Nutt's sacked...

Science and Government, are they compatible?

The overwhelming answer from the media last week was no they are not. This story interests me because it so closely mirrors the friction between religion and science in that we have "reality" pitted against vested interest. Alan Johnson is no more willing to look "soft on drugs" than the Pope is willing to look "soft on contraception" it's not reality or evidence that is the issue it's "face".  This dispute goes to the core of the difference between the reality based constituents and the wish thinkers, the scientific method is designed to deliver the truth (or at least the closest we can get), a description of reality that conforms to the data we see, it can help inform our decisions but more often than not shows that our intuition is wrong, however it does not provide a moral framework nor can be relied upon to provide the answers that we wish for, if you want to know which policy  best supports your majority, don't ask a scientist!

We have a slightly flippant but never the less accurate truism in the software business, we say something like "if you don't know how to handle a condition, don't test for it"; Alan Johnson is clearly not a stupid man, he must appreciate the distinction between reality and desire, he has declared himself to be an Atheist so I can't pin the old faith based logic shuffle on him, so I am left wondering, why ask a question when you already know the answer?

Camels through the eyes of needles

I love the attitude that this video portrays, perhaps I'm being naive but the desire to collaborate and learn seems to radiate from the scientists in this little clip, and the subject is pretty cool too. They are trying to invent a molecular device that is able to sequence human DNA in a couple of hours. Currently this is an expensive process (the first human genome sequenced cost $3Bn and took many years to do!), these guys want to get the cost down to a 1000 bucks per sequencing.



The scales at which they are working are just mind boggling, never mind passing a camel through the eye of a needle this device will need to control a single thread of DNA passing through a hole which is measured on the nanometre scale, that's 1 billionth of a metre, to put this into perspective an HIV virus is about 400nm long, even smaller than MP's pay rises this year!

I picked a bad week to give up crackpot religions

Scientology got a good "kicking" this week, first there was the announcement that the French authorities consider it to be a fraudulent organisation (no s**t Sherlock!) as they handed out a 600,000 euro fine and a 2 year suspended sentence to its leader. France have a pretty rational approach to organisations like this, they refuse to acknowledge that Scientology is a religion at all, preferring to call it a commercial "sect", which of course is exactly what it is.

Following up on the heals of this blow Scientology in the USA received a slap down from one of it's high profile Hollywood members who left because of accusations of homophobia and persecution. Oscar winning director Paul Haggis published a detailed statement outlining his reasons for quitting the cult, which included "gay bashing" and the harassment of his wife who was instructed to "disconnect" from her own parents because they offended the cult 25 years ago.

Mainstream religion has some pretty odd medieval beliefs, the previous story about the homophobic granny is an example of that but Scientology takes the biscuit, combining wacky beliefs with a foundation in pseudo-science, it's even got aliens.

Some people clearly have more money than sense.

Granny bashing?

Pauline Howe (67) looks like any other granny and if she's anything like the grannies in my family I'm sure she spoils her grandchildren rotten and probably detests a "fuss"; unfortunately for this granny her mind has been infected with a meme that causes her to believe hateful nonsense which has no basis in reality, this brain infection is called "Christianity".

Like many of her ilk Pauline has a big problem with Homosexuality, recently, in objecting to a gay pride event in Norwich, she referred to gays as “sodomites” and blamed their “perverted sexual practice” for sexually transmitting diseases as well as the “downfall of every Empire”. Rather than keeping these medieval views to herself Pauline chose to express them in a letter to her council, the council decided to treat them as hate speech and duly sent the rozzers round. In a statement Ms Howe said,

"I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before so I was stunned to have two police officers knocking at my door. Their presence in my home made me feel threatened. It was a very unpleasant experience."

On reflection I'm quite glad that this old lady had an unpleasant experience, perhaps she will be better able in future to appreciate the unecessary offence that her own mumbo-jumbo words cause innocent gay people. However, this case illustrates perfectly why censorial legislation such as blanket "hate speech" laws are inherently stupid and unenforceable. Ms Howe is perfectly entitled to her warped views, she is wrong and stupid but those things are not a crime. Now if she was standing on the pavement as this gay pride march was passing throwing bottles and shouting this nonsense then sure, throw her in the cells for a night but otherwise my own preference is simply to expose her and this way of thinking, mock her and criticise her in ways that are proportional to the humiliation she inflicts onto the targets of her verbal abuse, raise awareness that such superstitious medieval crap is alive and well and residing in the brains of Abrahamic religions followers the world over (not just grannies).

This case has stimulated a predictable response from several Christian groups, who, showing their usual penchant for irony are claiming victimisation and persecution. Here is a statement from the Christian Institute,

"Whether people agree or disagree with Mrs Howe’s views, everyone who cares about freedom should be alarmed at the police action. For democracy to survive people must be free to express their beliefs – yes, even unpopular beliefs – to government bodies without fear of a knock at the door from the police. It’s not a crime to be a Christian, but it increasingly feels like it."

Funny how that "freedom of speech" thing works in some Christian minds isn't it.

Wacky Muslims

In the interests of balance I thought I would post a couple of stories prompted by Muslims recently that have tickled my humour bone, the first one concerns the "miraculous" writing that appears on the body of a young baby in Southern Russia, a truly appalling  hoax obviously. I would really love it if a sane Arabic scholar somewhere would take a look at this and find a spelling mistake or something, these people clearly need locking up.

Next up some wacky Muslims closer to home, the "Islam for the UK" group whose WEB site you can see here have just discovered Adobe Photoshop. This hateful little organisation long for Islamic domination of the UK (and presumably the world), their WEB site is full of puerile commentary about the day when the British become subservient to their Islamic overlords. Here is a little sample of it, just so you can get the picture into focus (yes they really are that brainwashed) the following manipulated photograph and caption discuss what Buckingham palace would look like under Islamic rule.

“with the dawn of a new era very close, Britain’s future under the Shariah appears to be very bright” we invite Muslims to suggest other changes they would like to see when the UK falls under Islamic rule.

Lizzy would have a nightmare matching curtains with that lot!

Mark Knopfler - Get Lucky

I just got around to listening to a CD that I got for my birthday this year; it's called "Get Lucky" by Mark Knopfler; Knopfler of course is famous for his involvement with Dire Straights in the 80s which disbanded in 1995; he is renowned for his "finger" style of guitar playing and was voted #27 in rolling stones list of 100 all time best guitar players. I can confirm he still knows how to pick a decent tune out of his Fender although this album isn't anything like Dire Straights, think more Celtic folk, pipes and flutes etc. with a couple of soft acoustic ballads  its good but quite soporific (not one for work).

Scientists click here for a free belly laugh..

Take a look at this, it's a classic example of someone who is using scientific "language" in order to gain credibility with an audience, she is either a fraudster or deluded. Being charitable and assuming the latter, I find it incredible that she thinks the mash-ups she invents in her head constitute knowledge that is worth communicating, she even calls herself "doctor". I can only fantasise about what she studied to come up with this crud. Anyone who finds this convincing is probably one of those people who voted for creationism to be taught in science lessons.



If, like me, you now feel dirty having watched this nonsense and need a refreshing antidote, here is a real scientist, Lawrence Krauss explaining how something can come from nothing (a popular religious objection to the big bang theory), the cutting edge of physics and cosmology is so much more interesting than the made up homoeopathic crap. Compare and contrast, notice how the homoeopath rigorously avoids any mention of the concept of "testing"; perhaps someone should suggest smashing homoeopaths together in the LHC, see if we can find the particle responsible for all that bull-shit.

Which religion should I choose?

Dawkins defending the Church of England... huh?

Richard Dawkins, or has he's more affectionately known "Darwin's rottweiler" has written a surprising article in the Washington Post today. In it he attacks the Roman Catholic Church (not unusual) but in an unusual twist defends the decency of the Anglican Church regarding the recent attempts to coax disaffected Anglican clergy into the "fold" of the Bishop of Rome. As an outsider to religion, Dawkins can perhaps go further than any Anglican clergy would like to go in his condemnation of the Catholics and frankly it's refreshing to see such a story get into the mainstream press; here is a small quote from the article which illustrates what I mean.

"For some, the motive will be homophobic bigotry, and a consequent dislike of the efforts of decent church leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury to accept those whose sexual orientation happens to deviate from majority taste. Never mind that they will be joining an institution where buggering altar boys pervades the culture."

Unfortunately this morally corrupt and insidious organisation seems to be immune from condemnation, I guess they have had many centuries of practice at it. As Dawkins concludes, if there are Anglican clergy who are happy to defend the indefensible then it seems like a win-win to an Atheist like me.

War, huh, what is it good for?

We took advantage of a lovely Autumn day here in London yesterday and took our children up to town to visit the Imperial War museum (I hadn't been since I was a schoolboy and my kids had never been).

It turned out to be a really good day; there is a particularly child friendly exhibit on there at the moment which illustrates the second world war through the eyes of children. It details the mass evacuation of children to the country, how children lived and has exquisite little exhibits of drawings and letters authored by children themselves. I'd never seen my two so enthralled by any public presentations like this before, they clearly connected with the things on display it was delightful. My Daughter loved the example "toys" of the day, in fact didn't even seem to realise the separation in time between her toys today and the WWII samples. My son was fascinated by the drawings of spitfires and tanks in the school books of young 1940s boys, he was particularly struck by the stories written along side them too, it was difficult to drag him away. On the way home I wondered what they thought the most memorable thing they had seen was; I was expecting spitfires, V2 rockets, tanks, or something perhaps visually memorable however I was in for a surprise, it turned out to be none of these things. They both said, almost in unison, that the thing they found most memorable was the photograph of "the little girl crying", for a while we didn't click what they were talking about but eventually we figured it out; they were referring to the famous Pulitzer prize photo taken by Nick Ut of a burnt Vietnamese girl running down a road after a napalm attack surrounded by American soldiers (see below)

This was slightly odd since the vast majority of the museum is focused on WWI & WWII and Vietnam has a tiny single case display and this picture is only a tiny part of that. However they had obviously both noticed it and taken it in. I'm not really sure what to make of that, on the one hand it's a complex scene requiring a lot of background knowledge to really understand, and yet on the other it's an incredibly simple human picture. Since neither of them know anything about the background to this conflict or incident it must have been the pure "human solidarity" element of the photograph that they both picked up on; after a somewhat sombre afternoon I found that thought quite uplifting.

I don't like Mondays

What a depressing story to find in my in-box on Monday morning; apparently according to a number of sources including the BBC a recent poll in several countries has shown that 54% of people in this country (UK) reckon it would be a good idea to teach so called "alternatives" to the theory of evolution by natural selection in science classes such as creationism and intelligent design. What I find most baffling about this is what do these people think is actually going to be "taught". I have this vision of a freshman turning up to medical school on the first day of a new year and proclaiming, "oh yeah I opted to take Genesisology rather than Biology so if you could just show me where you keep the talking snakes then I'll crack on with some dust transmogrification and rib extraction research".

I do hope they take the stork theory of reproduction and the cheese theory of the moon into account when these deluded "ignoranti" fantasise about their children's science syllabuses. This result has been universally criticised by our leading Biology scientists, Steve Jones, professor of genetics at UCL and leading evolutionary science author summed it up for me when he said:

"This shows the danger of religions being allowed to buy schools, hijack lessons and pretend that they have anything useful to say about science – which, by definition, they do not. The figure seems much too high, although no doubt there is a substantial minority that does think this."

No one is saying that these creation myths shouldn't be taught in school, but they should be taught under the banner of RE or philosophy they are not and never will be scientific nor are they in any sense "alternatives" to evidence based learning, something us "boffin's" like to refer to as "REALITY!"

Religion, destroying the enlightenment day by day.

Religious exemption?

I came across this appalling story today about a Vancouver man who decided that he would take up amateur circumcision because of his religious beliefs. Unfortunately for his four year old son that meant a complete bloody botch job of pain, suffering and infection, and a criminal charge for negligence for his troubles.

I have always been completely baffled why this primitive act of mutilation is so popular with the Abrahamic religions.We are constantly being told by apologists of these flavours that life should be protected from the moment of conception, that we are made in God's image and that the birth of a child is a miracle from God to be cherished and celebrated. At what point did someone look at a beautiful newborn baby and think, I know how we can improve on this, let's hack away at junior's genitals because that's clearly what the creator of the universe would want us to do..

In this particular case it seems that "religion" has gotten this criminal off the hook once again, if he had chopped a finger off he would be looking at criminal assault or assault with a deadly weapon, i.e. a much more serious offence; "negligence" doesn't seem to cover it in my view, unless of course you are talking about him forgetting to engage his brain.

Utterly baffling...

Death from above

My son will feel vindicated and probably somewhat smug when he watches this BBC wildlife video, He was arguing in the car on the way to school the other day that a big bird of prey could easily pick up and carry off his little sister (as all eight year old brothers secretly wish); anyway I rejected his argument and assured them both that was not possible, as even an eagle wouldn't be big enough to do that. Lo and behold we have video evidence here of a Golden Eagle hunting and killing a young reindeer, easily as big and heavy as him and his sister put together!

Apparently the technique is to swoop low and jab the little critter in the lungs with its talons, the poor Bambi then slowly suffocates to death and can be devoured later by the raptor. I wonder if this kind of hunting behaviour led our taxonomic (mammal) cousins back in the mists of time to ingrain fear and reverence for magical creatures handing out judgement from the sky?

We are not alone...

I hadn't come across this organisation before today, the "United Coalition of Reason" seem to be a fairly new bunch of people committed to raising the profile of atheist and free thinking in the USA. So far this has mainly consisted of placing billboard and bus/transport ads around major cities, but I like the tone so far. Here is an example of one of their ads,

Hopefully they can raise awareness that a state of godlessness is a noble one and perfectly natural, in fact the one we're all born into before we are told what to believe. Indeed there are plenty of people out there who live perfectly fulfilled lives in that state, and it can even be fun to meet up with fellow heathens and eat a few babies now and again. :)

Manly Sports

Back in September a good friend of mine celebrated his 40th birthday; as a treat a group of us went clay pigeon shooting, it was an all day affair simulating a proper game shoot (without the actual killing of anything). The weather was brilliant, although when this picture was taken it was late on in the day and the clouds were rolling in, the Berkshire country-side around Newbury was magnificent and a perfect setting for the sport. In the end we shot over 400 cartridges each and boy were my arms and shoulders tired afterwards, anyway, I was sent some photographs of the event today so I thought I would remind myself of a nice late summer day as I look out at the gloom and drizzle of an Autumn day.

PS I'm the one shooting the gun in this picture.

Mouth wateringly good...

Oh how I wish I could have been at this debate, hopefully there will be a video stream of it at some point. Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry against Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop Onaiyekan, the motion was "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world".

The numbers paint a picture of a complete rout; before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. After the debate: For: 268. Against: 1,876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774.

This debate was run by an organisation called Intelligence Squared, I have tickets to see Richard Dawkins debate against the ex-Bishop of Oxford at the end of November which is run by the same people, I'm looking forward to it even more now.

Do you feel "divided" ?

Apparently there is a bitter rift dividing Atheists according to Barbara Hagerty author of a recent NPR article. Ms Hagerty, she concludes that "new atheists" are fighting with (presumably) "old atheists" about whether or not to be nice to theists, she even goes so far as to suggest (in classic religious language) its a "schism".

She's right in a way, there is a debate going on about this but I think it's less of a schism and more of an awakening. A realisation, in the light of the "Bush" era and the rise of a politically motivated Christian-right in the USA, that in order to get anything done you need a lobby. Atheists seem to be acquiring a more prominent voice and an assertiveness through literature, music, art, comedy and more generally in society, which religious people are simply not accustomed to. The other important dynamic seems to be the rise of seemingly ever more intolerant and aggressive strains of Islam that increase tension and division within both secular and non-Islamic communities, in short, a lot of Atheists have had enough of "in your face" religion.

The debate within Atheism is about how far "new atheists" should go in promoting a more secular society, its about strategy. Should strategy include "insulting" religious people for example, is it ok to ridicule particular ideas that they hold?. These are good questions, and they doesn't have a clear cut answers. The problem centres around the definition of "insult", to some people simply disagreeing with them is deemed insulting, to others any idea they hold may be debated to the point of ridicule and beyond without them feeling any offence. Clearly this is not a one size fits all debate there is a spectrum of opinion on both sides, for example, a lot of Atheists build upon a position of rationalism and scientific thinking and this bleeds across into the approach they take to reasoning about these things; to a lot of religious people this comes across as dismissive because it represents the antithesis of the way in which they believe spiritual knowledge is acquired through revelation, a kind of knowledge that many Atheists simply reject because that's what you do in science when there is no evidence for something.

For years secular non-religious people have tended to work around religion, giving it respect and simply stating their position without direct criticism or attack directed at the other side, the disagreements have always been there under the surface of course but they have tended to be reserved for private conversations rather than presented with any conviction in the public square. Then came 9/11 and Dawkins, he (and a few others) started to make public the otherwise private views on religion, he published the God Delusion and this seemed to become some kind of tipping point, many people who perhaps hadn't previously thought about the subject picked up that book up or at least contemplated the debate seriously for the first time, the Atheist head was tentatively raised above the parapet for the first time since the 60s.

Dawkins is a great populariser, his Biology books in the 70s were pivotal in changing the mind set of Biologists and interested lay people regarding the role of genes in evolution; however he is not an innovator, his ideas are not original but he has two important attributes, he presents the case with clarity and conviction and he has the courage to take those ideas into the lions den of places like the Bible belt of the USA. In many ways Dawkins says the things that we are all thinking but lack the courage or incentive to actually say ourselves. Hardly any of these arguments are new of course, many of them originate from great free thinkers of the past, Spinoza through Hume, Paine, Russell and so on, what is new is the context of modern scientific thinking and the ever increasing body of scientific knowledge which continues to reduce the gaps into which God may be inserted.

So what of this supposed schism, should Atheists be vocal and outspoken or timid and respectful? Clearly the vested interests of religion would prefer the latter and apparently the so called "new atheists" the former, there still exists of course a collection of "old atheists" (for want of a better term) who end up somewhere in the middle but err towards the timid and respectful end of this spectrum. Personally I'm with the new Atheists on this. I think it's possible to be confident in your position without being overtly aggressive also that it's perfectly reasonable to attack an idea and yet not insult the person who holds it, and although I think is is important to engage with people and to listen to them respectfully I also believe that honesty is equally as important as politeness; thinking one thing whilst pitching another is a dangerous path to follow for all but the most politically devious among us.

Get ready everybody..

A while ago I reproduced a story about a rapture enthusiast who confidently predicted on his WEB site that the world would end and Jesus would drop in to say hi to mankind again on the 21st September (or at least that date would mark the beginning of the end), well apparently the calculations were slightly wrong, a revised date has now been posted on the site, hold onto your hats folks it's NEXT WEDNESDAY! clearly time to sink that bottle of 61 Châteaux Cheval Blanc I've been saving for a special occasion, I do hope Burger King will still be open :)

Oh crumbs!

Now if Bibles had been illustrated like the latest incarnation of the book of Genesis by Robert Crumb then even I  may be tempted to take a peek now and again. The book which is released this month carries a warning about graphic illustrations depicting naked men and women as well as sexual intercourse and gratuitous acts of violence (sounds like the right book at least!). Crumb is famous for Fritz the cat, an underground comic strip that he conceived in the sixties and was later turned into a cartoon movie (the first to be given an X rating)

No doubt this rendition of the Genesis stories will cause outrage in certain quarters, I think the reaction is probably more interesting than the book itself; clearly the stories are about people doing what people do so disapproving would seem like shooting the messenger somewhat? Who knows, some illustrations might even improve comprehension, they would certainly make it more memorable!

Freedom of speech?

I learn today that the challenge against a Government ban on Geert Wilders the Dutch MP and infamous anti-Islamic trouble maker has been overturned, Mr Wilders is now free to enter the UK.

I am happy about this decision, not because I agree with Mr Wilders on anything in particular but because I believe in free speech. As far as I can see the only thing Mr Wilders has done (in the context of his entry ban to the UK) is speak out against Islam, he has criticised it in a film called Fitna which was the subject of his initial attempt to enter the UK for which this ban was originally put in place. I have watched this film and found it quite unremarkable, it's what I would characterise as nothing more than a sensationalist YouTube clip, in that it simply intersperses images of terrorist atrocities and verses from the Koran. Both are real, in the sense that these horrors did occur and the Koran does actually say the immoral things he claims it does about killing infidels etc. so I don't see why it should be considered so inflammatory. Wilders of course wants to imply that the words incite the deeds, Islamic apologists would claim that it's all in the interpretation, ten grand in legal fees later, nothing new and the world turns.

Some, if not most theocratic regimes (and pseudo-theocratic regimes like North Korea etc.) hate freedom of speech of course, Islamic ones are not alone in this, recent attempts in the UN and elsewhere to introduce so called "hate speech" laws are thinly veiled attempts to censor opposition to religion. If we allow the censoring of opinion for fear that someone "may" be offended then my view is that a huge slippery slope opens before us, inviting a slide into the darkness of past injustices.

I say, let Mr Wilders speak, if he is an attention grabbing idiot (which I suspect he is) then we can all see that and take the appropriate action (i.e. ignore him and stop giving him all this free publicity)

PS, a delicious piece of irony – Wilders was represented by a MUSLIM barrister, Arfan Khan