401. Swatting attacks on fruit flies and science

Comment #276031 by Roger Stanyard on November 1, 2008 at 5:18 am

Sarah Palin claim - ""In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.""

Just another dubious politician avoiding responsibility and try to shoot the messanger. Odd isn't it that apart from US wingnuts, the rest of the world regards the US media as almost totally right wing.

(PS - I work in the media and much of that work has involved US broadcasting and broadcasters as well as broadcasters throughout the rest of the world. I've got a lot of experience behind making this claim. I cannot recall a single US TV channel that I would evenly remotely describe, by world standards, as left wing. They are either centre-Right or extreme right. Much of what constitutes US broadcasting (Rush Limbaugh, for example) is indistinguisable from what Goebbels put on the airwaves.)

402. Swatting attacks on fruit flies and science

Comment #275713 by Roger Stanyard on October 31, 2008 at 12:43 pm

The Financial Times today did an op-ed piece that was absoutely scathing about Palin (and the Republicans in general). It stated that Palin was exceedingly ill-read (despite, BTW, the woman bneing a journalist), adding that she did not regularly read any magazines or journals. It basically presented a picture of a woman who is little better than a brainless bimbo.

The FT, which has already endosed Obama, went on to argue that the Republican Party in the USA is now in the process of imploding.

Today The Economist also came out and endosed Obama - IIRC it has consistently endorsed republic presidential candidates since I first starting reading it way back in 1981.

Anyone know what the position of the Wall Street Journal is in endorsing the candidates? What's its view on Palin?

403. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #275290 by Roger Stanyard on October 31, 2008 at 3:55 am

Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

Wooter - Bugger off and debate with your intellectual equals elsewhere rather than wasting your obvious brilliance here.

Creep.

PS - Never heard of the ninth commandment then?

404. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #275278 by Roger Stanyard on October 31, 2008 at 3:39 am

Wooter claims "In the first place, I tried to reason with atheists but none of them have the same IQ as me."

Arrogant pilloch.

405. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274655 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 9:26 am

Well some in this forum may well be also interested in how creationists think they should debate with scientists.

Here is a list of 10 ways "to debate against evolution" that we found on the WikiHow wiki.

Note section 10 ("Quotemine Relentlessly. Quoting out of context is a great way of winning arguments.").

Not very honest are they!

How to Debate Against Evolution

Debating against Evolution does not use the same principles as other debates. Formal debates specifically prohibit certain types of arguments known as "fallacies", many of which are necessary in order to win a debate from a pro-creation position.

Rely on the good will of your audience. There are different kinds of audiences, and the way you talk would depend on that. If they're a "lay-back" audience, speak simple. If they're an audience of experts and scientists, speak either simple or complex.

Find out what the parameters are. Evolution falls under biology, keep your arguments biological.
Move the goalposts. If you don't like what the evolutionist said, move the goalposts, they can't win if you keep making your requests more specific.

Research the content of the parameters, both on your side and your opponents side. Be sure to research enough that you know the subject like the back of your hand.

Study the debator if they've made books or debated about the same subject before. Each debator has their own style, so if you study on your opponents strong and weak points, you won't get caught off guard.

Study similar debates. Their are a lot of Evolution debates on YouTube and other websites.
Ignore the fact that the evolutionist always wins. Remember that your arguments are different to those used for the last century, because ID produces loads of new research.

Practice verbally. You'll gain confidence for your presentation and you won't be nervous.
Know the format of the debate. It could be back and forth arguing or a 2 minute presentation from both sides.

Quotemine Relentlessly. Quoting out of context is a great way of winning arguments.






Censor. Censorship is the strongest form of argument, if it's not going your way ignore the evolutionist or leave the debate entirely, faith unscathed.



[edit] TipsDon't badger your opponent. You might win the debate, but you might not win the audience. Remember, your trying to convince the audience.
When using a quote, say who the person is, their degree from school, and their position (evolutionist, creationist, etc.) However, do limit the quotes. 1 1=2 is correct regardless who said it and what degrees they have. 1 1=3 is wrong regardless who said it and what degrees they have. A child can say 1 1=2 and it would be correct. A PhD can say that 1 1=3 and it would still be wrong.
Don't quote the opposing side. In other words, quoting evolutionists who apparently say things against evolution. The vast majority of these quotes are truncated, taken out of context and incredibly mangled. For example: "There is no God." (Psalms 14:1). However, the entire passage reads "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

406. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274648 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 9:16 am

alabasterocean, they don't come from Great Britain either. The full name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is part of John Bull's other island.

407. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #274593 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 8:21 am

Al-Rawandi - the Laffer Curve is central to "supply side economics".

Still, its Vodoo Economics as well.

408. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #274568 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 7:46 am

"IPV4: It isn't as simple as you work out. There is, of course the idea that lowering taxes causes economic growth and in the end, more taxes are collected from a larger economy."

How much evidence does it take to show that supply side economics doesn't work? It's hot air.

How about the evidence of a melt down of your financial institutions and a vast Federal bail out at taxpayers' expense (i.e. increased taxes!).

Or, er, how about growth in GDP per head in the USA in the last eight years - 1% a year. Not much of an acheivement, is it?

The cost of a prosperous and successful economy in the developed world is high taxes. The alternative is Vodoo Economics, low investment, poor education, decrepit public infrastructure, poverty, mass unemployment, inflation and economic stagnation.

For those in here with a knowledge of economic history, that is exactly what happened in the UK between 1919 and 1939 - a 20 year recession.



Joe the Plumber should know all about this.

409. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #274551 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 7:30 am

DP - Good luck to Joe the Plumber if he buys out the business and earns himself US$250,000 a year.

Unfortunately, he may need a lot of taxpayers money to do so. If he finances the buyout with money from a bank, that money is likely to have either come from the taxpayer or underwritten by the taxpayer. He'll need some sort of insurance cover, prsumably from the state financed and controlled AIG or its likes.

And if he is a plumber, much of his business is likely to come from new build housing, financed by state-owned, underwritten and financed mortgage companies such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Moreover, a healthy house building market is likely to be dependent on a Kenynsian backed pump priming of aggregate demand - all financed with taxpayers money.

So how is a reduction in tax gonna help him? It's likely to put him out of business because he can neither finance his business without extra taxpapers' money (meaning higher taxes) or Federal demand management policies (also resulting in higher taxes).

Alternatively he could operate in an environment where there are no taxes, no government help and no federal interference or regulations. Somehow, though, I doubt he would make much of a go of his business in Liberia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

410. Why We Believe

Comment #274513 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 6:18 am

"Perhaps you don't believe that Semkiw is the reincarnation of John Adams."

Nah, I couldn't possibly believe that.

Napoleon Bonaparte, British Centre for Science Education.

411. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #274495 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 5:51 am

Wooter says "To Roger
If Roger does not have a low IQ, how dare he will try to write books every year to impose his delusions, since one book of his delusions is not enough. "

Now what the heck are you talking about, creep?

412. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #274491 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 5:49 am

Wooter tells us "The reason you do not understand is your level of IQ not the language. If you still do not understand what I wrote above, my gifted class students can help you out."

Well, Wooter, tell them to join this forum so we can, er, all learn to understand English fluently.

(I bet the creep doesn't.)

413. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274479 by Roger Stanyard on October 30, 2008 at 5:40 am

alabasterocean - you state that McGrath and Lennox are English.

That's a big mistake. Neither are English. They both come from Northern Ireland, a province renowned for religious extremism and bigotry.

They are, indeed, very "un-English" when it comes to religion.

Lennox is nothing more than a creationist, the ultimate in fundamentalist extremism. Northern Ireland is the centre of creationism in the British Isles.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education

414. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #273759 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 8:35 am

Frankus 112 says "Does he have to confront?
Will this confrontation work? Has it?"

Given who Richard has publicly debated science with, it doesn't take ANY imagination to suggest that he will end up publicly debating with his fellow Oxford mathematician, Lennox.

One also suspects that he will be under considerable pressure to debate with Lennox.

415. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #273742 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 8:08 am

Steve comments "Promoting maths does not raise the hackles of the religious in the way that promoting cosmology or biology can."

Up to a point. He's got Dembski and Lennox to handle.

416. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #273736 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 8:02 am

This is purely a personal opinion. I very much doubt if Richard's sucessor will be able to avoid taking on religious fundamentalism.

The fundamentalists are an extremely well organised and well funded movement dedicated to systematically mis-representing and lying about science to the public.

They are hell bent on underming Richard's sucessor. Ignoring them is playing straight into their hands.

Moreover, their movement is highly political (read the Republican War on Science).

My bet is that they are going to target Richard's succesor from day one of his appointment. They are not going to leave him alone.

They will use every scam in the book to do so, starting, no doubt, with his statement that he is an atheist.

The fundamentalists, as I keep saying, are ideologues and ideologues work on the principal that they can never be wrong - it is people who don't accept their view (crapola) who must be wrong.

Du Sautoy, in their book, is on the wrong side and wrong. He can't walk away or ignore that. They won't let him.

Finally, his new chair is now irrevocably associated in the fundamentalists mind with atheism. They will want to continue to attack it for that very reason.

417. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #273667 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 5:11 am

Scottishgeologist: He's an Intelligent Design advocate. I take the view that ID is just a front for creationism "designed" deliberaly to hide differences of opinion between creationists on the age of the earth - "Deception by Design" if youy like.

Lennox has written a book on the issue. It was published last year, IIRC, but I can't remeber the name. I've read it, though. I don't think the scientific world has taken it seriously.

418. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #273658 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 4:35 am

Titania, thanks for clearing that up. My apologies to Hellene.

419. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #273657 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 4:33 am

Question on Lennox's comment "Professor Lennox, who is conducting a second live debate with Professor Dawkins in Oxford this week, said it was world view, and not science, which divided the two."

What is the difference between a "worldview" and an ideology?

Let me list some ideologies - Lenninism, Maoism, Fascism, Nazism, following Pol Pot, Religious Funamentalism, Trotskyism, Falangism, extreme Nationalism, Jihadism....

They all have two things in common - they hate liberalism and have no truck with democracy.

Lennox is a religious fundamentalist. He is a member of the Plymouth Brethren and a creationist.

I haven't heard Richard's debates with him, but I suspect that the real debate underneath is between the liberal world (Richard) and the Ideological world (Lennox) with science being no more than the framework in which it is set.

420. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #273652 by Roger Stanyard on October 29, 2008 at 4:18 am

Hellene - I'm not in the business of bashing religion but I am very much in the business of showing that fundamentalism and its subsets of creationism and Intelligent Design are bogus.

The "encouragement" method doesn't work. I can only recall a couple of cases in the last 20 years or so where committed creationists have changed their mminds and accepted evolution theory. It is an utter waste of time and space trying to "change" them.

The real target is those that have little understanding of science (or religion) who may be taken in by the hocus pocus. That requires very firm, robust, arguments which antagonise fundamentalists by definition.

Moreover, the fundamentalists play very dirty. They lie habitually, repeatedly and out of necessity. You are not dealing with honest people. It's worse than that, though, because, at the end of teh day fundamentalism is a political movement - the fundamentalists want to impose their views on the rest of society through the political process. I'm afraid that politics is a hard business and we have to fight very hard as a consequence.

When the cretinists appear in this forum, call them what they are, lying bastards, rather than wasting your time explaining science. They are not here to learn or listen, they are here to preach crapola".

Methinks Steve Zara's position is absolutely right. The fundamentalists are a dangerous, politicised, backward looking menace. It needs to be spelled out to the rest of the world. You're dealing with kooks and crackpots, not reasonable people.

BTW: Anyone who has ever done any serious research on the creationists and fundamentalists in the USA will quickly find that the movement is just an "evolved" form of racism. They way they think about gays, for example, is exactly the way they thought about black people in the 1950s and 1960s. The rhetoric uses exactly the same grammar, just with "black" replaced by "gay".

The same I could say about their demonisation of "liberals".

If youy think that the way to treat the Nazis in Europe (or any other bunch of ideologues) was to try and encourage them to be reasonable, then you have exactly the same problem with the fundamentalists. It's utterly naive and unworkable.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education.

421. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #272427 by Roger Stanyard on October 27, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Ah Ha - another classic Wooterism : "Look pal, your man, dawkins started it. And while trying to mock the believers in his low IQ level, I would turn my head, move on. He is gonna be losing more argument battle against me and other believers since he cannot defend himself and ET against logic."

Um, suggesting that Richard Dawkins has a low IQ is the ultimate in cretinist idiocy.

Strange isn't it that a cretinist (in Wooter's case, fantasist as well) who can't string a sentance together thinks that he can "beat" someone who palpably and brilliantly can.

Do, do, IsThatClear, tell us all your track record in this matter apart from posting incoherent banalities in this forum. We are all ears.

(PS, he won't.)

422. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272398 by Roger Stanyard on October 27, 2008 at 10:53 am

Jabber says "of course, the ultimate villain for teh americans would be a black, oxford educated, homosexual scientist..."

Well, you can add liberal, with a posh English accent and who is an atheist to that list.

423. 'Probably' the best atheist bus campaign ever

Comment #270986 by Roger Stanyard on October 25, 2008 at 4:42 am

David Robertson "It used to be the case that the default position in polite British society was that there was either no God or that he made no difference (except to keep the masses in their proper place). It is a sign of how much things have changed that the oh so frightened atheists have to resort to this kind of advertising."

For heck's sake grow up. Many people are scared of the Abrahamic religions these days. The London and Madrid bombings and other attempted mass murders in the UK are very real reasons for fearing religion, just as the polticisation of the Evangelicals in the USA is, the crude ignorance of creationists trying to undermine science and education, the fundamentalist extremists of all trhee of the Abrahamic religions, the arrogance behind the attacks on the Danish cartoons, the fatwas against Salman Rushdie et al, the 9/11 bombings...

The list is endless.

424. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #270375 by Roger Stanyard on October 24, 2008 at 5:35 am

Curiosorange says "Perhaps someone someday will be able to create everything out of nothing - isn't that what the CERN project is all about'!!"

No.

425. Bill Heine interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #268581 by Roger Stanyard on October 22, 2008 at 2:14 am

Just to get some facts right about Nazism and Darwing:

1. Hitler never mentioned once in Mein Kampf evolution.

2. There is no evidence to suggest that he ever understood evolutionary theory.

3. He left school at 16 in 1906 with no qualifications whatseover.

4. It is unlikely that the school(s) he went to taught evolutionary theory. It was only just coming into mainstream science at the time, having been somewhat sidelined for years.

5. Hitler's "bent" was art not science.

426. All aboard the atheist bus campaign

Comment #268577 by Roger Stanyard on October 22, 2008 at 2:08 am

As PZ Myers has pointed out, where such advertisements on buses are most needed is in backward rural America. Unfortunately (except for bus manufacturers) there would be a lot of burned out buses as a result.

427. From Science Fiction to Science Fact

Comment #267038 by Roger Stanyard on October 20, 2008 at 6:15 am

Tagred - science education is available to all adults in the UK at a moderate cost. Try signing up for a few Open University short courses. They are very good, indeed, and a science background is not necessary (at least for many of them).

428. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #266982 by Roger Stanyard on October 20, 2008 at 3:54 am

Daabahh quotes Kevin Padian as "confesing" and supporting his creationist crapola. So you are lying yet again Yaba Daba Do! Kevn Padian is president of the National Center for Science Education, the biggest critic of creationist crapola in the world. Why are you so stupid that you think you can fool anyone, let alone the people in this forum?

(Shakes head at Yaba Daba Do's untter banality. You can't get more stupid than this.)

429. God is not the enemy of reason

Comment #266487 by Roger Stanyard on October 19, 2008 at 4:09 am

Some facts that people in here might find useful:

1. The Discovery Institute was initially part of the Hudson Institute.

2. Melanie Phillips seems to change her politics according to whoever is paying her. As one time she was a left wing jourbnalist on the Guardian.

3. The chief scientist has suggested that Phillips "campaign" against MMR has resulted in the deaths of between 50 and 100 children.

4. Phillips' response was to say that she was "only reporting". No apology has been made.

5. The family that ownes the Daily Mail supported Hitler and fascism for years in the 1930s.

6. Phillips is a Jewess.

7. The Daily Mail only changed its tune over fascism when Jewish busiensses started pulling the advertisements from the paper (the most notable was Joe Lyons).

8. Money seems to speak louder than integrity at the Daily Mail.

9. The foul mouthed editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, refuses to discuss in public the paper's or his, position on anything.


Not a pretty picture, is it?

430. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #266173 by Roger Stanyard on October 18, 2008 at 7:49 am

Shane,

The astonishing thing about Lennox's book IIRC was his quote mining - it was along the lines of Yabba Dabba Do or the infamous Laurie Appleton - taking a quote totally out of context to support Lennox's position. It was embarresingly bad.

At the end of the day, Lennox is a creationist (insofar as he is an IDers) and the people who he was quoting are largely not and do not support his position.

Moreover, at the end of the day the issue of creationism is not between religious believers and atheists. It's between religious extremists and the rest of the world. To suggest otherwise is a pack of lies.

431. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #266149 by Roger Stanyard on October 18, 2008 at 4:52 am

I've read Lennox's latest book (published last year) and found it full of holes (and I am neither a mathematician nor a scientist).

To put it blunty, I found Lennox to be a religious fundamentalist. It's not surprising - he is a member of a fundamentalist sect, the Plymouth Brethren, and comes from the British home of religious extremism, Northern Ireland.

432. Faith Attack

Comment #266146 by Roger Stanyard on October 18, 2008 at 4:39 am

Interesting to note Goldstein's background. He appears to be a Seventh Day Adventist - basically the same lot that gave the world Waco and David Koresh.

As we all know Koresh was into having sex with underage girls and making them pregnant. Golstein ought to think twice before lecturing to the rest of the world.

Oh, btw the SDAs officially are in favour of creationism, another major reason why so many are turned off by religion.

433. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #266132 by Roger Stanyard on October 18, 2008 at 2:31 am

Yaba Dabba Do - you've been caught lying! The rest of your comments prove the point that you are niether religious nor honest.

Thanks for the threats. It sums you up.

434. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265687 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 7:49 am

Vaal - the very same Jerry Coyne.

What I love about Yaba Daba Doo's presence here is that he is so unutterably stupid and incompetent that he is almost certainly unaware that he is a systematic liar and phoney.

He is creationism epitomised.

I've seen this game time and time again with fundies. They are simply unaware of the ninth commandment and have no idea when the breach it. It leaves the rest of us with a lot of fun and games to play with them.

435. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265682 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 7:43 am

re Derek Agar - I thought I had come across that name before. He was a ferevent "evolutionist" - evidence again that Yaba Daba Do (aka Daabbah) is a lying bastard.

436. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265677 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 7:37 am

Daabbah - how about occasionally using your tiny litte mind "Prof. Derek Ager, who is the former president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (and head of the department of geology and oceanography at University College of Swansea)"

He's dead as well. You mean "was" the former president of...

What Dabbah has got hold of is a fundie quote book. They are notoroius for mis-representation and just about anyone who uses them is too stupid either to understand what the person was actually saying of has any idea what the person's actual position is.

The most notoroius of the regurgitate nutters is the Australian chicken farmer Laurie Appleton. He's been repeateing himself for years on the net. Just google "stupidest creationist on the Internet" to get the point.

Methinks we have a really contended in Daabbah for the stupidest cretinist on the Internet.

437. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265673 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 7:29 am

Daabbah shows yet again he is a lying bastard "Jerry Coyne is of the Chicago University Evolution and Ecology Department:

We concludeâ€"unexpectedlyâ€"that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak..."

Except yesterday Jerry Coyne emailed me stating that he supports evolution and is a friend of Richard Dawkins.

Daabbah, you are a monumental pilloch, fraud and phoney.

438. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265671 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 7:24 am

Daabbah - yet again you show yourself to be a lying little bastard. Colin Patterson was not a creationist and fully supported the theory of evolution. He spent years fighting off people like you who misued quoted and misued what he had said. Moreover, he thought people like you are raging bonkers.

You're not even truthful enough to recognise that he is dead.

So why are you lying that Patterson supports your viewpoint?

439. The Joke's on Him: Bill Maher could use a lesson in civility from Michael Moore

Comment #265581 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 3:51 am

Shonny - thanks for correcting me. So does the rag have bums and tits on page 3?

440. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265579 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 3:46 am

Daabbah claims "Very funny logic. The important thing is that all the members of those religions believe that they are created by GOD."

Daabbah - why don't you stop bull shiting and lying your way through this forum? Most religious people accept the theory of evolution. Why are you lying by suggesting otherwise?

In the USA and Europe nearly all creationists belong to evangelical Calivinistic sects, not the main denominations sich as Lutherism, Anglicanism, Methodism or Catholicism (or even the Orthodox Church). The creationists are a minority amongst the religious.

I've long come to the conclusion that creationists are so stupid they don't even recognise who their own enemies or allies are.

I assume that Daabbah orginates in the Muslim world - the US Christian right wing fundamentalists and creationists basically hate Islam (see the current hustings and claims against Obama) yet Daabbah appears to think they are on his side.

Perhaps he might want to use his tiny little brain and look up just what many of the US creationists/fundamentalists actually think what is going to happen to the Middle East and what they are doing to ensure it does happen.

Dig around a bit on End Timers, Dispensationalists and the Rook of Revelation. It's a death cult and, according to its bizarre crapola, it's Muslims who they expect to see dead.

I can't see Daabbah, though, showing any personal integrity here. All he wants to do is preach and lie in the process to get his idiotic message over. That's par for the course with creationists because, to sustain their position, they have to lie out of ncessity, habitually and repeatedly.

So, do tell us all, Daabbah, how you reconcile you religious opinions with the fact that you are a systematic, devious little liar?

441. The Joke's on Him: Bill Maher could use a lesson in civility from Michael Moore

Comment #265571 by Roger Stanyard on October 17, 2008 at 2:53 am

Interesting isn't it that the author of the report works for the Weekly Standard - a neo-con propaganda rag. Isn't that the very same polital rag that was owned by that bastion of religiousity and morality, Conrad Black?

442. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265101 by Roger Stanyard on October 16, 2008 at 2:58 am

Re StevenB40 - just another patronising nutter preaching.

443. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #264647 by Roger Stanyard on October 15, 2008 at 2:38 am

DP claims "Only a couple of those have anything to actually do with the financial crisis and one of those is NINJA loans. The rest don't. You have to ask yourself why these banks gave risky people these loans. A bank would normally not give these people loans because they know there is a big possibility that they won't be paid back. So why did they? Well because fannie mae and freddie mac said "go ahead and do it and we will buy all those mortgages off you so you will be in the clear if they default"."

The reason why banks and mortgage companies lent so recklessly was that they thought the rest of the financial markets would underwrite the risks. For the most part Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were simply not players in the whole chirade. Their writ only extends to the USA and this is an international financial crisis. Moreover a huge amount of the "risk" of US debt has been underwritten outside of the USA.

The problem now is that unrestrained financial markets don't work. Without taxpayer bail outs, the system looks as if it would have utterly collapsed over the last two months. The financial markets are no longer seen as capable of running their own affairs and the consequences will run for at least the next one or two generations.

It's a fact of life now that huge swaths of the financial industries are being nationalised. There is no return to the "free markets solve everything" ideology. The trouble with the right wing in politics is that this has not even begun to sink in.

Moreover, the the case of the USA, it's hand are now being forced. It has no option because, at the end of the day, ithas been con suming 70% of the world's savings and squandering the whole lot on war, tax cuts and over-valued proprty rather than investing it in productive assets.

The lending nations now have the USA by the short and curlies and, sooner or later, want their money back. The only way the USA can deliver is big increases in taxation and big cut backs in public expenditure. Any US politician saying otherwise is lying.

444. Religion vs science: can the divide between God and rationality be reconciled?

Comment #263841 by Roger Stanyard on October 13, 2008 at 2:43 am

"Like many Christians, Angela Tilby is happy to let evolutionary theory run alongside her Christian beliefs. Does it really matter whether a Christian is a creationist or evolutionist? Very much so. All Christian doctrine has its foundations in Genesis. If we reject the Genesis account, we have only half a gospel and this is why the church is so weak. If Jesus Himself took the Genesis account as historical fact, then why doesn't His church? Because it has compromised and listened to the wisdom of fallible man rather than the Word of the infallible God. If the creation account in Genesis is no more than a campfire tale, then when does the Bible start telling the truth? How did original sin come in if it didn't come through Adam? Throw Genesis out and we'd just as well throw the whole Bible away. Without Genesis, the Christian faith makes no sense and without it Christians have a very weak witness. The whole debate has far-reaching implications for society since our moral values can be shaped according to whether we believe we are made in the image of God and are accountable to Him or whether we believe we are no more than a high form of pond scum. Evolution has no place in the Christian faith."

Well, some more thoughtful Christians would take this viewpoint very differently in that it is not Christian at all. It's sometimes called bibliolatry - to put it another way, proper Christians worship God - Bible believing creationists and fundamentalists worship a book (the Bible) instead.

Nevertheless, yet again BBC Thought for the Day, though, brings out the utter banality of some elements of religion.

445. How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence?

Comment #263625 by Roger Stanyard on October 12, 2008 at 3:46 am

Mark Ireland states "The earth is only a good place for us to live because life has grown into it, NOT the other way around."

Well, no. The evidence strongly shows that ife itself made the planet more suitable for life, such as the formation and levels of atmospheric oxygen. Life itself has an impact on the environment.

446. How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence?

Comment #263622 by Roger Stanyard on October 12, 2008 at 3:41 am

L-Young - hang on a minute, the condistions on earth some 3.5 billion years ago when life first merged were exceedingly hostile. Moreover, oxygen was far from necessary for the production of life. It appears that all the oxygen in the atmosphere has been prodced by life, not the other way round. Life preceeded oxygen.

Moreover, the environment remaind exceedingly hotsile for billions of years as life slowly "developed". It wasn't until well after the Cambrian (IIRC) that any life at all emerged on land.

The best I can say is that in the last 3.5 billion years of life on this planet, the first 3 billion years were execeedingly hostile. Moreover, the evidence of life today also suggests that life emerged in conditions that until recently we thought impossible to support life such as deep see volcanic vents - areas lacking oxygen, under immense pressure, without sunlight, without atmosphere and at high temperatures - all factor not seen on surface land today.

It seems to suggest that the goldilocks principle is flawed.

447. Surviving Waco

Comment #262807 by Roger Stanyard on October 9, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Thomas jefferson, a case of one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. From this side of the pond, he's viewed differently from in the USA.

No, I don't even think taking the law into one's one hands without violence is acceptable behaviour in a democracy.

I also have to point out that some of Koresh's pals at Waco were convicted to voluntary manslaughter. Under British law they would have been charged with murder.

I have no sympathy whatsover with Koresh, his pals of his apologists. Koresh was a child molester who got 12 and 13 year old children pregnant. His same reckless and totally immoral behaviour was the reason why so many died at Waco. He was the boss there and he was responsible for their safety.

448. Surviving Waco

Comment #262776 by Roger Stanyard on October 9, 2008 at 12:13 pm

The Oklahoma City Bombing was a direct result of Waco and the anti-government undemocratic "hate" manifested there.

The "government" may be inept at times but that does not warrent taking the law into one's one hands. Are you saying that the public should be taking the law into its own hands over the inepyitute of Wall Street or when other big businesses fail?

I hardly think the case of Ruby Ridge, just one event, way in the past, in a country of 300 million is either reason for "hating" the government or indicative of just how evil government is alleged to be.

Alas I also have to say, countries get the politicians they deserve.

449. Surviving Waco

Comment #262713 by Roger Stanyard on October 9, 2008 at 10:30 am

"I look at the US "Federal" Government the way many Britons seem to view the EU. Potentially useful but typically inept, corrupt, and overly bureaucratic."

A lot of Britons including myself do not view either the EC or the EU in that way.

450. Surviving Waco

Comment #262712 by Roger Stanyard on October 9, 2008 at 10:27 am

"Now, it's been a while since I've seen the documentary, but when the case was being reviewed, tons of the evidence simply "disappeared." The door that the ATF claimed the BD "fired through" disappeared, making ballistics tests impossible to determine who shot first."

As far as I am aware there have been several documentaries about Waco but two of them appear not only to have been based on conspiracy theories but have largely been dismissed as wrong. IIRC one of the two deals with the light reflection off the helicopter.

There have been numersous attempts to try and whitewash David Koresh and his associates as innocent, law abiding citizens. All of them, as far as I can make out, appear to have failed miserablly.

I vividly remeber Koresh and his pals using what I can only asssume to have been machine guns on the federal agents. They killed several of them. However one argues, that is not the way to resolve disputes with law enforecement agents in a democracy. The method is to use the courts/legal system and, in the longer term, lobbying to get legislation changed.

In a democracy, if you don't agree with the law, taking it into your own hands is utterly undemocratic, no matter how bad the law is. I rest my case here with naming Timothy McVeigh and the numeorus private "militias" that blossomed in the USA in the 1st half of the 1990s.