Comment 7 by TobySaunders :

He said niceness is a kind of misfiring, but it's the kind we shouldn't care about in a practical sense because it is only a misfire in the sense that it would not have benefited the transmission of our ancestors' genes in some ancient context. We shouldn't care though that it might not have helped a cave-person have sex & raise a person... we should care about it in our context, and so niceness is a kind of non-misfiring even more so because it's good in the broadest sense.

It's that part of the Blind Watchmaker's design that could almost be said to give an atheist a deeply spiritual sense of wonder - A blessing of providence worthy of thanksgiving!

I saw Kenan’s free speech debate vs Tariq Modood in Bristol a few years ago (shortly before the newsnight appearance – 20 years after Satanic Verses) Based in Bristol, I now go to all Modood’s multiculturalism talks, to make sure fallacies and special-pleadings get corrected – as a sort of one-man ‘Modood-watch’ !

On Modood, I’m sure that his heart is ‘in the right place’, and I actually like the guy, but I think what he is, is the living embodiment of a ‘tone-troll’ with a Sociology degree.

Premiseless, comment #5,

Have you read 'The God delusion'? I think if you had there would be less tendency to anthropomorphise religion - you do seem to steer the right course when you say "in the same way that natural selection does this by chance (chaotically)", but then in the next paragraph you slip back into talking of this 'devised machinery for industrialization of minds' guff. 'The God delusion' is a book about memetics essentially, where it addresses origins.

Your attempt to draw a comparison with Laissez Faire de-regulated capitalism, (or the deluded 'mind of the market' type beliefs of Adam Smith religionists), whilst containing grains of truth is an enormous over-reach.

^ Petition signed

I fear the 1990 Cairo declaration (effectively an abnegation, or renunciation, of the UDHR) spells out decades of misery for all the countries that signed it.

RD:

What I don't understand is their motive.

I concur with danconquer, in his second paragraph.

That is what I thought as soon as I heard the story, when trying to empath myself into the shoes of an Indian police chief. The nightmare would be a Mumbai-scale attack on the whole event.

Also from remembering that Satanic verses' 'blasphemy' was first publicised by an Indian-based 'Janata' party (presumably nothing to do with the BJP) I imagine that Indian authorities might be extremely paranoid that Salman might be killed on their watch, having incalculable repercussions.

No room for 'cultural' muslims then, in your view S Cat? The likes of Yasmin A-B must remain identified as a '10%er giving succour to the 100%ers' forever (even though we know different, going by her record)

^Layla, events certainly are moving at a fast pace!... but this thread was the one about the events at UCL, and not Queen Mary's.

The UCL business certainly didn't start out with death threats, it was the fault of the Student Union by trying to get UCLASHS to 'show sensitivity' and self-sensor, when it should have told the islamist bleater to get a life instead of searching UCLASHS facebook looking for something to incite his inner rage-boy.

I agree absolutely with your post in the context it applies to - the Queen Mary's events. I am pissed off with that thread though - which has predictably brought out the usual suspects envisaging the imminent Islamification of the UK, and the need to respond with all sorts of 'up with this we will not put' brinkmanship tactics.

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Comment 418 by strangebrew :

Seems that not many Muslim contributors to this forum have felt moved to offer opinion on a bunch of Islamic thugs...what a disappointment!

Well there aren't an awful lot of muslim contributers to this forum anyway.

It's a bit like the lack of non-muslim contributers to this forum who haven't felt moved enough to say they are sick of hearing rants from scary-sounding Geert Wilders impersonators come to tell us how close we are to the green flag flying over downing street.

Comment 3 by Daryl :

What is it about religions in general that so despise women?

Um... They're Man-made? (Not so much 'despising' as wishing to have control)

I first came across an explanation concerning the 'grandmother neurone' delusion in one of Pinker's books - probably 'How the mind works'.

‘the teaching, as an evidence-based view or theory, of any view or theory that is contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.’

The government's second use of the word theory illustrates quite well the dual incompatible uses of the term - it ought to have at least been put in scare quotes the second time:

‘the teaching, as an evidence-based view or theory, of any view or 'theory' that is contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.’

Or perhaps:

‘the teaching, as evidence-based views or theories, of any hypotheses that are contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.’

Enjoyed Omid Djalili's film 'The Infidel' last night on BBC1

Anyone else got an answer for the query posed by UncleJJ2 (comment 32)?, 'cos I was puzzled by that too. Did he perhaps mean to say Neutrinos rather than Neutrons?, meaning that the volume occupied by a body at any instant would be mostly - in numerical terms - Neutrinos in transit?

The only other answer I can figure is that the sheer number of atoms involded means that the tiny extra mass a Neutron has over a Proton & Electron (& notwithstanding the 2 less Neutrons for Protium in the water molecules) still gives Neutrons the majority?

We are all 'racists', simply because we've all still got lizard-brain doing its stuff, what matters is what operations we perform on lizard data with the front bits. It can be embarrassing when it shows, or it has to shorthanded down to 140 characters for twitter!

Students have a right to question the gravitationist pseudoscience peddled to them.

Students certainly should question Einsteinism in their schools and encourage others to do it too —especially if you are a student who is being force-fed gravitationary dogma.

Buy our mugs and buy our t-shirts to wear when you're 'floating about' with friends at university!

Comment 36 by Jos Gibbons :

gr8hands - long story short...

Yaay!!

Comment 22 by Jos Gibbons :

I feel a need to

write another bloody point by point tl:dr

you're wearing out my scroll-wheel.

This has been one of the most enjoyable threads to read through in a long while, and I'd like to join those requesting from the mods that the idea could be taken up somehow.

I'd especially like to congratulate Jos Gibbons for being entirely unembarrassed about admitting his ignorance of something that sounds like basic 101 stuff (sizes of solar system's satellites) - I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't have used the coward's option of

[erm].. Yes, that's right - I did mean to say Earth's Moon.

Comment 22 by Tanweer :

I'm a Metalhead of the old school. Forget Megadeth, I'm for Priest and Maiden! But in the final analysis, I can do no more than to say, other bands play, MANOWAR KILL!!! :-)

Where've you been Tanweer?

C'mon, Iron Maiden are crap, they're like.. the status quo of metal.

AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Soundgarden, Pantera, even Queen when they play heavy - Death on two legs, Stone cold crazy.

Mastodon are worth a listen for new stuff, progressive death metal.

I fully expect to see the emergence of "correction facilities" where Labour activists who insist on adhering to their irresponsible Christian faith can be processed.

That sounds wacky - but then again I can envisage the same in America after two terms of President Perry - "correction facilitities" where teaparty activists who insist on adhering to their irresponsible Darwinistic ethics can be processed.

Comment 1 by QuestioningKat :

I've been deceived. I just read a long advertisement for a book and biography of this fellow when I really wanted to partake in a discussion about deception. Unfortunately, the Times must have mostly male readers considering the author geared his article to men interested in lap dancers and what women are looking for --- tall, dark, and less hair. The author seemed to be more enamored of Triver's extreme life and making male readers interested in his book. I should have stopped at the first sentence. Boo Appleyard. Boo this site for posting this.

You must have real trouble living in such a phallocentric world QK. It was obvious pretty quickly it was a book review, and I really appreciate that Appleyard gave us an insight into Trivers' life, the Bi-Polar (manic depression) explains a lot. It's something I share, but only discovered at age 40, I can't imagine how painful it must be to go through at age 21. (something like 20% kill themselves within a year, another 40% off themselves within a few years)

I wish I lived in London so I could attend his coming talk at the LSE

Genius often comes with flaws.

They want their seismologists' default response to always be that an earthquake is imminent?

They might as well get rid of the scientists and consult a local shaman or priest .

David Baddiel supports Chelsea?

I used to think he was funny.

Comment 5 by BaltimoreOriole : Looking forward to Richard's next book, "The God Dilution"...

Perhaps that'd be a good title for Karen Armstrong's next book on Apophatic Theologetics

The difference is that sexual orientation is determined entirely by biology

Bollocks !

It's a Breeder-Bi-Gay spectrum, and you can shift along it over time, just like like having a closed or open mind.

^ can you say what you are trying to say in a way that we can understand it ?

I reckon he's talking Vitalism/Dualism, basically... Ensoulment?

Downunder, you are not quite getting it - Life is an unbroken chain that has now been running for at least 3.5 billion years.

A Paul Krugman Op-ed from a few days ago:

republicans-against-science