1. A Table for One

Comment #98037 by Newton30 on December 13, 2007 at 2:44 am

Colbert is practically the fifth horseman of atheists. Too bad he's in the closet. His book 'I am America and so can you' is almost as damaging to religion as the God Delusion. It was his interview of Richard that first got me interested in this whole atheism movement.

At one point in his book, he rants satirically about atheism as he always does, and then describes agnostics as 'Atheists without balls' LOL!

2. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #96862 by Newton30 on December 11, 2007 at 2:53 am

hungarianelephant,

Jews who died in the camps, starvation, gas chamber or otherwise count as being executed. Just like those who died in the gulags count as political opponents deliberately killed. The body count is still heavily against the theists.

That being said, I don't believe the body count argument is a valid one in any case. However, when theists use that argument, it does not seem effective to just say 'that's not a valid argument', because it appears to them as a retreat and an admission of guilt. We first have to hit them where it hurts, and then argue properly with the proper arguments that demolish theism.

3. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #96850 by Newton30 on December 11, 2007 at 2:29 am

In all the rebuttals to the 'atheist body count' argument, it annoys me that one crucial detail is never mentionned.

The regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao didn't deliberately kill millions of people in their own countries. The vast majority died because of ineffective and counter-productive agriculture reforms. Before the reforms, millions of people died of starvation anyway because of cyclical droughts and the primitive feodal system. How come these are never counted?

These regimes did repression and they did execute political opponents, but those victims ranged in the thousands (or hundreds of thousands) not hundreds of millions.

The only regime that systematically slaughtered millions of people is Hitler's, largely on catholic anti-semitic dogma (because yes, anti-semitism endures throughout the ages almost exclusively through official catholic doctrine. See pope Clement VIII and his jewish ghetto system)

4. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust

Comment #89534 by Newton30 on November 21, 2007 at 3:00 am

I still don't agree with this, and I find it a little disturbing that Sam Harris is pushing this like a clever marketer.

When someone has to courage to take a stand against the insanity of the muslim world, it earns a lot of admiration from peers. Is it right for the same person to ask the same peers to pay for security that comes with the courage? It kinda diminishes the admiration.

I find this passage to be particularly misleading:

The American Enterprise Institute, to its great credit and to the enduring shame of my fellow liberals, was the only think-tank to offer Ms. Hirsi Ali a job when her security concerns finally forced her to leave Holland.

Sam seems to imply that for an anti-muslim activist to be employed in a rabidly anti-muslim organisation is a terrible burden on said organisation and that organisation has to be applauded and praised for such courageous self-sacrifice. More likely, Mrs. Ali came to America only because of guarantees of employment from the AEI and possibly others, as well as the much reduced threat in the first place.

5. The truth in religion

Comment #84414 by Newton30 on November 2, 2007 at 2:49 am

Did anyone else find the name "Polkinghorne" hilarious? It sounds like a pseudonym a naughty-jokes comic would use. At first, I thought this article was satire.

P.S. I just thought of a great name for myself if ever I become a porn star!

6. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72819 by Newton30 on September 23, 2007 at 3:44 am

More on-topic:

In labs, researchers found that monkeys could tell if the technicians were male or female, causing them to respond diffrently. Snubbing the test sometimes, cooperating the next. This means that even if the chimp speaks no human language, it is still able to recognise that humans and chimps are related by a distant ancestor and could potentially be sexual rivals. In my opinion, it's just because they have no religion to tell them otherwise.

Hence, secular education is best, because without religion, even a chimp knows what 50% of the US popluation does not: common ancestry.

7. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72818 by Newton30 on September 23, 2007 at 3:43 am

Bremas and great Teapot,

About the french bit : You really need to know the french language to understand why the audience was split between the Moon and the Sun going around the Earth.

The question was: "Qu'est ce qui gravite autour de la Terre?". Note the word 'gravite' which is a scientific term. It's synonymous with 'tourne' which is 'revolves', but for everyday folks, it's easy to think it's a trick question and the unfamiliar 'gravite' actually inverts the two objects.

So what the audience was debating was the definition of 'gravite', not whether the Moon actually goes around the Earth or not.

8. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62522 by Newton30 on August 10, 2007 at 3:12 am

He makes a powerful case - but he also ignores some very important distinctions. Most importantly, religion - and certainly the established Judaeo-Christian idea of it - devotes itself principally to instructing its adherents in how to behave well in their dealings with others.

He forgets that one of the main aspects of the christian religion is the direct healing of the sick using 'faith', along with eternal life after death (if the faith healing fails) and promises to 'move mountains' with prayer. The New Testament has plenty of references to this.

Ask Benny Hinn where he gets his money from. That snake oil seller makes millions of dollars per year from his brand of christian homeopathic faith healing bullshit. He even has a fake doctor on stage with him that makes instant diagnoses of diseases.

9. Charles Darwin - Legacy

Comment #55398 by Newton30 on July 11, 2007 at 2:36 am

This is a fascinating documentary, no doubt about it. It is encouraging to see that we've come a long way in understanding the origins of our own behaviour and we are even beginning to see the limits of what we can know about our behaviour, which is a good thing too. This will definitely help us in our plans for the future.

The historical aspect of this documentary in the beginning seems a little disturbing to me. We see the theory of evolution being 'interpreted' by various social classes and individual thinkers into things like eugenics, almost as if it were some kind of new theology to be worshipped. Although this is probably historically accurate, those interpretations (including those of Darwin himself) go squarely against the theory of evolution, and the idea of interpreting a scientific theory to fit one's socio-political interests goes squarely against the idea of science. The documentary does not properly discredit these interpretations, in my opinion, and leaves us with the danger of re-awakening the totally wrong and dangerous ideas that have been disastrous in the past.

10. Won't anyone stand up for God?

Comment #54484 by Newton30 on July 7, 2007 at 12:14 pm

Just for good measure he adds: 'A misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal megalomaniac and capriciously malevolent bully.' Does he think anyone believes in a God like that today?

Interesting how the author admits that God is just a construct, made up and tailored for whatever the current zeitgeist would deem 'good'.

11. God not out of the question for most Canadians

Comment #54203 by Newton30 on July 6, 2007 at 2:41 am

British Columbia respondents were the next sub-group who could be termed strict evolutionists, with 31 per cent saying God was not involved.

Only 31 percent say God was not involved? Hardly strict evolutionists.
Call me when it reaches 99%.

12. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53567 by Newton30 on July 2, 2007 at 4:34 am

It seems to me that when Christians say God is 'good', it is only to appease him, not because they actually think he's loving and kind.

Sort of like when you say 'Gooood doggiee...' to a pitbull growling at you.

13. Lecture on Neo-Darwinism

Comment #53199 by Newton30 on June 30, 2007 at 4:15 am

Richard Dawkins' apparent slur against engineers has me reeling. (No, not really). But now might be a good time to give my opinion on the relationship between scientists like Richard and engineers like myself.

Engineers are not exactly like scientists, but they have some things common. Science to me seems like an idealistic pursuit: The eternal pursuit of perfect knowledge while always acknowledging imperfect instruments and fallible humans. Every scientific study ends with 'more research is needed to confirm this conclusion'

There are no such ultimate goals in engineering, only calculated risks. If the scientific standard was used in designing bridges, none would ever be built because we could never be 100% sure it would stand up.

Engineering is different because it needs to balance down to earth considerations like tight schedules and budget restrictions with the best possible design.

Good engineering requires critical thought and peer review just like science. But it also requires making real-world abstractions. Creationists jump on the fact that professor Dawkins admits that it is still theoretically possible that God exists and that he cannot positively disprove God's existence. This is the sign of an ideal, uncompromising scientist. However, creationists use this as an argument against science, or accuse him of backpedalling or flip-flopping.

If a 3 storey building had a 100 billion dollar budget, we could afford to check every single stone in the ground to make sure it would not resonate with the steel structure. We could check every micron of the steel beams for inclusions or microcracks. We would be searching for as yet undiscovered elements to make sure any such trace amounts would not compromise the concrete's chemistry. Even so, we would not be 100% sure the building would hold up.

Engineers can afford to make compromises, simply because they cannot afford anything else.


Engineer:
God does not exist.

Scientist:
For all intents and purposes, God does not exist.

14. Call for 'post-9/11' RE teaching

Comment #50424 by Newton30 on June 18, 2007 at 4:25 am

All I remember from 'RE' classes was that it was a bunch of bible stories that seemed to have no connection with the real world, other than the standard Sunday visit to the local orthodox church.

I was raised in a Greek private school in Canada, where RE courses were mandatory, as well as another 'Greek History' course. The 'Greek History' consisted mostly about ancient greek myths i.e. the 12 gods, Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey, the Iliad, etc. None of which had any connection to the real world either.

The greek myths had very graphic descriptions of decapitations, dismemberment and other forms of bloody violence. If you've seen the movie '300', you'll know what I'm talking about, because the film is a very visual portrayal of the battle of Thermopylae as it was described to us. I remember distinctly preferring the religious myths, simply because they were less violent. I realize now that the violent bits of the bible stories had actually been edited out from the RE courses.

Much later, I also noticed the incredible similarity between the story of Jesus and the story of Hercules, which is much older. In both cases, the hero dies and descends into hell, where he defeats death, gets bodily resurrected and then ascends into heaven (or mount Olympus) to sit at the right hand side of God (or Zeus), who is his father. Zeus is known as 'Dias' in greek… wink, wink…

I think I had become an atheist by about 10 years old.

15. Call for 'post-9/11' RE teaching

Comment #50421 by Newton30 on June 18, 2007 at 4:02 am

Damn you Bin Laden!

Before 9/11, Religion was THAT close to being perfect!

16. Christopher Hitchens on The Hour

Comment #49652 by Newton30 on June 12, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Interviewer: "So, what's next for you ?"

Rehab, I hope.

17. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48449 by Newton30 on June 8, 2007 at 2:07 am

But even so, in the King James version, this verse comes in before the one you quoted:
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."

So luckily, T-rex could safely eat coconuts afterall. ;-]

However, Strawberries are fruits, and their seeds are stuck on the outside, and are not within them. So the Bible turns out to be wrong after all. :( It was THAT close to being the perfect word of God!

18. Hamas Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony

Comment #47581 by Newton30 on June 5, 2007 at 2:54 am

This video is indeed disgusting. Although we do have some double standards regarding our own patriotism, this kind of indoctrination of the boys is way over the top.

This is much, much worse than GI Joe. Although I remember those cartoons and toys to be violence-glamorizing, their enemies were faceless, evil-looking 'Cobra commandos' or something like that. In real life, Cobra commandos are an elite Swiss fighting force, like Navy Seals. They never mentioned the Soviet regime as far as I remember. GI Joe was not about religion and did not glorify martyrdom in the service of God. Nobody ever died in the cartoon series, not even the bad guys, which is totally unrealistic and useless as a training tool for martyrs.

As 'neutral' as they tried to be, GI Joe was still pretty bad and I oppose it now. I would never let my kids watch that or get any of the toys. It's all part of the changing moral zeitgeist, as Professor Dawkins puts it so eloquently in his book.

I myself am of Greek origin (Greek Orthodox Christians) and attended a Greek 'semi-private' school from grades 1 to 6 (I'm 30, so you can locate the era easily). At the end of each year, we would stage patriotic plays depicting the heroism of the martyrs against our Turkish oppressors (Muslim) during the independence war of 1821. All the foulest remarks were made, including on religious grounds. To this day, Turks are the most loathed in Greece above all, stemming from the 1452 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire. Greeks are very often anti-american because while Turks are the arch-enemies of Greeks, Russians are the arch-enemies of Turks, and Americans are arch-enemies of Russians. The enemy of my enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

There were some other plays celebrating victories against Italians (Catholic) during their invasion of 1941.

There were virtually no plays set in the classical Greek period, even though this is the golden age of Greece and source of much of the intellectual wealth of the world for a long time. I suspect this is because it is regarded as a pagan era by the church. This is in Canada, so there is no separation between church and state.

We should all recognize the dangers of this kind of indoctrination and oppose it in our own countries. Only then can we effectively criticize the Muslim martyr-mongers without hypocrisy.

19. A Look at Regent University

Comment #46225 by Newton30 on May 30, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Is something being done to overthrow this garbage or what?

Get in line you atheist cats! We're going to war against the legions of theist sheep!

20. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #46033 by Newton30 on May 30, 2007 at 3:55 am

22. Comment #45878 by Bonzai on May 29, 2007 at 12:49 pm
It is also not obvious that moderates necessarily provide a cover for the extremists. I just don't see how a liberal theologian such as John Spong necessarily feels closer to Jerry Falwell than to Dawkins simply because they share a nominal religion. Indeed Spong praises Dawkins and TGD in particular on many occasions and is very critical of Falwell.

IMO Dawkins is very weak on these points and he should take a more nuanced look again.

Richard Dawkins has never claimed that moderate religious people all eventually become fundamentalists, nor that moderates necessarily approve of fundamentalists like Falwell directly and vocally.

One of the most common defenses given by religious moderates about their faith is : "Sure, there's not a shred evidence for it, and plenty of evidence against it, but millions of people in the world have believed the same thing for hundreds (or thousands) of years, so there must be some truth to it.." It's a fallacious argument, but it's about the only source of pseudo- 'credibility' of any religion. The way moderates support fundamentalists is by providing them with masses of people that have related beliefs, thereby giving the religion in question some 'credibility'.

The existence of over a billion faithful muslims therefore gives much reassurance to fundamentalists who may doubt whether their basic scripture might be true, again according to that same fallacious argument.

A totally new and original religion, with very few followers is not very convincing to potential recruits and is not likely to become successful. Nearly every religion is built on previous widespread religions to build 'credibility'. Christianity is actually a hybrid between Judaism, Mithraism and scores of other minor pagan religions.

One important way to stop fundamentalists is to 'drain the pool' as Hitchens puts it, making people of moderate faith give up their useless and ultimately dangerous beliefs, even if the people themselves are harmless.

21. Group Threatens to Sue Pentagon Over Military Role in Evangelical Festival

Comment #45274 by Newton30 on May 27, 2007 at 3:49 am

Yes, thank you Mr. Murtagh, Sir. It's very important to explain why mixing religion and the military is wrong, not just unconstitutional.

American atheists should focus more on the core reasons why the mixing of church and state was forbidden in the constitution, and not just repeat endlessly that it's against the constitution. From that, Christian fundamentalists just draw the conclusion that the constitution is wrong.

See letter #4 in the 'ugly' responses of 'the good, the bad, the ugly' section of this website.

22. Adult breast-feeding sucks, authorities say

Comment #44544 by Newton30 on May 25, 2007 at 4:13 am

This has got to be the most bizarre and the most ridiculous use of a loophole I've ever heard of.

On the other hand, it would make quite a few converts to Islam. Think about it: if you HAVE to get to second base with attractive female co-workers before you're allowed to work with them… I must say, the engineers at my company would flock to mosques to get a conversion.

23. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42748 by Newton30 on May 19, 2007 at 10:31 am

Beave,

I agree totally. Actually, I've only debunked a tiny fraction of the bad science in that video. But I don't feel like watching it again and it's a sunny day out here and dammned if I'm going to stay in front of a computer a minute more!

24. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42747 by Newton30 on May 19, 2007 at 10:28 am

And here's a great spoof of the 911 video:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07

I urge everyone to check out these links, they're fantastic.

HAHAHAHA That's hilarious!

25. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42727 by Newton30 on May 19, 2007 at 8:08 am

The problem with conspiracy theories, is that people remember the conspiracy theory itself, but never the rebuttal. Just look at the JFK assasination.

And remember: It's okay to be wrong. Its okay...

Excellent cartoon BTW.

26. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42635 by Newton30 on May 18, 2007 at 8:08 pm

BaronOchs and Veronique:

Believe me, I am extremely sceptical about everything, including global warming. But that 911 video is utter crap. I'm an engineer, so I know a thing or two about mechanical design.

The first video makers' claim is that the WTC towers were designed for a 707 plane crash and the 767 is about the same size, so the towers would never have collapsed.

It is impossible to fully design a building to withstand an airplane crash, no matter what the size. There are just too many variables and not enough empirical data. The best you can do is a few analytical calculations, cross your fingers and hope that the real world will correspond to the calculation. Hint: It almost never does.

Why doesn't the core stay up? : Lateral movement on the debris pile on the bottom creates flexural stress and snaps the core

Temperatures not high enough to melt the steel trusss? We're not talking about liquid steel that runs like water. Temperatures to 600°C significantly soften steel to reduce yield stress and make it 'creep'. But that's not how it failed. Even small temperature increases (100°C) on long horizontal spans can shear off huge dowel pins and bolts because of thermal expansion, not just reduced yield stress.

Controlled detonations? The collapse is not consistent with a planned demolition. Controlled demolitions make the building free-fall inside itself. The floors are clearly pancaking on top of each other. The controlled demolitions shown in the video look nothing like the WTC collapses.

Explosions happening at the same time as the collapse on the video, suggesting explosions before the collapse because of the speed of sound? Sound travels relatively slowly through air, but very fast through the metal frame of the building and through the ground. This is why, when you hear a ground explosion from far away, you actually hear two explosions: (it goes POW-wow) One through the ground and one through the air.

Fire has no strength to eject chunks of metal? How about gravity? Take a pencil, stand it vertically on its tip, and let it go. You'll find that not only it falls on its side, but it travels a certain distance horizontally.

What blows paper and dust out? Air compressed between floors. It took on average 0.1 seconds to compress each 8 foot space between floors, which creates quite a blast of air. Air resistance on the falling debris of different densities creates the banana peel shape.

Tremors in the basement? Impact of the plane sends a shockwave to the foundations and shakes them, shattering lobby glass in the process.

Various explosions on the floors? Falling elevators and other debris. Incomplete combustion in oxygen-starved environments can create pockets of explosive gases that can shift and re-ignite when exposed to sufficient oxygen and an ignition source.

Pyroclastic flows like from volcanoes? Volcanic ash is not of the same composition nor temperature. How could an artificial volcano be planted by a conspiracy into the WTC?

Foundation damage from pancaked building? Static loads are not the same as impact loads. Impact loads of the same tonnage are far more damaging.

Molten metal on the beams that are at 45 degree cuts? Beams under compressive load fail at a 45 degree angle because the maximum shear stress occurs at the 45 degree plane. The tremendous weight concentrated on the beams, far beyond yield stress, and the small timeframe of the failure releases extreme amounts of energy, sufficient to melt steel very locally.

WTC building 7 collapses with little damage but not the other small buildings? Taller buildings are more susceptible to collapse due to structural damage than small ones.

The movie admits that the WTC collapse is unconventional and not fully understood by civilian demolition experts. This is simply because the demolition is not controlled. It is a totally unique case never seen before by anyone.

The only worthwhile part of that movie is the final 10 seconds where it says: "Ask questions, think for yourself."

Being sceptical is good. But being sceptical does NOT mean you are right. (edit: forgot the not!) We need to ask the tough questions. Sometimes the right answers are there in front of us. Remember the scientific ideal : Carl Sagan and the case of Emmanuel Velokovsky. :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSVt6j75J0g&NR=1

27. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42342 by Newton30 on May 18, 2007 at 5:10 am

Reading these responses, I think I know where this practice came from and where it's going.

When our earliest ancestors would walk around completely naked, the men would lust after the women because they could see their privates.

The brilliant plan was to cover women's privates so men would no longer lust after the women. Men's privates were covered so they could not reveal their lust.

However, this may have backfired, because the men still lusted after the women and even more strongly. This is because the women's breasts were swinging around in plain view. Since the men could no longer see the privates of the women (and the internet was not invented yet), the breast's sexual role became all the more enhanced. The logical result is to have women cover their breasts.

It had then been noticed that even when women don't have their breasts swinging in plain view, men would still lust after them, because legs can be just as sexy. This entailed the more complete long dresses that are quite common today.

Somehow, in some areas in the world, this was not quite enough; the men would still lust after them because they could see their beautiful hair and small of their backs sometimes. Headscarves became mandatory for all women.

Just the face of a woman is enticing. Sometimes just an ankle peeking occasionally out of the dress as the woman would walk could throw a man's sex drive into overdrive. Full long burquas, covering the face, were the logical result in those areas.

But it seems that it's still not enough. Men go crazy with the slightest shape of a woman. Even the presence of the burqua indicated the presence of a woman.

It's become clear that this type of escalation, a kind of sexual arms race, where the missile tubes are not titanium, has not, and will not work.

Here is my suggestion for iranian ayatollas, afghani mullahs and all other muslim men who just cannot control their sexual ICBMs.:

1) Instead of hiding the women completely, which can backfire, just make all women dress like men.

Of course, women have breasts that can give them away…

2) So in addition to making women dress like men, you should make all men wear fake breasts under their clothing.

If a man cannot find a woman, he cannot lust after her. That way, the women would simply disappear, becoming totally indistinguishable from men. This is the ultimate burqua. Not relying on difficult and restricting clothing, but stealth.

But that's not all! There would be quite a lot of positive side-effects from this:

1) New (shapely) political men would suddenly spring up, promoting good relations with neighbors and long-term goals.
2) Children would not be sent into war lightly.
3) New scientists and engineers would appear, helping the country out of poverty, disease, and all sorts of problems.
4) All doctors would be allowed to treat all patients because they would all be breasted males, greatly increasing the effectiveness of the medical system.

So, because you are men and in charge of the country, do the right thing and set the example by ordering on your set of fake breasts today. Available in auburn, buff, taupe or ecru. Only 19.95 iranian rials plus 4.99 S/H.

28. Christopher Hitchens to God: Drop Dead

Comment #41932 by Newton30 on May 17, 2007 at 10:12 am

5. Comment #41905 by colluvial on May 17, 2007 at 9:35 am

"Religion offers community, a framework in which to celebrate lifecycle events and mourn loss of life, distinctive recipes, and a code of values for moral living, among many other positive things."

If all these positive aspects of religion have nothing to do with deities, then what function does the supernatural make-believe and the holier-than-thou divisiveness play?

Don't you see? Religions have copyrighted all the good stuff. You are not allowed to believe the golden rule unless you pay royalties to the Pope (i.e. you must become a Christian and tithe.)

29. Among the Disbelievers

Comment #41412 by Newton30 on May 16, 2007 at 5:08 am

-he lets slip that "what impresses me about Catholic mythology is partly its tasteless kitsch but mostly the airy nonchalance with which these people make up the details as they go along."

This is not entirely fair. The Catholic Church does not just make such things up but has thought long and hard about angelic orders and other matters of equal importance.

Hmmm. Types of angels and other matters of equal importance. What would these other matters be?

1) The relative sinfulness of cinnabon rolls versus carrot muffins?
2) The availability of financial services in purgatory?
3) How much blood of Christ do you have to buy that chick to get some action?
4) The sin-cleansing abilities of plain water (now phosphate free!)
5) The type of sword that will be sticking out of jesus' mouth when he returns (falcata or kopis? The debate rages on…)
6) Does the belly ache from eating books come from heartburn or acid reflux disease? (see rev. 10:9)
7) Is 0.666 the number of the millibeast? Or merely two-thirds of the perfect number 1?
8) The armor-piercing effect of different types of holy hand grenades
9) The existence of a place for lesbian hermaphrodites to go if they die before they are baptised and reconverted to proper male heterosexuality (as long as they have not been defiled by woman, of course)
10) What is the essence of "what"? Is it consubstantial with "who", "how" and "when"? Or are they all separate but one?

30. Global Warming (includes commentary about creationism)

Comment #41254 by Newton30 on May 15, 2007 at 5:28 pm

isharp:

The debunking you give is quite good, and I see some claims made by the documentary are utterly false (volcanoes in particular).

But there are still some very damaging revelations that you seem to agree to. Most notably, historically, the CO2 follows the temperature, not the other way around. This is the basic point of Dr. Wunsch's description and that's how I understood it from watching the doc. None of the rebuttals address this. Al Gore tricked me. The fact the film does not mention ice ages explicitly is irrelevant. It mentions historic cooling and warming which is good enough.

The documentary also has another glaring error, which I didn't see called out elsewhere. It says the greenhouse effect goes on in the troposphere, which is in the first 10 km of atmosphere, which is true, but it is not concentrated in the highest part. CO2 is a long-lived gas that is spread out evenly, proportionally to static pressure, just like all the other atmospheric gases. The static pressure is greatest near the surface. There should be nothing special going on at higher altitudes as a result of greenhouse gasses. The temperature increase would not be greater at 10km than at 2km, but the documentary claims it should.

However, if surface warming were a result of the greenhouse effect, the atmosphere as a whole would increase in temperature much more than the surface. From what I understand, the surface is warming at the same rate as the atmosphere. This casts doubt on the AGW theory, even if the documentary turns out to be a crock of crap.

In my opinion, the practice of combining data from different temperature reconstructions is disturbing. Data from different sources may have time lags relative to each other. If you have a perfect sinewave y1=sin(t) and average it with a sinewave that has a time lag y2=sin(t+pi), it will give a straight line. This could create 'flattening' of data which could explain the 'hockey stick' phenomenon that basically ignores the little ice age and the medieval warming period that are well documented. And what about the Holocene maximum?

I still think AGW theory is in doubt. I, like all of you, am an atheist because I'm a skeptic and I believe in the scientific method. We need to get to the bottom of this with proper science and proper peer review. We're not there yet.

The environmental movement is guilty of non-scientific, prophetic, apocalyptic doomsaying, and of harassing, intimidating and threatening anyone who would try to engage in proper skeptical discourse, which is just wrong, even if the environmentalists turn out to be 100% right about global warming in the end.

31. Global Warming (includes commentary about creationism)

Comment #40801 by Newton30 on May 15, 2007 at 2:47 am

I must take strong exception to one of Brian's comments in his video:

Having a scientific theory of 'Something' does not mean 'Something' equals fact. The 'Something' in question could be anything.

Evolution is a fact only because it turned out to be that way.
It very well could have been wrong. After Darwin first proposed the theory, we could well have found rabbits in the Proterozoic (not sure that's accurate), which would have undermined the whole theory and forced radical re-thinking of it. As it turns out, the incredible amount of evidence collected so far corroborates the theory. For all intents and purposes, we can say today that Evolution is a fact.

This cannot be said of Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, which, although it is a scientific theory, does not appear to be well supported by all the facts, as the 'Swindle' documentary shows.

I'd be interested in seeing a real rebuttal to the documentary. The three links you posted Mr. Grape are not really rebuttals, but just some appeals to authority and/or deal with phenomenon not necessarily mentioned in the Swindle documentary. I want to see actual scientific rebuttals explaining why the graphs used in the documentary are wrong, why there was no real 'little ice age' and no 'medieval warming period', no warm period in the bronze age, no correlation between solar activity and temperature in the 20th century. I want to know why historically, the CO2 concentration appears to be driven by climate and not the other way around. Most importantly, why is there no correlation between warming and CO2 concentration in the 20th century. The last 3 decades are not statistically significant.

32. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38426 by Newton30 on May 8, 2007 at 4:37 am

Canada AM is a 3 hour long news/sports/weather program with about 17 minutes of content repeated over and over to cover everyone who wakes up at different times. The content is pure fluff and intended not to stress out people who haven't had their coffee yet.

In that context, the interview was probably the best it could ever be.

We should be happy with any kind of television coverage. It was on the Colbert interview that I first heard of Richard Dawkins, and I've been a steady fan since.

33. Republican candidates range from ignorant to dishonest

Comment #37606 by Newton30 on May 5, 2007 at 10:56 am

When asked if he believes in evolution, McCain says 'yes', but then adds that when he's walking through the Grand Canyon, he sees the "Hand of God".

Who sees the "Hand of God" in the Grand Canyon? No one. Not even creationists.

The Grand Canyon became controversial after a number of Young Earth Creationists (YECs) complained that tour guides have been saying that the canyon was formed by erosion over millions of years old, which goes squarely against their belief the Earth is only 6000 years old. Their theory (and that's "theory": the wild-guess definition) is that the Grand Canyon was formed during the biblical "Great Flood".

On the other hand, people like William Paley in 1802 see the "Hand of God" in the design of living organisms. It goes like this: A watch appears designed, and it is, so living things, which also appear designed, are also in fact designed. That line of reasoning has been blown out of the water (as RD likes to put it) by Charles Darwin only sixty years later. Creationists are still refusing to consider Darwin's work and still clinging to Paley's 200-year-old flawed logic, under the new label of 'Intelligent Design'.

McCain seems to have confused two controversies related to religious fundamentalism, but not related to each other. He appears to have wanted to invoke Intelligent Design's pre-defined talking points, but accidentally went for YEC pre-defined talking points instead.

The only things he managed to show are his hypocrisy, his failure to understand the controversies, and his desire to deceive the American public, creationists and non-creationists alike, into voting for him.

34. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32169 by Newton30 on April 16, 2007 at 4:06 am

I'm a little suspicious about this article. To me, it's not such a scathing indictment of religiously based thinking. Ever so subtle, ever so slight, it seems tinted with religious extremism of a particular kind.

The mere title of the article "The Age of Darwin" is suspect. To him, it seems as if 'belief' in science is a reasoned, but fashionable and ultimately limited 'age' that will eventually come to an end, presumably to be replaced by something more grand, more enlightened.

Notice also how he equates Darwin to a bunch of pagan religions as well as the bible itself, Karl Marx, Freud, etc. The tone of the article (and the fact he's a right-wing extremist, as Sittingduck points out) makes it seem clear to me that he has contempt for all those people, as if they were individual false prophets.

The final paragraph, about a grand narrative and a central cosmology seems a dead giveaway to me. Some postmodernism may be full of quackery, but in no way is our history (nor our future) part of some grand narrative, or someone's 'Plan'.

35. Did You Know? Shift Happens - Globalization, Information Age

Comment #25691 by Newton30 on March 14, 2007 at 6:21 pm

I'm not suggesting anyone 'give up' looking for advances and improvements. Whatever advances are made, I'll take them gladly. But I was ranting about this video preaching some so-claimed amazing predictions that I think are BS. Past performances do not guarantee future results. I plan to wait for these promised benefits before celebrating them.

I am actually quite impressed with Google maps. Nearly every corner of the globe at your fingertips, all for free. But if you look for a close-up of New York City, you'll find the resolution limited. Not because of technological constraints, but security concerns. What amount of computational power could overcome that?

36. Did You Know? Shift Happens - Globalization, Information Age

Comment #25542 by Newton30 on March 14, 2007 at 3:40 am

This video is based on wild extrapolations that historically have been discredited. Just look at what we thought the year 2000 was going to be like back in 1960. Intergalactic travel anyone?

Already, Moore's law is on its way out. If I check out my local computer store's stock, new, more powerful processors are much too expensive. The computational power of common PCs has not changed in the last 3 years or so, and prices for the same equipment have stagnated during that period. Even today's existing computers are already wildly overpowered for everyday applications. There is just no incentive to build more powerful computers (except maybe graphics cards for games).

One of the several reasons why a lot of satellite manufacturers are going out of business (who would have guessed this 15 years ago?) is that their satellites produce so much accurate data, (weather, terrain, etc.) that their customers don't know what to do with it. You have Google Maps today. How can you improve on that?

The tidbit about exabytes of information being exchanged today is an illusion, and borders on intelligent-design-advocate style of deception. Do you think information can be measured and compared this way? If a primitive homosapiens from 10 000 BC looked out from his cave and saw the mountain scenery surrounding him, knowing that the human eye can distinguish 20 million colors or so, and a resolution of say, 20 Megapixels, and say he can take in a picture in 100 milliseconds, would he be downloading 4 000 terabits of information per second? And you thought your 4Mbps cable connection from 2007 AD was smokin'.

I'm not a biologist, just a lowly engineer, but I find the claim that a computer will one day exceed the computing power of the entire human race particularly ridiculous. The very notion of comparing the computing power of the entire human race to that of a computer is absurd. A computer's value (human or electronic) depends most on the tasks it's assigned. Sometimes, successfully calculating 2+2 is more important and more useful than calculating the value of pi to the billionth digit. No matter how powerful a computer is, it is limited by the quality of its inputs and the usefulness of its outputs. Remember Douglas Adams' 'Deep Thought' supercomputer, that found after 7.5 million years of calculations, that the answer to 'the meaning of Life, the Universe, Everything' is 42.

37. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24334 by Newton30 on March 6, 2007 at 3:35 am

Seeing the suggestions for book titles, I'm sure movies would be the next step. Here are some suggestions:

Chariots of Dawkins
Dawkins with Wolves
The Dawkins Wears Prada
The Blair-Dawkins Project
Dawkins on a Plane
Meet the Dawkins
One flew over the Dawkins Nest
Dawkins Balboa
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Dawkins
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Dawkins
Dude, where's my Dawkins?

38. Root of All Evil? Discussion

Comment #20485 by Newton30 on February 3, 2007 at 3:01 am

I noticed that, with the exception of Richard, of course, the more prominent and influential the speaker, the stupider the remarks. The truly brilliant and concise replies came from unknown and unnamed audience members.

The politicians and clerics were all dim-wits. This does not bode well for Canada's leadership.

edit: The philosopher guy de Sousa was pretty good though.

39. Root of All Evil? Discussion

Comment #20367 by Newton30 on February 2, 2007 at 2:58 am

I hate watching programs like these. I get so frustrated I feel like reaching out and throttling everyone in the audience.