1. On TV: The Genius of Charles Darwin: Presented by Richard Dawkins

Comment #233298 by apaeter on August 19, 2008 at 4:10 pm

That third part is so hard to watch. I really want to see it, but I can only go for a couple of minutes at a time, because I just get too angry to continue. So far there's only been to crazy ozzy preacher and the horrible smug woman, but it's already getting too much.
Can't even laugh about it anymore :/
Does it get easier towards the end?


Edit: At Comment #233250 by Xenotion:
Works for me with VLC, and the ad-breaks and trailers have been edited out.

2. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175298 by apaeter on May 5, 2008 at 6:27 am

I thought the interview was okay. Much better than most TV interviews in fact. I had the impression that she knew basically what the Professor is about, and she set him up with "provocative" questions so he could explain his views. Maybe I'm giving her too much credit, but I think it's better to let someone comment on "Many people believe homosexuality is a sin" than using the Charlie Rose method of answering every question himself before actually asking it.

Oh, and:


Hi ASM,
maybe you should visit the beautiful country of my birth, see a couple of camps and documentations yourself. There's gonna be photos of at least a couple of tens of thousands of corpses (as much as anyone can take in a single sitting), a lot of quite evil-looking infrastructure (think Hostel), eye witness accounts, etc. It's quite interesting, in a scary-as-hell kind of way. Whatever you might have been lead to believe, it's not Club Med.
Then, please feel free to report back and tell us how these are not extermination camps and who built them for what reason. Maybe then you can go on a quest to find the Aliens who abducted Elvis.

Also, have a look around here:
http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/

3. 'Growing Up in the Universe' now available free online

Comment #88271 by apaeter on November 15, 2007 at 4:38 pm

I saw the first two parts so far, and I find them excellent. Kind of endearing, too, seeing Dr. D a bit less polished than he is now. Like finding an early recording of a good musician.

One thing, though: Unless British children are way more intelligent than other children, a big part of these lectures must have gone right over the heads of big parts of the audience. Makes it more interesting for me, but I can't see 8-year-olds caring a lot about Darwin's signature on the first edition, or the Paley quotation. Maybe.

Excellent programmes!

4. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86418 by apaeter on November 9, 2007 at 7:17 am

I think it's because in his article Behe referred to Smith as displaying a "high school" attitude. The movie Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey and starring Lindsay Lohan, is about a clique of nasty, vain, and generally unpleasant girls called The Plastics in high school. I think that's all there is to it. Plus, Smith apparently recognizes the fact that some people can only take so many scientific acronyms in a row - then we have to distract ourselves, preferably with nubile dames. Well done!

About the article itself: Good on her; and it's pretty amazing that my dislike for Behe can still increase.

5. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #86407 by apaeter on November 9, 2007 at 6:56 am

DG-

No, that's definitely not what I am saying. I believe that logic, math, science, and indeed morality too, are all objective, and hence are not human constructs. We discover true logical, mathematical, scientific, and moral propositions; sometimes it's difficult, there is some disagreement, it's a work in progress, but there is something objective out there that these true propositions refer to.
On the contrary, I think they do have ontological value; when true they represent facts about objective reality.

Yes, well, I assumed you understood where I was coming from, so I didn't preface it with "in a purely naturalist (atheist) universe..." Still, thanks for that answer.

The thing is, you are actually asserting the existence of a supernatural, universal reality on which human knowledge is contingent, and the supernatural part is just gratuitous. Well, okay, I could echo other people in this thread by saying: back it up. because it seems to me that things like a changing zeitgeist, changing physical models, the waning and waxing of compassion or hate in our societies, and so on, against the backdrop of "the universe" seem to lend more support to the notion of human constructs. I mean, in what way are justice, love, logic, cruelty etc. universals? Show me an instance of justice among the moons of Saturn. Or love. It just doesn't make any sense outside of human interaction. But I feel dumb even bringing it up again.

The whole argument against scientific naturalism reminds me of a teenager who just saw The Matrix for the first time, or a student who heard his first philo 101 lecture. "Hey dude, did you know that nothing is real?! It's all an illusion." Fair enough, that's a position that cannot be disproved by definition, but it also doesn't allow any conclusions concerning the nature of nature, super- or otherwise. :)

6. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #86118 by apaeter on November 8, 2007 at 7:33 am

I am having real trouble following your arguments here, Dianelos Georgoudis.
It seems to me like you are saying (1) that because things like logic, morality, maths, science, etc. are human constructs, they can give no valid contributions to the question of what "reality" (really) is? That they have no ontological value. Furthermore, (2) as they clearly do lead to some sort of improvement (in the moral zeitgeist, in our (the human race's) body of knowledge), this implies ... what? A metaphysical connection of the human mind and "reality".

Sincerely (and I'm not being sarcastic here): Can you clear that up for me? What is it you're saying? (1) seems like a non sequitur to me, but that might be down to confusion...

7. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81852 by apaeter on October 25, 2007 at 9:51 am

Comment #81827 by irate_atheist

Hey, how dare you burst my beautiful bubble of hate? :)

8. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81822 by apaeter on October 25, 2007 at 8:37 am

That was really hard to watch. The worst part for me was the utter drivel about the laws of nature and evidence. I was going to go on about it, but my hands start shaking from all the rage ... can't type. He really is a mosquito in a nudist colony - a bloodsucking tiny-brained nuisance to everyone else having a good time being mammals.