51. The Giant Tortoise's Tale

Comment #134651 by sarah95 on February 28, 2008 at 4:21 am

Wow, that was awesome. Well done Josh and Richard! Tortises are so fun to watch. The shots of iguanas and finches were great too, as was Richard's voice and explaination.

After watching the bit where he's walking along on the beach pondering the beauty of life from a Darwinian point of view, I realized that what I was watching was exactly what my own personal nerd version of "Baywatch" would be...
;)

Keep 'em coming Richard!

52. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134521 by sarah95 on February 27, 2008 at 11:56 pm

36. Comment #134356 by PLAYBALL on February 27, 2008 at 4:15 pm:

I love Richard's enthusiasm and his voice is very sexy!!

Ha! I totally agree! His voice is 2/3 of the reason I listen to these interviews instead of just ignoring them. The other third is because I want his enthusiasm for engaging theists and making them look as silly as they really are to rub off on me!
Otherwise, I'd probably be more likely to just ignore these kind of interviews for the simple reason that the same questions are asked, with mostly the same responses each time.

53. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133225 by sarah95 on February 25, 2008 at 11:00 pm

Vinelectric said:

We end up, as usual, with a situation with some retards screaming "Fuck Islam" while others scream "Fuck the West" retardingly ever after.

And then what?

I disagree. Just because someone says "Fuck Islam" does not mean they're a "right wing screaming-banshee". I say it because it's a religion, and a very dangerous one at that.
The difference is that the retards who scream "Fuck the West" do it to encite violence and because that's the only point of view their government(ie, Pakistan, Iran) will tolerate. "Retards" who scream "Fuck Islam" can be anti-religionists like me, or they can be right wingers(the real retards), but just saying "Fuck Islam" doesn't make you right wing and doesn't make free speech "useless" as you put it. Free speech is anything BUT useless.

54. How he was sentenced to die

Comment #132557 by sarah95 on February 25, 2008 at 1:26 am

"There are still some extremists who insult me, but I am afraid they are the kind who will not change their minds."

What other kinds of extremists are there? I doubt any extremist even really uses his mind, much less changes it.

What a nightmare. I wouldn't be able to keep it together if I was sentenced to death in four minutes and kept in a jail with jihadists for a crime I didn't commit(or shouldn't have been a crime, I don't know what the specifics are). I'm glad that he was able to talk to The Independent. Hopefully that made him feel a bit better, being able to say things that he knew the world would read.
Let's hope that somebody gives Karzai a good kick in the pants so he'll reprieve him.

j s bach and bonzai, I agree. It tears me up inside to know that American guys my age are dying in efforts to keep that hopeless pile of shit of a country running. I know "hopeless pile of shit" is pessimistic, but I don't see how such madness can be remedied from the outside. If their society pushes back every time social progress is mentioned, no one's going to succeed in "bringing it to them".

55. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #132444 by sarah95 on February 24, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Radesq,
Perhaps I can balance things out by saying: Professor, your voice is quite gentle and pleasant on my ears as well("lovely...in its own way"). Lalla, what an extremely fortunate woman you are, and how well you compliment your husbands' writing in illustration and voice!
Well done both of you!

56. My Argument With God

Comment #131650 by sarah95 on February 22, 2008 at 11:24 pm

What a great article. Short and sweet, not angry, and very well-written.

All statistics aside, I think Ricky made a really good point with the story about his older brother asking the "why" question and his mother's response to it. The tone of voice in her reply betrayed her fear that god may simply be imaginary and that if we are to truly to have moral dignity, we'll have to work hard at individualism, reason, and compassion instead of taking the "god-fearing" shortcut.

That was one of the reasons I questioned my faith as a youngster. All the people who were "teaching me" the faith seemed so insecure(not admitedly, but children can sometimes see through acts better than adults, if not always) about their own faith. If god was so great, I sometimes thought, why do we need to defend him or our faith in him?

57. Whale Evolution

Comment #131051 by sarah95 on February 21, 2008 at 8:09 pm

wohoo! liam neeson and evolutionary biology?
who could ask for more?!

58. Missing link found in Sydney Harbour

Comment #130983 by sarah95 on February 21, 2008 at 4:15 pm

But, said Professor Carter, they were very distant relatives indeed. Comparing dinoflagellates with parasites was "like comparing us with ants".

The new organism was much more closely related and appeared to be the long sought "missing link" between the two forms of life.

She speculated that the first parasites may have evolved long ago from algae which grew inside marine animals. "At some stage [the algae] said: 'Let's stop making our own food. Let's take it from our host"'.

COOL. I hate it when I talk about how fascinating biology is, and people just gape confusedly. It's sad really. I think they all need a dose of Dawkins.

59. The Lava Lizard's Tale

Comment #130977 by sarah95 on February 21, 2008 at 4:07 pm

Amazing. I love lizards. I really wish I had time to read The Ancestor's Tale this semester, but I'm still working on The Selfish Gene. Having little videos like this definitely keeps the interest sparked!

And, as Sally Luxmoore and chauvinj said,

Loved the shorts too - quintessentially Englishman (or even Oxford Professor) in the tropics. :-)...
Somewhat trivial, but I wish to draw attention to it: Richard's shorts.

nothing beats a pair of those shorts!

I'll be spending my spring break in Kauai, Hawaii this year, and I look forward to discovering little lizard tales of my own.

60. DLD08 - Life: a gene-centric view

Comment #130496 by sarah95 on February 20, 2008 at 5:39 pm

Quetzacoatl,

Thanks for that. I hope Richard reads those faux-headlines and gets a kick out of them.

61. DLD08 - Life: a gene-centric view

Comment #130434 by sarah95 on February 20, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Please forgive the following inane(maybe even asinine!) comment, but I can't resist:

Richard you appear to have had your hair trimmed!

Fascinating discussion, anyway...that bit about the "gigantic societies of genomes" was great.
;)

62. Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

Comment #129953 by sarah95 on February 19, 2008 at 8:08 pm

I really do find it annoying when self-declared agnostics say
"Oh, I don't currently believe in god, for many good reasons, but I'm not absolutely sure about it, so on so forth... but don't confuse me with those nasty atheists like Dawkins who actually have the balls to come out and say the dreaded word 'atheist'!!"
...As though the terms atheist and agnostic were mutually exclusive, and as though Dawkins and Hitchens et al were promoting the "spread of atheism". We know that neither of these things are true.

Bart Ehrman whinily accused "recent atheist authors" of "telling everyone that they should be atheist".

Whenever asked about "making religion go away", Hitchens says "of course not, who would I have to argue with?" and Dawkins says "what I care about is rational thinking." Really, we all know that religion shouldn't be eradicated. It's silly stories are good for a laugh, and there's no reason to rewrite history, but the new atheists have made the point that the issue is about rational naturalism vs. supernatural irrational poofism.

63. 'Frog from hell' fossil unearthed

Comment #129249 by sarah95 on February 18, 2008 at 10:54 pm

"If it shared the aggressive temperament and 'sit-and-wait' ambush tactics of [present-day] horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals.

"Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it's not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs."

I bet that toad was so badass, that if he were alive today, he'd eat creationists for lunch and employ "sit-and-wait ambush tactics" in getting any survivors to sit through a Richard Dawkins lecture.

64. Bill Moyers Interviews Susan Jacoby

Comment #129073 by sarah95 on February 18, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Mitchell Gilks,
I'm not sure who you were responding to, but no one said people were gullible for believing experts. That's the whole point. We'd rather have people trust experts than just go with their knee-jerk take on things.
Also, you said:

I am all for improving education, and finding quicker, better and more accurate ways of getting information to the general public, but you can't blame them to the extent I saw them getting blamed. Saying that it is equally the general publics fault for not knowing that it is for the person's responsible for knowing is batantly absurd.

I certainly didn't blame people for their original ignorance. What I said was:

Of course our education system has failed to some degree to provide this basic framework, but once people have already been failed, the wrong needs to be undone. Doing a little bit of studying should not be a source of contention.

As you say, it is obvious that people have been failed by education. However, that is not the only factor. General cultural attitudes also make ignorance of geography acceptable. I never said that ignorance was all people's fault to begin with, but the knowledge that I said was essential was NOT issue-specific. It is knowing where the countries of the world are on a map, knowing your basic rights as a citizen, and roughly what happened in the wars the US fought in. These are things that were supposed to be taught in school. If people come out of school not knowing it, you can't send them back to school. As you say, they have no time for it. Once people have been failed, if there is any hope of societal recovery, ignorant people either need to with-hold judgement on issues or spend some small amount of their time becoming acquainted with basic things like identifying countries on maps.

you then say:

Those are not small subjects that are easily absorbed, and take more time than the average person has in a day to reach more than a superficial understanding of.

This is obvious, but the point Jacoby was making was that people do NOT have a superficial understanding of these subjects, and we'd all be a lot better off if people DID understand where Iraq, Iran, and Israel are on a map(ie, a superficial understanding of geography).
By saying the word basic over and over, Bicycle Repair Man and I also meant superficial.

BRM said:

What she is advocating is a decently educated public, basic stuff you should have learned before highschool, really. Dont tell me you think its "too academic" to be able to find the country youre fighting a war with on the map.

I agree. Just because people were failed by education in learning where the major countries of the world are, doesn't mean that no one should make any effort to make up for it by simply taking a look at a map for the same amount of time that most people spend watching American Idol. School takes a lot of time, but just brushing up on very basic things to gain a superficial understanding(compared the non-understanding most people currently have) does not take nearly as much time. It doesn't have to be done all at once.

you also said:

You are completely full of it if you think you are an expert in every field you consider to be accurately representing reality. Even experts in one field are not going to be experts in other fields.

Again, the issue is NOT about expert-understanding. No one here claims to be experts or claims that we SHOULD be experts. All we were saying was that a superficial understanding CAN be gained, and should, regardless of how someone was failed by the system in the past.

65. Bill Moyers Interviews Susan Jacoby

Comment #129029 by sarah95 on February 18, 2008 at 2:14 pm

Mitchell Gilks said:

The average person that works, and has a family has very little free time, and simply doesn't have the time to educate themselves on every issue. I find nothing wrong with the general public trusting the opinions and decisions of people whose jobs it is to know. I don't know the details of many sciences, and many many fields that I trust the word of the expects, because they have either proven to be reliable, or the majority of relevent experts in the field agree with them. I find it unfair to criticism the general public for not knowing as much about important issues as those whose jobs it is to know.

I agree that some people don't have time to educate themselves on specific issues exstensively, but you really can't argue that basic knowledge of the constitution, basic history, and basic geography are too time-consuming. People don't have this basic knowledge for many reasons. I think the biggest is that people eat up the sentiment that knowledge is 'uncool' when they're young, and when they're constantly told by condescending people of higher income that they don't have enough time to be good citizens, they're not shamed into simply finding the time. Thirty minutes a day to brush up on American history, the constitution and basic geography is NOT a hassle for most people, when 2 hours of television is the norm. If people had this basic knowledge, and weren't eating up the cult of opinion, they'd be less wary and dismissive of scientists and experts whose job it is to know the issues. They don't necessarily need to know the specific issues extensively to avoid botched decisions, but a basic framework is essential. Of course our education system has failed to some degree to provide this basic framework, but once people have already been failed, the wrong needs to be undone. Doing a little bit of studying should not be a source of contention. It simply needs to be done, one way or another. I know plenty of people that have the decency to with-hold their vote on certain proposals in the voting booth because they know they really aren't informed.

I really do think that if people must pass a citizenship test to become citizens, then all natural-born citizens have a duty to KNOW what's on that test. Whether it's where europe and middle-east are, what the bill of rights says, or who we fought in WW2, ignorance of this information should not be excusable for people who intend to vote. If you're ignorant of this information, for any reason(not enough time or education), then you should have the decency to either trust experts(even if it's a gamble) or simply with-hold your vote.

Of course there are some extreme cases when people don't have access to common knowledge, but we're not talking about extremes or exceptions. We're talking about the majority of people who do have some(however little) free-time with which to do a favor to the rest of us and actually know the basics.

66. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128942 by sarah95 on February 18, 2008 at 10:25 am

MaxD,
Thanks for the advice. I have my ethnic studies class tomorrow. I'll do my best!

67. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128781 by sarah95 on February 17, 2008 at 11:28 pm

Multiculturalism is racism; cultural relativism is racism; this should be recognized once and for all. By defining different laws for different citizens on the basis of such arbitrary concepts such as culture or religion, we leave the lot of the weakest sections of that so-called "cultural community" to the mercy of the self-imposed leaders of that community.

phopas said:

The root of the word "diversity" is "to divide". The exact opposite of the great motto of the US , which is - E pluribus unum, (out of many one).

John Done said:

It's time we started to get serious about dealing with these pompous postmodernist pricks and their support for segregation under the banner of multiculturalism.

I heartily agree. The way my university(and most others in the US) just simply espouses cultural relativism, multiculturalism and postmodernism as fact, calls any other approach racist or ethnocentric "hate speech" that students don't have the right to utter(speech codes!) just boils my bottom! I don't think that the postmodernist relativist pricks here in the US really understand how dangerous their policies are. They could take a good look at the situation in the UK and if they weren't already so thick-headed and irrational, they'd see that the way they're trying to "foster diversity" will only make society worse for all of us.

This article has inspired me to promise myself that the next time I hear a professor make some pompous unfair comparison between postmodernist concepts and rationalist/scientific concepts, I will be prepared to verbally rebutt. It's high time!

68. A match made on RichardDawkins.net?

Comment #128351 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 7:37 pm

um, when I said "marry you", I meant "marry you two", as in officiating at your wedding ceremony. I hope that was clear...

69. A match made on RichardDawkins.net?

Comment #128350 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 7:36 pm

Congratulations and condolences. Facing cancer and species survival are not easy, but I heartily agree that love for each other makes us stronger in the fight.

And add my name to the list of people who would love to see Richard Dawkins marry you. I know that may not be your thing, but just give it a thought...;)

70. Study: Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology

Comment #128349 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 7:18 pm

"The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits."

I disagree. On the whole, my fellow Americans do NOT know how their everyday technology works, and they really aren't interested. I would guess that the main reason people answered against nanotech would be because of the reason Diacanu pointed out:

but when you present it in a "is it morally acceptable?", framework, they assume there must be a controversy, and jump right to the "no", answer to hedge their bets.

Furthermore, the "parallel data sets" aren't nearly as substantial as Ms. Scheufele would have us believe. While religion is a huge source luddite-thinking, it's not the only one. There are plenty of organic-only post-modernist greenies who would sooner roll around in pig shit than ADMIT that they own an ipod nano.
Of course, they DO own them, just as evangelical whackos will cry "you're playing god!" up until the moment someone needs artificial life-support, and then a natural death becomes a "sin"...

Hypocrisy all around.

71. Virus immunity 'created in lab'

Comment #128111 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 8:02 am

(I'll start off by saying that yes, I know what the queer-street phrase means, thanks to other posters, but....)

"You have to be jolly careful that you don't end up on Queer Street."

We could end up with immune systems that are "queerer than we CAN suppose." ;)

Sorry, I had to say it.

72. Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered

Comment #128109 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 7:55 am

Alan Boss, a theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said, "The fact that these are hard to detect by microlensing means there must be a good number of them â€" solar system analogues are not rare."

Wohoo! "not rare" sounds good to me!

Don't forget the duct tape, you can't build a functioning warp drive without it!

Neither can we forget to harness the power of Scotty's farts to maximize the efficacy of said warp drive.

73. Map reveals extent of human damage to oceans

Comment #128104 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 7:24 am

I know Ian Bamlett was playing Devil's advocate when he spouted paranoia about population control efforts, but honestly, some of my peers have gone nuts when it comes to the UN. They think that since "no one can make the decisions"....

Who makes the decisions steve? Me? You? The Global UN government? Who gets culled first?

that big bad, facist UN is going to cull people. It couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone (Zara obviously has) heard of the Cairo plan? http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0998/ijge/gj-15.htm The UN's plan to cap population growth by encouraging education and human rights for women? Honestly, Ian Bamlett's post brings up a good point: people are a little bit knee-jerky when it comes to talking about population control simply because they don't know anything about the issue as it's been addressed in the past.

Like notsobad said, our best hope for this issue is not becoming is knee-jerk do-nothings, but empowering women.

74. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asks for protection

Comment #128094 by sarah95 on February 16, 2008 at 6:25 am

I agree with the previous posters that highlighted the irony that France, with its huge population of Muslims, has offered protection before the ostentatious "war on terror" money-spenders in the white house. What better PR than protecting physical safety, free speech, and criticizm of Islam all at the same time? You'd think that the US govt would understand how popular such a move would be, aside from the obvious fact that it's simply the right thing to do.

If Bush wants to talk about heroic terror-fighting, amazing American wealth, and dispell accusations of disregard for human rights, then why would he not extend the umbrella to Ayaan, an obvious ally?(She's affiliated with a neo-con think tank for heaven's sake! What more do they want?)

75. Council pays psychic for exorcism

Comment #126555 by sarah95 on February 13, 2008 at 2:28 pm

They might've just paid 60 pounds in indulgences for all the good it did. Apalling use of public funds.

76. Cal scientist reflects on Darwin's genius

Comment #126219 by sarah95 on February 12, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Grr!

WHY is it that atheism is listed as one of the "heartless ills of society"? Does this man not know of the atheists that helped establish a young United States, who made countless scientific discoveries, and who fought real social ills like bible-justified slavery and segregation? It is SO typical of the current American consciousness to assume that if anyone in our past did something honourable it was because he/she was religious or at least religiously inspired. What tripe.

And even worse he actually attempts to make a distinction between creationists and "rebel scientist" IDers. SO stupid. I really wish my fellow Americans would just stop pretending that these are separate groups, and that just because there may be a few whackos with PhDs who don't accept evolution, that doesn't make them "rebels". That's just romanticizing stupidity. And yet, the romanticizing of stupidity is exactly what I've come to expect from apologists and media-folk in the US.

77. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125511 by sarah95 on February 11, 2008 at 1:53 pm

This little clip is now on my youtube account:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqo1a1CTf8w

for those of you who have trouble with QT.
enjoy!

78. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125422 by sarah95 on February 11, 2008 at 10:45 am

notsobad said:

Across Europe?
Poland is known for being religiously backwards. At least they kicked the Catholic zealots out in the last election.

I was also heartened by the last election, but as a grand-daughter of polish immigrants, I have a hard time reconciling their catholicism with the pride I have in Copernicus, Chopin and Polanski. Admittedly, we did champion a "liberal" pope, but he was still a pope.
I also agree on the second part. Poland's catholic silliness shouldn't be attributed to Europe at large.

79. Good people doing evil things

Comment #125403 by sarah95 on February 11, 2008 at 10:16 am

great article!

Curious how you can judge a reviewer's sympathies 9 out of 10 times simply by whether or not they have actually bothered to read the book.

indeed. i even know Dawkins fans at my school who will purposely turn down the tone of their previous love for The Selfish Gene and others, simply to turn up their detest at TGD, which, by simply listening to their straw men, you can tell they haven't even read. is it really so hard to say: "well, i'm religious so i don't expect to like TGD, but i haven't read it, so i don't really know. i did like his other stuff though!"

80. 10 cc of atheism

Comment #124576 by sarah95 on February 9, 2008 at 9:28 pm

I just posted this on my Youtube account:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oC7UIa5Yas

I'll be trying to do the same with most this website's shorter videos. If you have problems with quicktime, you are certainly welcome to subscribe to my youtube account!

81. The challenge of finding peace in Lourdes

Comment #124569 by sarah95 on February 9, 2008 at 9:09 pm

Thanks Noodly, for that wonderful idea! If there's ever a Dawkins tour, sign me up! I'd pay some serious money to watch Alister McGrath jump over the Bodleian library! ;)

82. The Passion of 'Anonymous'

Comment #124405 by sarah95 on February 9, 2008 at 11:12 am

by my last comment, i meant to put "...which is scam gullible people out of their money, dignity, and in at least one case, their life." after "what they tend to do."

83. The Passion of 'Anonymous'

Comment #124403 by sarah95 on February 9, 2008 at 11:09 am

Is there any 'science' at all in scientology?

Nope. It's just one of those products of post-modern thinking that says if it opposes itself in any way to traditional monotheism, then it must be "scientific". Scientology's about as scientific as Mormonism.

As an aside, fear of a growing Scientology movement isn't entirely irrational. They do have their own army and military base:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elw9e9LJIwQ

in case you don't get to watch the whole thing, one of the less scary bits is where they show the contract that you sign to get into their military. you have to pay $130 in monthly dues, and you sign off your life "for the next million years"(it may have been a billion, but does it really matter? it was one of the -illions.)

really funny and scary at the same time.

I've come to find that while this video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rCGP-0545EU

is a bit dramatic, it does present mostly facts. Some of the lines are blurred, but it gives you a gist of what they tend to do.

84. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124229 by sarah95 on February 8, 2008 at 9:28 pm

It never ceases to amaze me how well Dawkins can sum things up so concisely! Someone above compared it to the very subject of the article: explaining the complex with the simple. So basically, if Dawkins were a theory, he'd be Darwinian selection, and he would rock. (Even though he rocks already.)

85. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #124226 by sarah95 on February 8, 2008 at 8:56 pm

the youtube version of this video that i uploaded has gotten almost 3,000 views in the less than 2 days after i uploaded it. i'd say the comments are about 3:1 with atheist ones in the majority.

86. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #124059 by sarah95 on February 8, 2008 at 9:00 am

MIT = Muppets in Training?

I always thought the muppets were too smart for their own good...

Anyway... my flux-capacitor is on the fritz, back to the lab...

I utilized a flux capacitor once. It was a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it with lightning coming out of it. We taped it to the dashboard of my friend's van, and filmed us "driving back in time" to visit the prophet zoroaster for our high school humanities class video project on zoroastrianism. That flux capacitor was pretty much the talk of the campus that week. The kids destined to be muppets were hankering to get a good look...

wow. sorry. I won't do that again. However, my friends and I made other videos, and one of them has had some success on google video. "3" was a parody of the film 300...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8295016448696533268&q=300 parody video&total=1867&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4

87. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #124018 by sarah95 on February 8, 2008 at 7:07 am

DAMNIT! Quetzacoatl beat me to it! I was thinking of that Simpsons quote too! I even watched that episode last week!

And again, for the sake of quoting homer:

"Young lady, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

88. Help Build The Reason Project Archive!

Comment #123853 by sarah95 on February 7, 2008 at 6:34 pm

Am I the only one a little disappointed at the substance-less quarrelling that's going on in the thread about REASON??

Anyhoo, I think the archive is a great idea. I understand why people are afraid that we'll end up with too many people trying to do the same thing, but I think that if one approach is really better than the other, a little time to try them out will easily produce a leader. After that, the less effective and thorough archives won't have to bow out, but people may eventually know what to use and depend on. For instance, no one uses the "Ask Jeeves" search engine anymore; most people use google, and the fact that ask-jeeves still exists doesn't really confuse people or diffuse knowledge in a harmful way. I realize this may be a very bad comparison, so call me out if there's a huge flaw, but i think overall that starting out with lots of poineers in one field isn't so bad.

89. Scientists Say Mummies' Lice Show Pre-Columbian Origins

Comment #123850 by sarah95 on February 7, 2008 at 6:19 pm

interesting article. i want a death that involves natural mummification too!

Adam Morrison, on a sidenote, I'm quite glad you don't buy into white guilt. On college campuses in America, if you don't buy into White Guilt and European guilt, you are labelled both by staff and students an ethnocentric intolerant racist. This always reminds me of that Dawkins quote that pokes fun of political correctness trying to brand genes as "nasty facist things" that tell us what we don't want to hear about intelligence.

90. Help Build The Reason Project Archive!

Comment #123316 by sarah95 on February 7, 2008 at 12:13 am

I just sent in my youtube videos! I also sent them a link to a very good lecture given by Daniel Dennett a few years ago:

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=2135

This was the first exposure I had ever had to Dennett, and I must say that he did not fail to impress. A very easy to understand and follow(while still captivating) presentation for any mind, especially a young one.

91. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #123261 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 6:16 pm

My thanks go to sarah95, and I must also say how much I appreciate your musical taste having clicked on your name to view your other videos.

Also, good little interview. Short and to the point.

C

You're quite welcome, Fenriswolf! I'ts just one of those added benefits to find someone who has both rational thinking and oasis on the mind. In fact, I hear that Noel's a Dawkins fan! Aside from that, part of the point of my youtube activities and going around signing things
"Sarah
*the atheist figure skater* "
is to do my bit in the OUT campaign to show that anyone you(speaking to the hypothetical masses here) know could be an atheist. they're not scary and anti-social. you may be friends with an atheist and not even know it: your neighbor? your doctor? perhaps even that girl you see at the local ice rink?

I just want to help de-stigmatize it all, and show that it's not really politically charged, but that it's ok to be an atheist and that atheists as a group are diverse.

92. Ad 'likely to offend gay people'

Comment #123256 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 6:02 pm

notsobad said:

Let them run the ad so that free speech is preserved and people can see how intolerant and backwards these people are.

But, really I was quite confused about the article. It was unclear to me whether or not the ad was actually being stopped or just critcized. I would have to doubt that anyone could get away with stopping it. I certainly wouldn't (even though it would be fun, anyway). Like you said, let them have free speech AND dig their own graves at the same time. They have the right to express their fuck-tarded-ness, but I don't think the article mentioned anything about real action being taken to remove or prevent the ad other than deserved criticism.

If anyone understood the banned or not banned issue of the article better than me, then clarification is certainly welcome.

93. Apologetic billboard replaces atheistic sign

Comment #123247 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 5:19 pm

What a liar! "Oh, ya, that sign from the Freedom FROM Religion Foundation is threatening my business. It said 'IMAGINE NO RELIGION' in big words and those immoral atheists decived me into thinking that it was pro-church just so that they could put money in MY pocket"

That's either blinding stupidity or LYING like a scumbag!
In the words of Marcus Brigstocke, "Somone's pants are on fire!"

And in the words of someone else whose name I can't remember, "I am tolerant of stupidity, just not those who are proud of it." ( i think that's the correct wording, but i'm not sure. but i'm sure you all get the point...)

94. Christopher Hitchens on Books & Ideas

Comment #123244 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 5:09 pm

I would recommend PiroNiro's videos to everyone here. She's very smart and entertaining. I found her stuff on youtube, and she really blows all the theist and anti-atheist folks on youtube out of the water.

95. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #123236 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 4:52 pm

I don't think you can argue that it came out of the context of "survival of the fittest". But this is precisely what Darwinians must argue.

Schmeezers, you really don't understand evolution thoroughly if you think that the only thing that comes out of survival of the fittest is "slaughter". The entire book "The Selfish Gene" is dedicated to explaining how the level of selection is the gene, so when genes replicate and end up "living" in many different individuals, the selfish nature of the gene lends itself to the altruistic nature of the individual. I won't kill my mom or my neighbor because my selfish genes also live in my mom, and if I were to kill my neighbor, I would be risking the animocity of all the people he shares genes with. You might also consider looking up game theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Theory

before you argue that natural selection cannot select for "morals" of some kind.
It is not "wrong" or "shameful" to be ignorant of evolution. I am ignorant of Chinese art, but that's not "wrong". What would be wrong was if I went about saying that Chinese art had nothing to contribute to modern philosophy, without having bothered to try and understand it.
PLEASE, before you claim that evolution can't produce moral beings, ACTUALLY READ The Selfish Gene, and get your hands on a used high school or college Biology text book in order to better understand evolution instead of just saying things like "slaughtering each other for millions of years (or whatever the story says), " as though you understood it. Obviously, if you have to say, "or whatever the story says", then you can't deny the criticism that you don't know enough about Darwinism in the first place to claim that it can't bring about morals.

96. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #122789 by sarah95 on February 6, 2008 at 4:54 am

I just put this on youtube. The other two videos that go with this one are on my account too.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WJqX-v_ueZ4

97. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122728 by sarah95 on February 5, 2008 at 10:00 pm

While definitely a gamble, the payoffs from such a search would be enormous, Kavic argues. The successful detection of the kind of black hole explosion the team predicts would confirm not only the existence of extra dimensions, but also of primordial black holes and Hawking evaporation.

"All three of these are quantum gravitational phenomena [and] would drastically alter our view of space-time and the fundamental nature of our universe," Kavic says.

This reminds me of when RD was on The Colbert Report. He explained that some people confuse him with Stephen Hawking, to which Colbert asked, "Is he going to hell too?...God doesn't like black holes." I guess he doesn't, especially if they "alter our view of space-time and the nature of our universe". I imagine such a phenomenon would be a pesky one to god.

98. An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

Comment #122720 by sarah95 on February 5, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Actually, BAEOZ and Quetzalcoatl, if you watch the "Growing Up in the Universe" lectures, RD uses the term By-Jovian(spelling?)creatures in the sense that some creatures are so strange looking, that to us they might as well be from another planet (ie, Jove aka Jupiter). So when we see those deep-sea predators that have antennae with a little light source on the end as bait, we can say, "By Jove!"

Although I can't really remember how he explained the "By" (or "bi") part of the term. You'll have to watch the lectures to see.

As for using that phrase in daily conversation, I am proud to say that my dad, an extremely pleasant and eccentric man, uses "By Jove" all the time. (As well as "Blast!" to express frustration, and "Greetings!" instead of "Hi".) And no, he's not attempting to be funny, that's just how he talks. ;)

99. Richard Dawkins talks about The Out Campaign and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #122216 by sarah95 on February 4, 2008 at 11:54 pm

Just an update on the status of these videos on youtube:
In just under a week, the video about the out campaign reached 1,000 views with 10 comments with an average 4 out of 5 rating. In just over a week, the video of Richard talking about Hirsi Ali reached 1,000 views and achieved an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars! That's what I call PR success!

100. Admitting that you have no religion is not politically correct

Comment #122212 by sarah95 on February 4, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I read the guy's blog and it's really sad. Of course the people who sent e-mails of complaint meant well and maybe even thought it would help. However, religious moderates are DETERMINED to paint themselves as tolerant, enlightened people, who most importantly, are downtrodden and persecuted by the atheist minority. I think that in terms of tactics, we always need to be mindful of the perogative of these "tolerance-fostering" folks. They have a knack for making a something out of nothing (god, for instance) when no controversy is needed. The accusations of "intolerance", "harassment" and "negative tone" , vague though they are, they hold surprising sway with the mindless majority determined to be offended and smother out the opportunities for promotion that our minority groups seek to utilize.

Just my little rant.