aldous

 People seldom, probably never, reach absolute perfection in a second language. eejit #42

It’s normal to have different levels of proficiency in the spoken and the written language, as we all know from […]

how do you think about things you don’t know, when you don’t even know that you don’t know them?! 38

You may not know what’s round the corner but you’ll find out when you get there. 

I taught English in Australia for thirty years, in a Technical college where there were many Chinese guest students.  I never had one whose English was remotely up to your standard, and I might say very few […]

# 34 weichenfeng
Could you help me out by explaining a few points? 
It’s remarkable that a ‘programmer’ has what seems to be a PhD level knowledge of chemistry. If you were able to just pick it up on your own, d […]

Hello Wei Chen Feng.
Your post #30 reads like a scientific paper. Not being any kind of scientist, I’m not able to give it a peer review. I can vaguely follow the outlines of the argument, but the all-important […]

Alan Appleby says The claim that “God is not a phenomenon that the Natural Sciences can deal with.” is just the theist attempt at “get out from scrutiny” or ” Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA)” which pretends th […]

Chandran says: Exactly my point Aldous. God is not a phenomenon that the Natural Sciences can deal with.

Religion can be approached from scientific points of view. Psychology, anthropology, sociology any at […]

Being asked to prove that God doesn’t exist makes the assumption that He is a character whose existence is debatable. This is not an approach we would take to characters in fiction. Mythology is a form of fiction […]

reply to eejit 
I came across a tribute toilet to Thomas Crapper on the eurostar  to Brussels. I have a photo but it would take some digging out. Here’s a picture from somebody else.

Vicki says:
As an American, I find the topic of independence novel. We’re such a young nation, relatively

That should be “such an old nation, relatively. The countries of the Americas gained their ind […]

your insistence that you know better than we do what the SNP and the independence movement are really about is … rather odd, to say the least. May 13, 2021 at 6:36 am Marco 
My argument is primarily about lang […]

Let’s not get bogged down in what political parties call themselves. They don’t necessarily correspond to what they actually are. Nevertheless, the Scottish National Party is what it says it is, surely?  As a […]

I’d just point out that “nationalism” is a loaded term. While “ethnic nationalism” and “civic nationalism” are very different animals, “nationalism” used standalone tends to be automatically understood in its […]

There has been fundamental change to the British constitution. There’s no document called the British Constitution but it exists in the laws and traditions that define the role of the state. As a result of Brexit, […]