51. Groundbreaking Research Has Scientists Talking With Apes

Comment #46378 by Eamonn Shute on May 31, 2007 at 4:18 am

I don't think this is particularly new or interesting. It is already known that apes have extremely limited linguistic ability - A three year old human has enormously greater skill than any ape, and this just proves it.

52. Secular Thought for the Day

Comment #45744 by Eamonn Shute on May 29, 2007 at 5:31 am

I somehow managed to miss this thread until just now, when I noticed LeeC's comment on the list of recent comments. Thanks Lee!

53. The Cyclic Universe: A Talk With Neil Turok

Comment #42510 by Eamonn Shute on May 18, 2007 at 10:02 am

It has recently been discovered that the rate of expansion of the Universe is increasing, which would make a "Big Crunch" impossible. I wonder how this can be reconciled with the idea of an eternal cyclic universe?

54. Author of the Year Ad

Comment #37488 by Eamonn Shute on May 4, 2007 at 3:38 pm

mdowe:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5962

55. How to defend your faith with an electric wheelchair

Comment #30430 by Eamonn Shute on April 8, 2007 at 3:17 am

I wonder who would win in a fight between Carlisle and Stephen Hawking?

56. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30117 by Eamonn Shute on April 7, 2007 at 2:01 am

Corylus, while I agree that social conditioning is probably a factor, it is also true that the two sexes are mentally different - a woman is not a man's brain in a different body (despite what Veronique seems to think)! So the cause of any difference in religiosity may well have several causes, and it is not obvious to me what they are.

57. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30107 by Eamonn Shute on April 7, 2007 at 1:28 am

"The reason that there are less female than male atheists worldwide is because of discrimination in terms of providing education."
That might be ONE reason, but in the UK, for example, females have the same level of education as males, but women are still less likely to be atheist than men. I think differences in the psychological make-up of the two sexes also plays a part.

58. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27985 by Eamonn Shute on March 27, 2007 at 1:51 pm

Richard said that "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully".
It is nice to see that the Pope agrees with him! :-)

59. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #27905 by Eamonn Shute on March 27, 2007 at 7:31 am

ImagineAZ:

try http://www.adherents.com/

60. Across the Universe: A Guide to the Past, Present and Future of the Cosmos

Comment #27874 by Eamonn Shute on March 27, 2007 at 5:14 am

Sir Patrick has nothing but contempt for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who he describes as "just as slimy and rude as Mr Carey" (his predecessor). Both men belong to the RSPCA but support fox hunting, which Patrick is very strongly against.
"And far from being fit to run the CofE I do not personally regard either of them as fit to run a whelk stall. If this is Christianity then give me paganism!"

61. Across the Universe: A Guide to the Past, Present and Future of the Cosmos

Comment #27819 by Eamonn Shute on March 27, 2007 at 12:20 am

Last year Sir Patrick sent the following letter to "Sky & Telescope" magazine:-

"Reviewing my 'Atlas of the Universe' David Tytell comments that the book 'isn't very pretty'. I would refer him to one of the many children's books available. These are very pretty indeed and will clearly be far more suited to his needs."

:-)

I can strongly recommend his autobiography.

62. God's dupes

Comment #26087 by Eamonn Shute on March 16, 2007 at 4:13 pm

>>> The Church of England school organising the event apparently decided on the change in order to be "sensitive" to Moslem feelings but was overruled by the local council.

So they do not mind offending Jews then! :-)

63. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #25910 by Eamonn Shute on March 15, 2007 at 3:57 pm

I wonder how many of the people who were prayed for were amputees!
How does combining several bad experiments make a good experiment? If an experiment is well designed then it will give a conclusive result by itself.

64. US Congressman Holds No God-Belief

Comment #25428 by Eamonn Shute on March 13, 2007 at 3:58 am

Quote: In an e-mailed statement, Stark said: "When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003615230_stark13.html

65. Economics and human evolution

Comment #24866 by Eamonn Shute on March 9, 2007 at 12:54 am

Although I am not disputing the theory, I think the author is too easily impressed by the mathematical model.

"Depending on the numbers plugged in, Neanderthals become extinct between 2,500 and 30,000 years after the two species begin competing—a range that nicely brackets reality."

In other words, you can change the parameters to get just about any time scale you want, so it would be hard for the model NOT to "bracket reality"!

66. Send The God Delusion to your MP

Comment #19005 by Eamonn Shute on January 24, 2007 at 9:45 am

CJ: According to J Christie on the link "Should this pledge gain momentum, I additionally undertake to maintain a simple online list of MP's (and their addresses) for whom pledges have been received, to eliminate duplication of effort."

67. The Komodo Dragon's Tale

Comment #18957 by Eamonn Shute on January 24, 2007 at 1:44 am

The eggs have hatched!

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/24/komodo.births.ap/

68. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #17544 by Eamonn Shute on January 14, 2007 at 4:43 pm

Reaction by the National Secular Society:-

http://www.secularism.org.uk/74988.html?CPID=f3d4dc480432bbb34ca98cbb1a61e484

69. You come up here and say that, Dawkins!

Comment #17360 by Eamonn Shute on January 13, 2007 at 3:04 am

"God has a huge nose."

Well, he is Jewish!

70. General Synod's Life of Christ

Comment #16666 by Eamonn Shute on January 8, 2007 at 1:34 am

Connolly also starred in the film "The Man Who Sued God".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sued_God

71. The Komodo Dragon's Tale

Comment #14433 by Eamonn Shute on December 22, 2006 at 12:06 pm

Thanks for the article Professor, I didn't understand what was going on with Flora until I read this article, now it is all clear.

Merry Christmas!

72. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #14374 by Eamonn Shute on December 22, 2006 at 7:06 am

Here are some letters in reply to Professor Dawkins.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1975835,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1977471,00.html

73. Now we know how to make the IDists dance in their petticoats: blaspheme.

Comment #14245 by Eamonn Shute on December 21, 2006 at 3:59 pm

http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html deals with the first three points in M20, I couldn't be bothered checking the rest. talkorigins is a good place to start when you want to refute a creationist claim.

74. 7 monks injured in clash over monastery

Comment #14094 by Eamonn Shute on December 21, 2006 at 4:56 am

"....where women are banned"

If they bring women into the monastery they will be defrocked.

75. Response to Richard Dawkins' Criticisms in The God Delusion

Comment #13213 by Eamonn Shute on December 16, 2006 at 8:01 am

"...it leads us to expect the enormously complex data (enormously large numbers of protons, photons etc.behaving in exactly the same way)"
Nice use of the sharpshooter fallacy - fire a bullet into the side of a barn then paint the target!

I do not understand the business of free will. If you have two worlds, one in which you have free will and one in which the future is "carved in stone", how would you tell the difference! That is why I regard free will as a red-herring.

76. The Panel with Richard Dawkins

Comment #12486 by Eamonn Shute on December 12, 2006 at 6:35 am

I noticed that in his one-sentence definition of evolution he used the word "codes" instead of "replicators" - I wonder what the reason was?

77. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12213 by Eamonn Shute on December 11, 2006 at 9:33 am

Yorker (39), when I was at school in the 60's I was was taught absolutely nothing about evolution, which I find unbelievable. I don't know if it is in the curriculum today, but if it isn't then it is nothing new.
I was also taught that animals are divided into vertebrates and invertebrates, not that there were numerous phyla and that vertebrates made up just part of one phylum, so you see that the level has never been high!

78. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12121 by Eamonn Shute on December 10, 2006 at 4:54 pm

He has written a book:-
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Today-Relevance-Creation-Evolution/dp/1903087155/sr=8-2/qid=1165798275/ref=sr_1_2/102-1300019-5456924?ie=UTF8&s=books

(Ranked #3,316,159 on Amazon!)

79. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12114 by Eamonn Shute on December 10, 2006 at 4:19 pm

Professor Andy McIntosh:-

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/speme/erri/index_people.html

80. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12109 by Eamonn Shute on December 10, 2006 at 3:54 pm

Later in the programme Richard is criticised for not answering the 2nd law question, which is unfair because the chairman moves on before he can do so. I would have loved to see the questioner deal with Richard's answer - I am sure RD could have made his folly even more obvious by explaining why he is wrong.

81. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #11932 by Eamonn Shute on December 8, 2006 at 8:44 am

Thrall, you missed a number of great classical composers off your list, here are some more:- http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/musicians/