Skeptico has a post: How do you prove photography to a blind man? It is a particularly nice analogy to make to those who make claims that psychic phenomena actually exist.
(hat tip to The Bad Astronomer for the link)
Year: 2007
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Sunshine
Mark Kermode (the good doctor) writes an intriguing teaser about the forthcoming film Sunshine. It definitely goes on the list of films that I want to see. -
A Debate
I see that a video of the recent debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins is now available here. The topic of the debate is: Darwin and Humanity: should we rid the mind of God?The sound quality is somewhat suspect for Peter Atkins, but stick with it. Clearly God is on McGrath’s side – or at least the sound engineer is.I have to say that I was very unimpressed by McGrath – he sounded just like a trendy vicar giving a sermon, with the amount of his handwaving counterbalanced by the shallowness of his arguments. And I marvelled when he said:"When I was young I used to be an amateur astronomer, I used to look at the night sky and I knew just enough astronomy to know that the light from some of those stars wouldn’t hit earth for hundreds of years and to me, that simply said to me, you will be dead by then and so the night sky was a symbol of melancholy, a reminder of the brevity of life."It sounded to me as though he needs God so that he has meaning to his life. I don’t. When I look at the night sky, I too realise the same fact about stellar distances, but that to me is amazing, not melancholic, and, I might add, that knowledge has come through scientific advance and not through theology. -
Rijksgadget
Here’s a terrific little gadget for your Windows Vista Sidebar: Rijksgadget. It displays a new painting each day from the collection in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. If you flip the picture over, you find out information about the painting. -
Rights For Filth
I would like to think that this gentleman is being ironical, but I fear that he is being absolutely serious… Clearly, care in the community is going too far…However, good to know where he stands. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry after listening to this codswallop. However, I know that he just can’t help it. Oh, and he’s an ex-policeman apparently. Makes you feel proud, doesn’t it? -
Bookshop Blues
I’ve just found out that the Gays The Word bookshop in London’s Bloomsbury is struggling to survive in the face of rising rents and falling sales.When I lived in London I would often visit it. It was a great place – and felt at times like a tiny community centre.I see that Jeanette Winterson thinks that perhaps its work is done, but when I read that the bookshop’s owner says that they still get “a brick through the window once a year and twice a week people spit on the windows”, then I have to wonder…If you live in London, or are visiting, please pop in. You can also sponsor a bookshelf – visit the web site for more information. -
Beyond Parody
There are some things that are clearly beyond parody. Such as the news that Dr. Ian Paisley has comissioned a bio-pic of his life. The end result will be clearly something that will have to be experienced in a cinema equipped with full Dolby sound in order to appreciate the decibel levels of his stentorian oratory at full blast.My favourite (I think apochryphal – but you never know) story about the old rogue and bigot is when he is addressing a rally of the faithful…"When the day of Judgment comes, there will be a weeping, a wailing and a gnashing of teeth!"A little old man mumbles with his gums and interjects at the front: "Dr Paisley, what will happen to us who have no teeth?" "Teeth," says the great man, "will be provided." Or, as he would say: "Tayth wull be provayded!!" -
The Royal Society Videos
I’ve just learned that The Royal Society has put some of its lectures on the web as video and audio streams. Here’s one: Professor Steve Jones talking about Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right. Terrific stuff. -
Epicurus Or Heidegger?
How do you live your life? By not worrying about death? Or by letting the realisation that life is finite, and death inevitable, shape what you do in the time allotted?Epicurus argued that the fear of death was irrational. "Where death is, I am no longer," he said, "and where I am, death is not." Epicurus’ point is that there is nothing to fear in death itself, what people really fear is the process of dying and the pain that all too often accompanies the final illness.Heidegger, on the other hand, argued that death is a constant presence in life, and renamed human existence "being towards death". Heidegger therefore rejected the Epicurean idea that death is irrelevant to our lives. To understand life fully, Heidegger argued, one must understand oneself as finite.These two points of view are explored by the philospher Havi Carel in a compelling piece in The Independent. The question is thrown into sharp focus for her by the fact that she has, at most, 10 years left to live. Ten years that will increasingly be marked by illness and pain.Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t feel the two viewpoints are an "either/or" situation; to me it feels like a "both/and". I don’t fear death, and I know that it’s inevitable. Perhaps that’s because, as Carel argues, I am in good health. Perhaps if I were in her situation I might feel differently. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently because one of our neighbours has recently been told he has only a few months, perhaps just a few weeks, left to live. He seems to have accepted this with equanimity – he’s more concerned about how his wife will cope – and is busy putting his affairs in order in readiness. His forthrightness is admirable, and is an example that I hope to follow when my time comes.(hat tip to Julian Baggini over at Talking Philosophy for the link to the Carel article) -
Poland’s Dark Age
Further to my comment the other day that Poland seems intent on marching forward into a new Dark Age, Doug Ireland has an excellent in-depth piece covering the background to the new anti-gay bill. -
Interview With Adam Curtis
Via Not Saussure, here’s a pointer to an interview with Adam Curtis about his latest work, The Trap. Worth reading. -
A Birthday Wish
Reginald Dwight, better known as Elton John, turns 60 this weekend. While that’s a sobering thought in itself, he uses the occasion to bring our attention to something far more sobering – the continuing abuses of the human rights of gay people around the world. Go and read the article – it’s a good one – and then read some of the comments left on it. It is clear from them, as Elton says, that homophobia is far from dead. -
They Hate Women Too
Another reason why I feel that Poland appears to have a lot of growing up to do. -
Baghdad Life
I’m a bit late in noticing it, but yesterday the Baghdad Blogger – Salam Pax – had an article published in The Guardian. Go and read it. -
Monks Have Their Uses
Although, probably not those that you might expect. How about helping to save people trapped under earthquake rubble? It’s all to do with acetone, apparently…
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What’s Wrong With Gay Sex?
An excellent question, to which Stephen Law, over at his eponymous blog, provides some excellent answers. The pay-off merely confirms one of my long-standing assumptions about God – that deep down, he always was an exceedingly nasty piece of work.
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The Me Generation
The concept of the Me Generation is not particularly new – it’s been around since the 1970s, but I wonder whether the intensity dial isn’t being turned up a notch or two higher by our technology.Danah Boyd, over at Apophenia, has been wondering something similar, and as usual explores the issues in a thoughful way. She comes to the conclusion that technology isn’t the culprit, rather it’s ourselves. -
Not On My List
A film that is definitely not on my list of films to see is 300. Despite the high coefficient of male beefcake (at least amongst the Spartans, apparently), that in itself does not tip the scales in its favour when the whole raison d’etre of the film appears to be simply an exercise in exquisitely choreographed ultraviolence. Scaryduck has more.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 