Comments by mmurray

Comment #86761 by mmurray on November 10, 2007 at 5:22 am

For another opinion on `David bloody Attenborough'

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_MpbMm0433I

Michael

Comment #86752 by mmurray on November 10, 2007 at 4:25 am

Does anyone know where this came from ? I would like to see the whole thing.

Michael

Comment #86079 by mmurray on November 8, 2007 at 4:43 am

"The human fascination for the transcendent Other (though the Olympian gods were usually far from being transcendent, though Mt Olympus was presumably quite a high mountain) which spawned these figures of fantasy may actually point to some Reality beyond ourselves, beyond the mere matter and energy that we are made up of."

Actually I think it probably just says interesting things about the structure of the human brain/mind -- have a look at Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell. I am only part way through so it would be better you read it than if I tried to explain it.

Michael

454. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #85767 by mmurray on November 7, 2007 at 3:33 am

I recommend watching the whole of the Marcus Brigstock skit here

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-ZrwFwLQg

there is some very funny stuff following on from the bit about the kids.

Michael

455. The truth in religion

Comment #84595 by mmurray on November 2, 2007 at 5:04 pm

The Borg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29

Resistance is futile

Michael

456. What the New Atheists Don't See

Comment #84377 by mmurray on November 2, 2007 at 12:03 am

What really got me was when he suggested that thinking a butterfly's purpose is gathering nectar rather than looking pretty is a dehumanizing notion.

I didn't read that far but he really knows nothing about evolution. The pretty colouring will have a purpose like camouflage or attracting a mate just as much as the gather nectar does.

Michael

457. Believe it or not, courtesy counts

Comment #84060 by mmurray on November 1, 2007 at 5:01 am

I guess it is worth pointing out that this comes from the Australian's Higher Education section which regularly borrows articles from the Times Higher Educational Supplement or (as in this case) The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Unfortunately the Chronicle is one of those magazines (like New Scientist) that think you can charge for content on the internet.

Michael

458. Believe it or not, courtesy counts

Comment #84051 by mmurray on November 1, 2007 at 4:35 am

The person writing this article would have enjoyed the idea of Matthew Chapman at AAI 07 where he suggests an atheist line at the airport where you could go straight onto the plane without a security check. The way it would work would be that there would be a stand with all standard `sacred' texts on it and as you went past you would have to defile each one.

Michael

459. Believe it or not, courtesy counts

Comment #83962 by mmurray on October 31, 2007 at 10:58 pm

In the same way, atheists should not, unprovoked, go on and on about how sacred texts lack God's imprimatur.

We have been provoked.

Michael

460. Pope's 'morning after pill' speech criticized

Comment #83629 by mmurray on October 30, 2007 at 6:01 pm

5. Comment #83618 by Duff on October 30, 2007 at 4:47 pm
This pope is the perfect christian counterpart to the iron-aged muslim simple people who want to behead apostates. The catholics deserve their mirror image, fuckwit, muslim brethren.

You can leave the Catholic church and no-one cares. The worst that might happen is that some-one might waste their time praying for you. The Pope and the Church are dangerous for all kinds of reasons not least of which is that they are to a large extent responsible for overpopulation and the environmental damage flowing from that. But I think it is a mistake to compare them to Islamic fundamentalists. Living in a society dominated by the (*modern*) Catholic Church would be unpleasant but nothing like the nastiness of living under someone like the Taliban.

Michael

461. Tests of faith over 'The Golden Compass'

Comment #83319 by mmurray on October 29, 2007 at 4:09 pm

So what fantasy elements does he introduce to differentiate it from the real University of Oxford then?

Well everybody has an animal called a daemon which is essentially their soul/life force. It can move around near them but not very far away.

His parallel universe is really a parallel universe in the sense of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. So the differences are subtle mostly. There are some technological differences -- I think steam replaces petrol that sort of thing. It is awhile since I read them. I thought there were a lot of fun but I like fantasy books and have been on a lifetimes quest to find something as good as Lord of the Rings. Haven't found it yet.

Michael

462. Tests of faith over 'The Golden Compass'

Comment #83290 by mmurray on October 29, 2007 at 2:12 pm

If Lyra's transformation from hero to second-class citizen is what passes for anti-Christian storytelling, maybe we should be looking for a new way out of the religion problem.

I don't see why they can't be anti-Christian but also old fashioned in their treatment of women? But in any case they're stories -- not `a way of of the religion problem.'

Michael

463. Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family

Comment #82560 by mmurray on October 26, 2007 at 5:45 pm

Dawkins says he flinches when he hears a child referred to as a Christian child rather than the child of Christian parents, for you wouldn't talk about a Marxist child, and how can a four-year-old choose their own religious belief?

He's wrong, and partly wrong. Talk to the American child of 1960s activists and they might well describe themselves as a "red diaper baby".
But that is exactly the point. Calling yourself a red diaper baby is a comment on your parents not on you. It sounds like `my parents were so left wing they used red diapers'. That doesn't imply that you were left wing because they were. Richard (I think) would be fine with that.

Michael

464. We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers

Comment #81417 by mmurray on October 24, 2007 at 5:27 pm

I thought this was a really interesting talk. What struck a cord with me was when he asked the males in the audience to remember their childhoods. I recall lots of time spent playing `cowboys and indians' a very non PC game as I think the indians usually lost. My own two boys don't do this but they play a lot of online games with a similar amount of killing. I think it would be interesting (maybe it has been done) to do the research to see if the popularity of games like World of Warcraft, Lineage etc where you are part of a group going on raids (that's what they are called) and can talk to the other players exceeds the popularity of first person shooter kinds of games where you are off fighting on your own. A genetic tendency for males to want to hunt in packs as suggested in this talk would make you think that the former games would be more popular.

Michael

465. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81411 by mmurray on October 24, 2007 at 5:12 pm

This is a great idea but at some point I think we need to a scheme to select the `answer' or a couple of `answers' from the all posts attached to each debate point. It won't be so useful if each debate point is followed by a hundred or so posts -- particularly if they are arguing the point!

Michael

466. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #80771 by mmurray on October 23, 2007 at 2:32 am

And if we are to treat them burning the US flag as on a par with the Muhammad cartoons, I take it it is okay for us to send death threats to a few nations, yes?

I was equating the burning flags with cartoons. I wasn't suggesting their reaction of threatening to kill people is appropriate.

Michael

467. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #80705 by mmurray on October 22, 2007 at 5:29 pm

Like many here I have read her book and admire her personal courage enormously but I don't see how you can say we have the right to print cartoons of Mohammed in the west but in islamic countries they can't burn the US flag.

As for WWIII. Those of us who grew up during the Cold War will remember that there were people then who said the west was weak and would inevitably lose to the rise of unstoppable totalitarianism. I am not a historian but I think it would be instructive to go back and look at how many people were advocating no compromise and no negotiation --- particularly amongst those who had escaped the nightmare of the soviet gulags. In that case only the real loonies advocated a first strike as it was clear a nuclear war meant everybody would lose.

Michael

468. Egypt's fight against female circumcision clashes with tradition

Comment #80554 by mmurray on October 22, 2007 at 6:46 am

Serious question guys. . . Are men really happy knowing their wives are faking it?

I thought we couldn't tell :-)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1J-eUKF6O6M

Michael

469. Atheists aren't a bad lot

Comment #80490 by mmurray on October 22, 2007 at 1:30 am

"So it's no surprise to learn that atheists can be perfectly decent people."

No way! Really!?

Actually it is a great suprise to see someone saying this is in the mainstream media. Nice article and great dissection of the survey.

There is also some great feedback to this article on the original page.

Michael

470. Egypt's fight against female circumcision clashes with tradition

Comment #80488 by mmurray on October 22, 2007 at 1:21 am

There is a discussion in Jarrod Diamond's `The Third Chimpanzee' which sheds light on how this madness may have arisen. It talks about how you would expect a species to evolve if, like ours, it finds itself under evolutionary pressure for the parents to care for the children for longer periods. In our case as we evolved more sophisticated methods of obtaining food it became harder for our children to feed themselves so there was a benefit to both the parents caring for the children for say 10-15 years. The gene (I know it might not be as simple as single gene) that makes the father care for the children will only get passed on if the father is caring for *his* children. The mother, of course, knows they are her children. Some animals evolve systems where after fertilization of the female the vaginal passage is blocked from further attempts at fertilization by a plug of some kind deposited by the male. It would seem the the human chimp evolved a range of (horrible) social systems to achieve the same outcome: control of female reproduction by males.

Before anyone raises the issue note that I don't subscribe to the idea the evolution is some kind of moral justification. The practice of FGM and all the associated notions of `honour' are relics of our past that should be disposed of as quickly as possible.

Michael

471. God's honest truth?

Comment #79881 by mmurray on October 19, 2007 at 12:18 am

School is one of the few things I consider right to force people into. Without schools, democracy do not work. I consider it a right to be "indoctrinated" by the school curricilum, because it's content is strongly protected against falsehoods as well as political and religious influence.

Personally I would also go for compulsory voting in elections as an essential part of democracy although I think there should be a `None of the above option' on the ballot slip.

Sorry off topic but an election looms where I am.

Michael

472. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #79530 by mmurray on October 17, 2007 at 3:13 pm

If we are going to berate the faithful for thinking they are the centre of a god's creation and that he has a special plan for them we must reject hubris and egocentrism in all its forms. Who are we to say the current state of the biosphere is optimal or should be frozen as is for all time - not to mention of course this is a ridiculous hope. We should get over ourselves. Who do we think we are?

Well there will be a lot of other species who are affected by climate change. Not just homo sapiens who are actually pretty adaptable.

Why does opposition to religion imply that we can't say that humans are a species worth looking after and preserving? Are you suggesting that next time someone gets sick we should let them die because the life of the bacteria or viruses attacking is just as important as theirs ?

The reality is that the majority of the world will not take your point of view and there will be massive disruption, war and disease as people try to relocate to better climates and nations try to get access to water. As a species we will adapt and survive I am sure but there will be a lot of human pain and suffering. That IMHO is a bad thing -- you may not agree of course.

Michael

473. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #79101 by mmurray on October 16, 2007 at 5:49 am

And no one got back to me on my other point, probably because it was considered moronic but it is actually central to the debate. If the Earth is warming why is this a problem?

Well speaking as someone who lives in a very dry continent, in a city that depends for its drinking water on a river system that may be to saline to drink in a couple of years if the drought doesn't stop it seems like a problem to me.

Michael

474. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #79053 by mmurray on October 16, 2007 at 1:59 am

mmurray: "I am afraid you misrepresented his views through selective citations."

Now you are misrepresenting me! I didn't say that. Mine was the post before.

Michael

475. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #79030 by mmurray on October 15, 2007 at 11:37 pm

But then new nuclear power technology is much safer than hitherto.

I keep hearing this story as our conservative government is pushing it had for political reasons - they hope to split the opposition on it. But when I look around it seems that the next generation nuclear power technology that is being talked about is just a speculative as the plans to clean up coal.

Even if you can make the reactors safe there remains the unsolved problem of how to safely store radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Sure everyone will talk about vitrification and deep storage but so far they don't know how to do it and that has been the answer for a long time now.

Admittedly this was mostly browsing wikipedia.

Michael

476. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78643 by mmurray on October 14, 2007 at 3:05 am

There is something irritating about the hypocrisy of people like this. Happy to go along with all the mumbo-jumbo associated with christmas and easter but at heart he probably doesn't believe in the virgin birth or the resurrection. Why doesn't me admit that he agrees with Richard that there is no personal god that answers prayers and is interested in our sex lives.

Michael

477. A Revelation

Comment #78625 by mmurray on October 13, 2007 at 11:24 pm

Well, given that the only conferences one could attend were the various church councils held to formalise points of doctrine you'd probably get invited and told to recant or have copies of your works ritually burned (this happened to Abelard twice, at Soissons in 1121 and Sens in 1141, both at the instigation of his nemesis St. Bernard and Bernard's nasty little bootlick William of St. Thierry). The closest thing to "publishing" that existed was having your works copied out by university stationers or the friars of your own mendicant order, and you wouldn't get that far if you weren't largely orthodox in your thinking. Your ideas might be ridiculed and argued against by other authors who did circulate widely however, as those of the Cathars were. Tenure at Universities was again done by co-option, some chairs belonging to the mendicant orders and others to 'secular' masters. You wouldn't get the required theology degrees if you consistently espoused heretical ideas, so that too was out.

Sorry I didn't mean literally that people then would publish or go to conferences. I was trying to respond to your comment

This is not really all that different from modern science except that the facts which needed explaining in the first place come from scriptural assertion as well as observation and (occasionally) experimental test.

in as much as I think the big difference is what happened if you found a theory that disagreed with what was regarded by others in the field as true. In fact I was setting out the worst of what might happen to you in modern science. What also might happen is you get applauded for your new idea because finding new and better ideas is what science is supposed to be about. The fact that both modern scholars and medieval scholars used logical disputation and argument seems to me a superficial similarity. The medieval scholars were supposed to be trying to find theories to support a pre-existing view of the world whereas modern science is trying to understand the world. IMHO these are two very different things.

Of course particlar individuals may have been trying to understand the world but I don't believe that was what the Church wanted them to do. I don't have a problem by the way with medieval scholars not understanding as much about the world as we do or believing in some form of deity. IMHO the latter was reasonable until Darwin killed of the argument by design.

I am no expert in medieval history but I don't see anything in what you are saying to suggest that science would not have proceeded more rapidly without the church and the inquisition. Was that what you were saying or were you just saying the church was not as big a brake on scientific progress as we are often led to believe by simplified accounts?

Michael

478. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78472 by mmurray on October 13, 2007 at 4:08 am

That link was broken because of the wrapping

http://www.himalmag.com/2007/october_november/between_imperialism_and_Islamism.html

479. A Revelation

Comment #78420 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 7:09 pm

This is not really all that different from modern science except that the facts which needed explaining in the first place come from scriptural assertion as well as observation and (occasionally) experimental test.

What if, after thinking about it, you came up with a theory explaining why the virgin birth DIDN'T happen. Did you have trouble getting your papers published, invited to conferences and getting tenure or did you get burnt at the stake?

Michael

480. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78411 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 6:02 pm

No, you don't try to co-exist with that. The only thing you talk about with them is how they are going to cry "Uncle!". And that, btw, was exactly what Regan and Thatcher did with the Gorb. Communism had been beaten, everyone knew he was over a barrel and they were negotiating how he would give in.
That is just not true the US talked with them about how they were going to avoid blowing each other, and everyone else up. There was a long period when the two sides lived with each other. I still think the Regan/Thatcher policy of pushing the arms race until the point that the Soviet Union went bankrupt was really, really dangerous. In hindsight you can think it was clever but if it had gone wrong or a lesser statesman than Gorbachev had come along we might not be here. He might have been over a barrel economically but militarily they could have wiped us all out.

Michael

481. A Revelation

Comment #78409 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 5:39 pm

On the question of Christianity's support for science in the early days I recently stumbled across this web site via New Scientist.

http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/

Apologies to those who know what a palimpset is but I didn't at the time. Basically if you found yourself in need of some paper for a prayer book the sensible monk went down to a nearby heathen library grabbed a few books, scraped of all the rubbish on them by non-believers such as Archimedes, rebound them and wrote ditties to the glory of their one god (The Man Who Lived!) on them. Sort of the Christian equivalent of blowing up the Buddha's of Mamyan IMHO. This particular act of vandalism occurred around 1200. Luckily modern science can be used to recover ancient science.

Michael

482. If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go

Comment #78200 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 5:44 am

A comment here

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article3038472.ece

from Yasmin Alibhai Brown.

Michael

483. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78196 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 5:27 am

Jews are briefly in the letter. According to the Guardian the history of the letter is

Organised by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, a non-governmental organisation based in Amman, Jordan, the document comes a year after another open letter to the Pope following a controversial speech in which he quoted a medieval text linking Islam and violence.

so it is in part a letter aimed at the Pope. That would be one (non-sinister) reason for leaving out Jews from the discussion.

Michael

484. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78174 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 3:39 am

We should be trying to convince them to abandon Islam, first and foremost, because anything less than that is useless.

And the likelihood of this happening is ... ?

Translated from the original arabic, this letter says,

It's only 29 pages and it's in english -- why not read it (not that I have of course)?

Michael

485. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78150 by mmurray on October 12, 2007 at 2:24 am

27. Comment #78130 by Shuggy

The contradiction you are worried about is mentioned in the document as follows:

He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me
scatters abroad. (Matthew 12:30)
For he who is not against us is on our side. (Mark 9:40)
... for he who is not against us is on our side. (Luke 9:50)

According to the Blessed Theophylact's Explanation of the New Testament, these
statements are not contradictions because the first statement (in the actual Greek text of
the New Testament) refers to demons, whereas the second and third statements refer to
people who recognised Jesus, but were not Christians.

Michael

486. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78110 by mmurray on October 11, 2007 at 10:20 pm

The Guardian have a report on this here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2188742,00.html

Michael

487. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78108 by mmurray on October 11, 2007 at 10:15 pm

You might want to read the whole letter here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_10_07_letter.pdf

as the Daily Mail is perhaps not the best paper.

While it would be nice if all the worlds religions disappeared in a puff of smoke it is unlikely in the immediate future. This kind of approach at least holds out some home for a moderate version of Islam arising. While this might seem unlikely Christianity manages to wriggle out of the nastier stuff in the Old and New Testaments when it wants to.

Michael

488. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78080 by mmurray on October 11, 2007 at 6:34 pm

So now I am confused. I thought we kept getting told religion doesn't cause wars ....

Michael

489. How China Got Religion

Comment #78049 by mmurray on October 11, 2007 at 3:52 pm

This "important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation" basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission.

Surely this has zilch to do with religion and everything to do with stopping the exiled Dalai Lama who is `outside China' from having any political influence.

When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha?

Not even the Buddha believed in the divinity of the Buddha. But why would I have to believe in the divinity of the Buddha to be outraged by the destruction of a piece of human cultural history?

Michael

490. 'Dirty War' priest gets life term

Comment #77918 by mmurray on October 11, 2007 at 5:37 am

Thanks BAEOZ. I was just thinking this article would be a good place to slip in Pell's latest! I grew up a Catholic in the 60-70's and I never understood the Catholics who thought they had a right to do an individual deal with God -- I thought that was what Protestants did and we just obeyed the Pope's encyclicals. But maybe things have changed I gave up on the whole mess around 1972.

Anyway we mustn't complain about Pell too much he just `blessed' the leader of the opposition or at least his policy on catholic schools :-)

Michael

491. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics

Comment #77613 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 9:36 pm

Comment #77525 by notsobad on October 9, 2007 at 2:15 pm
"I still need an explanation why she, while protesting against Muslim extremists, worked for Christian extremists, American Enterprise Institute?"

As well as the `any port in a storm' or perhaps `only port in a storm' theory mentioned above do we have any reason to believe she is not right wing in some or all of her thinking ? I can see the struggle she had to make to obtain individual freedom against the group-think of Islam leaving her more attracted to notions of individual liberty than to those of group solidarity. But I'm just guessing.

Personally I never understood what part of `I don't believe in gods' implies you are left of centre in your politics which seems to be a common assumption made around here.

Michael

492. The Religious Right's New Tactics for Invading Public Schools

Comment #77561 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 5:08 pm

These people sure are attention whores. Why do they insist on having to make everyone else listen to their religious blabbering? Is saying a quiet prayer by yourself not good enough for God? Do you have to make a public nuisance out of yourself and insist that everyone else hear you before God will be satisfied? I'm convinced that it is not prayer that these people are concerned with but rather access to minds for brainwashing.

Christianity has always been about converting people to the one true god. I think this goes back to the god of the old testament who was a jealous nutter whose second commandment was `you shall have no other gods before me.' In the new testament christ told the disciples that they were to be `fishers of men'. It is one of the fundamental problems with christianity fitting into a democratic society IMO. Most of us, I think, would be happy enough to leave it alone but it is not always happy to leave us alone.

My children were raised without any religion but they learnt about this aspect of religion early on in the video game Age of Empires where you can use priests to convert the other person's troops to your side. I was a little confused the first time I heard a shout of `stop priesting my men' from the bedroom - I had never thought of priest as a verb :-)

Michael

493. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77356 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 5:57 am

when or if she visits Australia,

She was at the Sydney writer's festival in June this year. I don't know who provided security.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/author-calls-on-muslims-to-reform/2007/06/02/1180205582657.html

Michael

494. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77348 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 5:37 am

Oh yes, I would too... But would your government?

Who knows -- at the moment they are in pre-election mode so they are only spending money on marginal electorates and buying votes. I don't expect she would figure in those calculations

Thanks for the information.

Michael

495. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77313 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 2:55 am

It is a question of "Should the dutch government indefinetly pay for the protection of someone living abroad?". In which even Hirshi Ali agrees that that is not a reasonable demand.

If you read the article by Harris and Rushdie they say that the Dutch Government promised protection everywhere and anywhere before she agreed to become a politician. (See the link above in post 19.)

I don't know about Holland but here in Australia ex politicians get very, very well looked after. I don't think we have anyone living under protection overseas but if it was needed by someone as brave as Ali I would support it.

Michael

496. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77293 by mmurray on October 9, 2007 at 1:13 am

Have a look also at

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-harris9oct09,0,3734484.story?coll=la-opinion-center

which gives another take on the issue.

Michael

497. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77259 by mmurray on October 8, 2007 at 10:22 pm

In his latest speech and the response, he made many good points, but also created a lot of confusion and got distracted on meditation, which has nothing to do with the topic. Having said that, I think we should forgive Sam for being imperfect, like the rest of us.

Actually it had lots to do with the topic. His point was that a lot of people who turn to religion could have their `spiritual' needs met by meditation. By rejecting their needs as not appropriate in some atheist materialist utopia we lose a lot of potential supporters just as (he seems to feel) we lose supporters by calling ourselves atheists.

Michael

498. In honour of Dan Dennett

Comment #76912 by mmurray on October 7, 2007 at 5:37 pm

Personally, I would encourage considerable caution about accepting the interpretations Gould presents.

That wasn't really my point. He has been dead now for 5 years so anything he has written is clearly out of date in terms of what is current thinking. I am not personally that interested in arguments about the exact workings of evolutionary theory. But if people don't read Gould because of these controversies they are missing some wonderful science writing. I don't think he is wrong about: (a) the contingent nature of history, (b) the depth of geological time, (c) the myriad of examples of bad design that support evolution by natural selection, (d) the fact that creationism is a load of unscientific rubbish or (e) the fact that evolutionary theory does not support racism. If you want a book on science and racism and the `Bell Curve' farce his Mismeasure of Man is brilliant.

I note also in that review of Dennett's book by Maynard Smith he comments on the excellence of Gould's essays as distinct from his place in the modern evolutionary theory community. The former point was the one I was trying to make.

Michael

499. In honour of Dan Dennett

Comment #76907 by mmurray on October 7, 2007 at 5:06 pm

I would encourage those of you who haven't read Gould to forget about punctuated equilibria and the argument with Dawkins over NOMA and go and read some of his essays or his books such as "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".

You can find some of the essays on-line without too much trouble.

Michael

500. Hirsi Ali Returns to the Netherlands after Losing Body Guards

Comment #76499 by mmurray on October 6, 2007 at 2:17 am

You can believe whatever you want but i know this woman has been lying about a lot of things, and this is one of them.

Actually I would like to believe what is true. At the moment -- like many here -- I basically have her book to go on. You are saying that she lied about being genitally mutilated when she said it happened in her book. Do you really know this or are you just assuming she lied about this because she admitted to lying to get immigration status?

Michael