought processes. Tony Snow only confirms the pernicious lies used by certain people who want to control people. It is a small wonder that we in the UK generally see overt religious people as nutbags, because (at the risk of stereotyping) they generally are.

He has no case, he may speak like he knows what he is talking about but even a high school kid could drive tanks through his utter lack of historical knowledge and total disregard for the truth.

From reading the above article, they disgust me..

20. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141735 by Tagred on March 11, 2008 at 6:36 am

The new 7 deadly sins? Arent the Catholics responsible for breaching at least 6 of them already?

Obscenly rich: They have some of the richest artworks in the world all kept nicely in the popes home. Also, wasnt there the thing in th 80's with the Popes banker and the vatican being a little bit loose with its money derived from drug selling Mafia bosses?

Manipulation of DNA & morally suspect experiments: So what was the catholic church doing supporting Hitler and therefore the eugenics programmes? Maybe Ratzinger can give us the inside information on that one.

harm to the environment: maybe they should stop sending smoke up the stack when they think about choosing a new pope.

Taking and dealing drugsso they wold have to stop dealing in wine wouldnt they, since it is a drug

abortion & paedophiliaI thought it was almost a pre-requisite to be a kiddy fiddler to be a man of the cloth?

And about his comment "new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalisation".

err, arent there about 2 billion catholics world wide, trying to spread their poison? I would say thats pretty much a globalisation thing too isnt it?

Disgusting, irrational, utter stupidity again coming from an outdated, outmoded backward thinking bunch of morons who clearly should not be living on this planet. I really do wonder how humans could evolve to be this stupid, maybe we should give mother nature a kick up the arse, or just try some proper education for once and forget the idea of having anything to do with religion. It's really annoyed me.

21. When blasphemy bit the dust

Comment #141162 by Tagred on March 10, 2008 at 6:22 am

Michael King
A first step would be disestablishment of the Church of England and the the next replacement of the House of Lords by an elected upper house of parliament

I would like to start with having an elected leader of the country first...

22. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #137252 by Tagred on March 2, 2008 at 3:00 pm

12. Comment #134215 by BCReason on February 27, 2008 at 12:22 pm

I've a better response to the Stalin killed for Atheism argument.

Yeah, didn't god wipe out every member of the human race minus 5 people?

If they want to talk about how non-believers killed people, then we should point them to their own merciful god.

"If you kill a person, you're a murderer.
If you kill thousands, you're a dictator.
If you kill millions, you're a god." Saw this on a T-shirt about 15yrs ago, and never forgot it, it has a certain poetic truth in it.

23. Scientists want rewrite of Earth's time line

Comment #117767 by Tagred on January 29, 2008 at 2:55 pm

I guess i'm a puritan, i dont think there is a need to introduce human influence into what is a geological timescale and record of the Earth. Ok so humans have been able to change the environment, but that has only been fairly recently.

Coming out of Africa as a defined era/epoch or wherever they want to place it, is not appropriate for so many reasons.

There is a stratigraphy, unless we are going to use archealogical evidence i dont see much to add value to the geological history of the planet. Maybe in a few million years when there is a well defined geological record of human existance then it will be appropriate. but right now i dont think its worth anything.

Keep this to archeaology or history, its just not something that would work well in the geology.

I can see some minor argument for defining ages but, we are already getting a bit cluttered, are we then going to measure ages in thousands of years or hundreds, decades just because of some ground breaking human achievement or something?

I thought that was what the Holocene was for anyway, and thats based on the last ice age, never mind human influences

24. Did mozzies, not a meteor, do for the dinosaurs?

Comment #108801 by Tagred on January 7, 2008 at 3:56 pm

I thought it was alredy fairly common knowledge that the dinosaurs were very much in decline long before the meteor?

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

Comment #107117 by Tagred on January 4, 2008 at 5:50 am

Ok, I shall make my point from what might seems a weird point of view.

If there is an omnisicent, omnipotent god that created everything including humans, clearly my qualifications come from god himself. I shall explain.

A god that knows what everything was and what shall be and has a plan for everyo human, clearly knows what we are all going to do minute by minute, therefore god himself planned for my questioning of religion and god himself. In short god did it. Also there is one special thing that god gave to all humans, and that is free will, he has allowed us all to have the ability to question his existance and the role of religion.

But since god knows everything he knew about freee will and knew what i would think and therefore planned it for me, so in fact do i have free will or not? No, god did it.

The qualifications i have to question religion are those given to me by god, after all i am made in his image by him. There is no higher authority to give me this knowledge or qualification because it came straight from god. That is who i am to question religion, and if you dont like it, take it to the man upstairs.

If theists can use strawmen and nutty answers then so can I.

For a proper reason. I question religion precisely because of the education i had and sought, and with each discovery of science and each example of hypocrisy of religion it pushes the need for religion furhter back into the dark ages. It is a man made contstruct, out-moded, out-dated and not needed. As Terry Pratchett once indicated in (please note this is paraphrasing) "Small Gods"; "gods are only as strong as those who believe in them." Or, (still paraphrasing)"he really believed in a god, suddenly a god appeared from nowhere."

26. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #106562 by Tagred on January 3, 2008 at 6:31 am

I have to politely disagree with steve and tribal.

Firstly, as only somoene who holds a lowly geology degree and therefore limited knowledge of evolution, biology and all that I think Dennets piece was excellent. Anyway, pointing things out like the brain has no magic may be trivially untrue to persons who obviously get all these things and are extremely intelligent, but you have to ask yourself who is this piece written for?

I often feel frustrated by some of the remarks made that there is not enough information here or its not technological enough there. I understand perfectly if something was said about rocks and was made in very basic language, but i always have in mind who the target audience is. The people that use this site are so more intelligent than i, that i am more of a lurker than a poster, and sometimes comments about how good/bad or basic an article is doesnt always help those who do want to increase their knowledge and diversify their thinking. What is this site for if not to convince people of all walks of life that critical and rational thinking is the way forward? I believe pieces should be for all ages and all intelligences, far too often we are already preaching to the converted, something that we often accuse theists of doing.

Secondly, I do think that culture can be explained in terms of Darwinism, a culture does not spring up over night, and it is always a result of a common group of peoples experiences, beliefs, and behaviours which over time "evolve" to become traditions and then culture. For example, we don't see gladiators killing each other anymore, but boxing still seems to be popular, we've moved on from actually killing people for a laugh to just watching them knock each other senseless, in a way reality TV is bringing us back to our primeval urge for blood, but that's another discussion.

Lastly, I believe inspiration is a result of Darwinism at work. While I totally agree that the slightest changes in structure or status of the brain can cause big changes, things like epilepsy are a consequence of that status change, of course fits don't evolve, that's the result of the change.

Savants and people of autism often show feats of great mental ingenuity, and often give us awesome displays of their talents. Could these states of mind become the norm in society where everyone are almost like walking encyclopaedias or human calculators or can recount a full symphony after hearing it once or write said symphony at age 5? I believe it could through natural evolution and selection, it will just take us a few more millions of years to achieve is all. And since the world is now all connected and we don't need to interact, there's probably more case for these individuals to increase in number (ok another subject).

Anywho, back to why I wrote this reply. I really do think that the piece was well written, and easy enough to understand while being "sciency" enough. We have all got to stop thinking about our own intellectual egos for one moment, and send these types of messages out to anyone that wants to hear them, that is the difference between the theists and critical thinkers. Anyone and everyone supra-intelligent or not needs to know the reasons why scientists think they way they do, but if we use too much techno babble it's never going to work.

No offence intended to the 2 posters, I just picked out some very small parts of your responses, and its not intended as a poke to either of you. It gave me the opportunity to write what I felt generally about this site, much as I love it the articles in here and firmly support everyone & everything in it.

27. Getting Overheated

Comment #98857 by Tagred on December 14, 2007 at 6:37 pm

Personally i think that the argument of whether humans are responsible for climate change is now defunct. For me the argument is pretty much irrelevant, there is no point in arguing whether we exacerbated the issue, the point is that it is happening. It is not value added to blame this country or culture for doing whatever to the environment.

The question is how can we act to slow down or prevent the rate at which global warming occurs. It is unfortunate that the country which first pioneered environmentalism is the same that now decides it does not exist. Their views semm to be based purely on old fashioned economics.

It reminds me of the British Empire, an empire of economic colonisation and power rather than land mass. America does need to wake up to the fact that it really doesnt matter whether they contribute to the state of the environment now, they need to ensure that there is sustainability, that we can use limited resources for long into the future.

Time and time again we have seen the results of excess, the best example being Easter Island.

The Earths resources are limited, period, something needs to be done to ensure that these resources will last for as long as possible until such time we have the technology and impetus to utilise the resources of the solar system and expand our horizins.

This may be wingnut thinking, but i firmly believe that the human race must think beyond this island Earth and continue exploration and even colonisation to other planets and moons, to use the resources across our solar system which could ensure the continuation of the human race for many millenia.

I see it as a natural progression or evolution if you will of the human condition. We have the intelligence and consciousness to manipulate our environment, so in order to secure our future we must stop being closed minded and forget econimics, becuse in the big scheme of things, money isnt that inportant.

28. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93888 by Tagred on December 4, 2007 at 11:56 am

"Roberts: Yeah, the sorts of problems the fine-tuning avoids are things like a universe that recollapses very quickly or blows itself up to enormous size. Obviously in either of those cases you don't get large-scale, complex structures.

Some of them are more subtle and cause problems with fusion in the cores of stars (without fusion not only do the stars not radiate energy, but they also don't synthesise heavy elements from the primordial hydrogen)."

There are a lot of examples of that kind of thing, and it certainly does need an explanation.

I can understand that the universe hangs in the balance for either collapse or expansion or stagnation. However, despite that, life has evolve in the universe. surely if there were different laws then it stands to reason that life maybe not as we know it, (Sorry Spock :oP) could surely exist within it anyway?

The universe has the laws the universe has. We live in a time where the universe is approx 12-15Ga, and life has evolved so far only on this planet we know of. What is stopping a different form of life evolving? Isnt it just as improbable as us? If the universe was kick started again with the same laws, i very much suspect that humans as we know them wouldnt exist either. Why not silicon based life forms, or other types? Why not life forms that could evolve & die off extremely quickly relative to the age of the universe?

Ok so i might be going into the realms of multi-universes and weird dimensions etc, but i still dont get that the universe is fit for life, surely life is fit for the universe. We fit in it not the other way round. Of course looking from within it would always look like the universe is fit for life. It sounds a little bit faith based to me when scientists say that the universe is just so, so that life can evolve.

I was trained as a geologist so i see life as fitting within its environment, not the other way round. Perhaps this is my failing.

Anyway, i suppose why cosmologists exist are to find some way to answer these questions. God did it holds no water.

Dinesh seriously needs some basic lessons in history, as well as on practically every single physical & humanity science. It's is disgusting that some one can sput complete and utter nonsense without the least bit shred of evidence. It really is sickening this person might actually believe the rubbish he talks about.

29. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93596 by Tagred on December 3, 2007 at 4:03 pm

Why do people go on about the universe seeming to be fine tuned for life. It seems more to reason that life is fine tuned to exist in the universe.

If there were different laws there could be a different type of life. I think we are being a little closed minded if catagorically satate that all life is solely based around carbon compunds/molecules; silicon can form a huge amount of molecules also.

Life is in the universe it's in, life evolved because of the universal laws not the other way round, of course any universe will always seem to be fine tuned for a particular type of life, that looks pretty obvious to me.

Or have i missed some incredibly simple thing here?

30. I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Comment #76904 by Tagred on October 7, 2007 at 4:57 pm

Comment #76699 by max_29 on October 6, 2007 at 7:06 pm

You know how far this will go with creationists. Its a great achievement. But I see it spiraling down to "Who created subatomic particles"
Dam! I always gave up in the face mad religious types.

and

No doubt we will get some bizarre rationalisation from the religious that allows them to carry on believing primitive myths in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

I don't think the creationists or any other religion based group would have a problem with the goalposts. Indeed I could see them actually using it as a case for creationism.

I.e., if humans can invent lifeforms from lab chemicals, then it must mean there was a creator of life on earth etc.

Unfortunately I don't think it will help destroy their delusions.

31. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #75032 by Tagred on October 1, 2007 at 12:13 pm

So are we getting the Terry Pratchett syndrome?

Small Gods? They can only survive if anyone believes in them, and when no-one believes they become useless and therefore do not exist, or maybe just plod around as a turtle.

Sorry for the flippant response, but i think that Pratchett's funny description of any religion was so perfectly put, i just had to say it.

I think it also explains so well how much god(s) are a human construct, and nothing to do with an almighty being at all.

Maybe this is a slow but inexorable realisation that a deity is just no longer needed in our or any society. Hopefully we can open our minds and move the human race on and really explore the wonders of the macro and micro universe.

32. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #73060 by Tagred on September 24, 2007 at 2:51 am

If the probability of the RNA molecule is anything like 1/10^40000 then it would not be probable to rise in a billion billion billion billion billion planets in a billion billion billion billion billion years.

I'm not a statistician or astrophysicist ot cosmologist, but in my wonderfully naive way, isn't the probability of life emerging spontaneously at some point in the universe actually 1? I mean, even with hoyles number of chance, think of the trillions and trillions of planets and trillions and trillions of galaxies that have existed over time. Our universe could be many googles older than what we can observe, its just that right now we can only see to about 15GA. So even by that stretch of the non-scientific mind, i can certainly see that the chance of life existing spontaneously is even with that small number, a pretty sure bet.

Unless of course i am a figment of my imagination.

33. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72894 by Tagred on September 23, 2007 at 11:18 am

Also in this context I wonder: what evidence would be sufficient for you?

Any at all would be nice.

34. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72880 by Tagred on September 23, 2007 at 10:17 am

I have been reading this website for a few weeks now and this article has compelled me to write somnething here. Excuse me if it's not quite as good as many of you guys who have been here for ages, hopefully i shall learn the correct way to respond to these boards.

What bothers me about the article when it tries miserably to refute Prof. Dawkins is that theists will say things like this:

"they can show that Dawkins has not really got to grips at all with a true understanding of God and the religious dimension"

Can any theist on this planet actually say the same? Can anyone who believes in a divine entity use this argument, when they so often cite that it impossible to have a full understanding of god(s) because it is outside the boundaries of science and all explanation? How can they use this circular argument to refute RD? All it shows is a blind faith in nothing more than a human construct and complete lack of willingness to open their eyes to this thing called evidence.

The God Delusion was an excellently written book, with little to no science in it, rather the overwhelming conclusions brought about from it. With every discovery made it pushes the supernatural explanation further away.

The only problem i had with the book was that it was too short, and there were so many more arguments that could have been used to further back up the idea that most "believers" are at best misguided or worse utterly lacking any reasonable amount of self-awareness and self-worth, but instead carry on like sheep. But hey, the bible books do liken people to sheep all the time. I mean what would a priest do without his "flock"?

Apologies if this response was offensive or not within the spirit of the forum. I hope you guys will help me learn :o)