philosoraptor42

that_atheist's most recent post gives yet another example of apologetic methods used on religious or non-religious internet forums. In this case it's the old "I'm sure you'd agree" method of asserting truisms in order to sound reasonable and like a moderating voice of reason.

Actually I've no idea where

that_atheist discovered this apologetics trope. I'm just guessing religious or non-religious forums because that's where I used to see that sort of thing. There were a few forums I used to visit, but I've just not really seen the point for quite a while now. I've been back to freeratio a number of times, but my hearts just not in it anymore, but it's also been a long time since I went to the faithspace forums. I decided to see what they are like these days. Well, on the one hand membership of the forum is lower than ever before, but on the other hand the regulars haven't changed a bit.

Now I could give vague charicatures of the various figures on that forum, but what I found particularly entertaining was watching a debate between Martin, who lacks (... um... what's the internet equivalent of oratory skills?) clarity sometimes, and Jan, who is a Christian spiritualist and believes in all sorts of new age woo. Martin was getting frustrated in just the way I always used to be.

Here are some highlights from one thread...

Martin:
There is no evidence that has satisfied proper experimental scrutiny, of the existence of such a thing as a soul. Just as there is none for the existence of minotaurs or zombies.

Jan:
Is there any point in me actually answering you on that?

The Electronic Voice Phenomenon (Spirit Voices on Tape), Instrumental Transcommunication (two-way communication with those who crossed over), the SCOLE Experiments, Out of Body Experiences, Near Death Experiences, Empirical Materialisation, Trans and Mental Mediumship; Poltergeists, Xenoglossy and Reincarnation, the Cross-Correspondences, Proxy Sittings. In relation to the issue of materialization, this lawyer also discusses Prof Albert Einstein's E=mc2.

( Read more... )

I would presume that most people are familiar with Ben Goldacre by now, but just in case, here's a quick summary. He's a former doctor, now an epidemiologist. His main field of interest is the way to confirm what studies on health and medicine actually tell us. He's been a big critic of mainstream health and science journalism because such columns not only regularly misleads readers, but quite often brazenly lie to them.

His blog is here.

He's got a book (which I thoroughly recommend).

And here's a nice little article responding to a supporter of homeopathy, just to get you started.
(You'll notice that while the article in the third link starts with a "correction", it's more like a clarification by the journalist it is contesting - since she was writing in the same newspaper.)

Anyway, there's a rather neat video where he zooms through all his research in his normal jolly amusing fashion and, even if you've heard it all before, it's quite cool to hear him say it out loud like this.

However, one "blink and you'll miss it" point that he mentions (something he's said elsewhere before) is that one of earliest known "controlled tests" is actually -no kidding- in the Bible. Goldacre very quickly says "Daniel 1:12". Here's a slightly larger section from that chapter in the Bible:

"Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days."

The king insisted that the soldiers be given royal food because he thought it would mean the soldiers were better fed and would be more able soldiers as a result. Daniel, however, reckoned they'd be fitter with simple vegetables and water. Daniel insists that they do a test for 10 days with half the servants (presumably a pretty large number of people) being given just vegetables and water during that time and the other half carrying on with the royal food they were used to. (Daniel turns out to be right.)

Of course, we're not talking about the same systematic and consistent testing that we find in the huge body of modern science, but it's certainly following the same basic principles that good empirical testing requires today. I thought that was quite interesting.

Anyway, the full video is embedded below (with a link underneath in case the video doesn't appear):

(video link)

x-posted to atheism

Maybe Kirk Cameron can explain these bird deaths!

This week saw two massive bird die offs, first 5,000 in Arkansas, then 500 in Louisiana. Scientists don’t have an explanation yet, and that’s rough on CNN, because 24 hours of news programming is a lot to fill with, “Damn, homes. That’s messed up.” What to do? I know! We’ll call Fireproof star Kirk Cameron! He’s bound to have some crazy sh*t to say! At least, that seemed to be the idea behind having Cameron on Anderson Cooper (either that or they both go to the same bath house). Only when Anderson asked him whether the bird deaths were a sign of the apocalypse, Cameron flipped the script, and actually sounded pretty sane.

Kirk Cameron is not your monkey, Anderson Cooper, he doesn’t even believe in evolution.

[are the birds the end times, Kirk Cameron?]

“Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious conspiracy theorist go-to guy particularly. But I think it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some kind of an end-times theory.”

“That has more to do with pagan mythology [and not the apocalypse] — the directions the birds flew told some of the followers of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displeased with them. I think people just have a fascination with the religiously mysterious.” [via Moviefone]
“Look, Anderson, if you’re looking for someone to spout off some crackpot religious theory, you’ve got the wrong guy. I don’t go in for a lot of that hocus pocus. I’m just a hard-working fella who puts his pants on one leg at a time and believes the grooves on a banana are a code from God that disproves evolution, you know? I leave these conspiracy theories to somebody else.”

(Taken straight from the immature and sporadically hilarious movie news website "Filmdrunk")

x-posted to atheism

Last time I wrote about this, Conor Cunningham was just releasing his documentary "Did Darwin Kill God?" I responded to Conor Cunningham's interviews on the subject, having not yet got around to watching the documentary itself. I have since seen the documentary and can say pretty confidently that the book is, in all likelihood, a load of pointless waffle.

Last time I checked out Conor Cunningham's arguments he was claiming that eugenics is the social consequence of Darwinism (because clearly the whole principle of killing off the weaker members of society would never have been considered prior to Darwin's theory of evolution).

The main reasons I didn't comment on the tv documentary were firstly because it was so awful that I didn't think it was worth critiqueing and secondly because comments I found on various blogs were much more apt than I felt I could be. In the end, what would have been the point in adding another commentary about an old documentary that no one was likely to take an interest? However, now that this documentary has won an award and a new book is coming out, I feel it is necessary to express precisely why I think Cunningham's argument is load of old tripe.

Genesis and Early Christianity
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Ussher and the KJV

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Fossils In The Nineteenth Century
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Darwin's Atheism
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The Scopes Trial

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Modern Creationism

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"Ultra-Darwinism"

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I don't really think there's much point in reading Cunningham's book, but I've got a horrible feeling I'm going to be hearing a lot about it in the future. *groan*

Quick irrelevant side-note:
In my research for this I was interested discover the following note from Mrs. Darwin (annotating Charles Darwin's autobiography):

Nothing can be said too severe upon the doctrine of everlasting punishment for disbelief—but very few now wd. call that 'Christianity,' (tho' the words are there.)

~If there is a problem with the information I've found in wikipedia links please correct me (and them too preferably).~

Yes, your bogus medical claims don't get to go unquestioned even if they are religious in nature. Ugh!

(Via BHA) That organisation rocks so much!

( Read more... )

Ah, so that's what he sounds like....

Current Mood: awake

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Entries tagged with bad science

In Memory Of Christian Forum Discussions...

Ben Goldacre Explains Bad Science

Kirk Cameron Says He's Not Into Religious Conspiracy Theories, Much To The Surprise Of News Network

Pointless Waffle: Conor Cunningham Has A New Book

Bogus medical claims duly refuted...

My Hero (Ben Goldacre talks about Bad Science)

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