1. Stephen Hawking's explosive new theory

Comment #202262 by eggplantbren on July 1, 2008 at 6:56 am

These articles are so pointless.

2. Jesus and Mo on Militant Atheists

Comment #201994 by eggplantbren on June 30, 2008 at 2:46 pm

Hahahahaha. I love it.

3. The Challenge of the New Creationism

Comment #191421 by eggplantbren on June 10, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I really wish people would use free formats, such as Ogg Theora, or at least widely supported formats. Not everyone has an Apple. Grrr.

4. Faith no more as World Youth Day fans flames of disbelief

Comment #189916 by eggplantbren on June 7, 2008 at 3:24 pm

7. Comment #189821 by passutoba on June 7, 2008 at 10:28 am
'uncertain science'? Which part of TGD is he referring to here?


Probably the cosmology.

5. Darwin still causing waves after 150 years

Comment #188874 by eggplantbren on June 4, 2008 at 9:38 pm

I have no problem with the word believe and I don't understand why some people think saying "accept" instead makes any difference whatsoever to the actual issue.

6. Jamy Ian Swiss - Skepticism and the Art and Philosophy of Magic

Comment #185585 by eggplantbren on May 28, 2008 at 6:17 am

I have a man crush on Jamy Ian Swiss.

7. Richard Dawkins lecture at ASU's Tempe Campus

Comment #183841 by eggplantbren on May 23, 2008 at 2:15 am

This is a really good talk. I like the way he brought in some old arguments that he's used before but weren't in TGD, like the one about what killed the dinosaurs.

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

Comment #178215 by eggplantbren on May 10, 2008 at 11:10 pm

I'd support the same decision if it was for environmental reasons - but it's an airline and I don't think they want people to think too much about the environment. :)

9. Bill Good Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #174142 by eggplantbren on May 1, 2008 at 6:27 pm

That's a really good interview. Richard's stock answers to these kinds of common questions are getting a lot better.

10. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132403 by eggplantbren on February 24, 2008 at 5:57 pm

The angel could appear and provide evidence that implies it could not be a hallucination. For example, by providing extremely specific testable information that nobody could have known.


Still, most of the possible confirmations of religion aren't going to happen - if all of astronomy was wrong and there really was a firmament, with heaven outside it, that would be pretty strong evidence. But it's false.

The world could work the way fundamentalists think it does, with magic etc, and only Christian prayers working, whereas others have a negative effect. But that's not what is observed either.

Sure, an ambiguous event that can be explained in two ways won't sway anyone who has a strong opinion on either side. But that doesn't mean that all conceivable events, ever, are ambiguous.

11. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125240 by eggplantbren on February 11, 2008 at 5:37 am

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I could only think of one person that I'd really like to see in this position: Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's one of the most inspiring and accomplished communicators of science I've ever seen.

I think he'd also be a better choice than any theoretical physicist. Although I am one, I think the subject matter can be too abstract and removed from everyday experience, and would give people the wrong idea about what science is about.

12. Dusty Clues: Study suggests no dearth of Earths

Comment #122244 by eggplantbren on February 5, 2008 at 1:56 am

" 7. Comment #122179 by mmurray on February 4, 2008 at 9:20 pm
avatarWhy do some people regard it as obvious that because there are so many stars life must exist elsewhere? You can only draw that conclusion if you know the odds of planets and life forming and we don't. None of the available evidence we have including these results contradicts the hypothesis that we are the only planet with life on it in the whole universe"

mmurray is right about this. We do not have very much knowledge about the range of conditions under which life can form, and how much luck is needed. Still, a lot of these results could have gone the other way. Extra-solar planets *could* have been rare. But they're not. Complex molecules could have been rare in the universe. But they're not. And so on. A lot of terms in the Drake Equation have been found to be fairly high as our knowledge has increased, but that one about abiogenesis is still massively uncertain, and probably also the one about eventually evolving intelligent life.

13. Dusty Clues: Study suggests no dearth of Earths

Comment #122111 by eggplantbren on February 4, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Interesting stuff! For those who would like to read the actual paper, it is available here:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1057

14. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110595 by eggplantbren on January 11, 2008 at 2:56 pm

>>As a side note, I'll also point out that there are many physical systems that exhibit hysterisis, and cannot be run backwards in time to determine an earlier state. The collision of raindrops into a larger raindrop is one example. Once you have the larger drop (and let's for fun just assume that its interior circulation has come to a steady state), the information about the drops of which it is composed is forever lost.<<

This isn't true, the required information is still there but is only true of a very small subset of the microstates covered by the statement "there is now a single drop". For anyone who's interested I highly recommend this article by E.T. Jaynes:


http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/second.law.pdf

15. Debate: Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs Ed Husain

Comment #92147 by eggplantbren on November 30, 2007 at 12:51 am

>>Ed Hussain's argument, is to try to replace malign, openly treasonous ridiculous tosh, with less dangerous tosh. It's still tosh.
<<


That reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Sam Harris:



"Religious moderation, insofar as it represents an attempt to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion, closes the door to more sophisticated approaches to spirituality, ethics, and the building of strong communities.

Religious moderates seem to believe that what we need is not radical insight and innovation in these areas but a mere dilution of Iron Age philosophy."

16. Antony Flew's Bogus Book

Comment #87056 by eggplantbren on November 11, 2007 at 5:46 am

I, too, am a fan of Richard Carrier. I was impressed with his interview on Brian Flemming's film "The God Who Wasn't There", and started reading his online work and his book. It's all pretty good.

17. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #81782 by eggplantbren on October 25, 2007 at 7:08 am

At uni recently there was a debate between one of our astrophysics professors and an anglican minister on the existence of god. I wrote up a review for the science society newsletter, which ended up mostly being a critique of the minister's nonsense on universe origins. You can find the review here, I hope it is helpful.

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~brewer/debate.html

18. Sleights of Mind

Comment #64658 by eggplantbren on August 21, 2007 at 7:03 am

Apollo Robbins is awesome. He's a friend of my favourite magician, Gregory Wilson, who I'll be meeting soon. Yay! :)

19. Bill Maher Making New Documentary Movie, 'Religulous'

Comment #64345 by eggplantbren on August 19, 2007 at 5:08 pm

I'm a fan and supporter of Richard Dawkins but I think "The Root of All Evil?" was crap. Easily the worst work he's ever put his name to.

20. Who's Minding the Mind?

Comment #61361 by eggplantbren on August 5, 2007 at 12:49 am

Derren Brown is a magician and does not really use those techniques.

21. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52698 by eggplantbren on June 27, 2007 at 7:49 pm

>>Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word ''elephant'' includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?<<

I loved this. Perfect example of how moderates shift the goal posts.

22. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52697 by eggplantbren on June 27, 2007 at 7:48 pm

This "lack of belief" argument is stupid. It was never atheism. Atheism is the belief that the most probable number of Gods is zero, and this has a fairly high probability.

23. Messiah

Comment #52413 by eggplantbren on June 27, 2007 at 1:46 am

Well, in other context I've seen him using methods that I know about (nail writers and things like that. Shhh). And drawing duplication is a staple of mentalism. My unimaginativity is not convincing evidence that it is faked in the most obvious way.

24. Messiah

Comment #52400 by eggplantbren on June 27, 2007 at 1:20 am

I agree, there comes a point when it becomes "too perfect" and we need at least some hints of method. Either that or everyone just assumes the worst (stooges, etc), despite the disclaimer. The actual methods for mentalist tricks are usually quite clever and beyond me.

25. Messiah

Comment #52376 by eggplantbren on June 26, 2007 at 10:37 pm

Derren is a very good mentalist. For some reason, some people believe that it really all is suggestion/body language, etc, which isn't true. He did a really good interview with Jamy Ian Swiss that's worth checking out, there's some interesting comments about the ethics of performing this kind of thing.

http://www.jamyianswiss.com/fm/works/derren-brown.html

26. The planet hunters

Comment #47286 by eggplantbren on June 4, 2007 at 1:10 am

And, Bizarro Dawkins, of course astronomy is evidence against the anthropocentric religions.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#universe

27. The planet hunters

Comment #47285 by eggplantbren on June 4, 2007 at 1:03 am

>>Not one of you seems to have the slightest interest in science<<

I am doing a PhD in astrophysics, which is odd if I have no interest in science.

28. The planet hunters

Comment #47271 by eggplantbren on June 3, 2007 at 9:29 pm

>>However, in a young-age creation point of view, such planets could have been created at any distance from the star, making complex migration processes unnecessary.<<

This is even worse stupider than I remember creationism being. The fact that a hypothesis is consistent with any possible data makes it implausible, untestable and worthless.

29. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47083 by eggplantbren on June 3, 2007 at 1:48 am

>>I think Dawkins has raised some interesting questions<<
>>what I would like to say in response<<
>>Alister<<


McGrath? Or a parody? :)

30. A galactic fossil - Star is found to be 13.2 billion years old

Comment #43996 by eggplantbren on May 23, 2007 at 6:36 am

The more massive stars have very short lifetimes before they go supernova.

31. A galactic fossil - Star is found to be 13.2 billion years old

Comment #43895 by eggplantbren on May 23, 2007 at 3:41 am

Most stars are found in galaxies. :)

32. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43573 by eggplantbren on May 22, 2007 at 3:42 am

Thanks, I figured that out about 10 seconds after clicking submit. :)

33. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43569 by eggplantbren on May 22, 2007 at 3:25 am

>>If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox." - Hitchens
<<

I don't get it.

34. A meeting of unlike minds

Comment #43347 by eggplantbren on May 21, 2007 at 6:40 am

>>To equate extremist suicide bombers with quiet churchgoers, he said, is misleading and inflammatory.<<

Morally, they are poles apart, of course. However, their beliefs are equally absurd and unsupported by evidence.

35. Goodness without Godliness

Comment #42840 by eggplantbren on May 20, 2007 at 12:52 am

>>There would be no difference between killing my neighbours and feeding the homeless."<<


Argh, I hate this crap!

The difference is that one has bad consequences for us in this world. That is the basis of morality, not because a sky fairy told us so.

36. Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-Off

Comment #39749 by eggplantbren on May 11, 2007 at 8:57 pm

>>I want to pull back the curtain and show that the number one reason that people don't believe in God is not a lack in evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today believe to be a fairytale for grownups.
<<

The irony.

37. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #38447 by eggplantbren on May 8, 2007 at 5:58 am

>>I disagree with this statement as many of the great discoveries have been conceived of before any proof can be given. For example Einstein stated through thought experiments that light has a mass. This was not able to be proved until some time later when physical experiments were undertaken showing it to be true.

It seems to me to be an unhelpful and extreme view to state that that because it cannot be proved right now that the believer is a fool. <<



Yes, but if all or most of the experimental tests of relativity had failed, and you still believed it, that would be foolish.

38. Religion & Culture Panel

Comment #36375 by eggplantbren on May 1, 2007 at 2:32 am

This is pretty good. What's with that guy slandering astronomers? What a nobber.

39. Bill Maher - APATHEIST

Comment #35306 by eggplantbren on April 26, 2007 at 8:10 pm

Suicide mission? PMSL. I'm gonna use that one.

40. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32342 by eggplantbren on April 16, 2007 at 11:02 pm

>>An affirmation of God can lead to the Ten Commandments<<

Don't forget, boiling goats in their mothers milk is baaad news!

41. Sex, Love, and SSRIs

Comment #31083 by eggplantbren on April 10, 2007 at 11:14 pm

Effexor is an SNRI, not an SSRI. That means it acts on norepinephrine as well.

While we're comparing anecdotes, I have been successfully treated with Fluvoxamine, an SSRI, for about 12 months. I have had no side effects whatsoever.

42. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30075 by eggplantbren on April 6, 2007 at 11:25 pm

So intelligence has nothing to do with being able to assess the truth value of claims?

This is just another "atheists have no heart" rant. Completely false and missing the point.



>>It therefore matters not only how we reason, but how we feel, how we act towards others, how we speak, sing, dance, laugh, cry, eat and wash, how we die, how we pray and how we love.<<

This is correct. Unfortunately it has no relevance whatsoever to the question of whether a man 2000 years ago came back from the dead and flew into space.

43. The God Debate

Comment #29055 by eggplantbren on April 1, 2007 at 12:33 pm

Rick Warren is *huge* in the evangelical Christian world. Pretty much all of them have read "A Purpose Driven Life". If this article can get a few of them to have heard of Sam Harris, it's a good thing.

44. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #27894 by eggplantbren on March 27, 2007 at 6:25 am

I wonder what the odds of abiogenesis would be if we started with 10000000000000000000000 planets completely covered in peanut butter and waited a billion years.

45. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #26841 by eggplantbren on March 22, 2007 at 12:05 am

I was wondering the same thing, nrvous.

46. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26815 by eggplantbren on March 21, 2007 at 8:12 pm

>>I was thinking about your second post and I am not sure you are 100% right. For example, it is not "testable" to know that Caesar said "Jacta alea est" and crossed the Rubicon into Italy. There is, however, some evidence for it.<<

By saying there is evidence for it, you are saying that is testable and has been tested. That's what evidence is. Whether the evidence is strong enough to elevate the hypothesis to near certainty is a different and important matter, of course.

47. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26777 by eggplantbren on March 21, 2007 at 3:38 pm

>>untestable and unsupported by evidence<<

Also, these can't both be true. It's either untestable, in which case there is no relevant evidence, or it is testable and unsupported. I'd say the latter.

48. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26776 by eggplantbren on March 21, 2007 at 3:35 pm

Classical physics did not collapse. It is still very much true in most circumstances.

49. The History of Creationist Thought

Comment #26366 by eggplantbren on March 19, 2007 at 12:06 am

Hehehe. I liked it.

50. Foreword for the UK edition of 'Letter to a Christian Nation'

Comment #22304 by eggplantbren on February 14, 2007 at 2:10 am

Does anyone here know whether there'll be an Australian release? I have a *cough* backup copy on my computer but would rather have the real thing to put on my shelf and lend to people.