…a kingdom was lost. While I don’t think that Amazon staff realised what the implications were, the change that they made to their site’s DNA has had a very large impact on some of us. Bad Amazon, naughty Amazon…
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Eavesdropping On Bacteria
Here’s Bonnie Bassler at TED outlining one of the most mind-blowing concepts that I’ve recently come across: bacteria communicate with each other.The implications, it seems to me, are quite staggering in all sorts of potential arenas.Leave a comment
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Unlucky Klaus
A completely serious health and safety video for forklift drivers. I think.(hat tip to the Lay Scientist)Leave a comment
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Time Shift
As I’ve said before, I count my lucky stars that I live where and when I do. Many people are not so lucky. Reading that takes me back to what it must have been like in Britain in the 1950s. The situation in Uganda at the moment is truly appalling. I can only hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.Leave a comment
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Bad Science: Matthias Rath
If you do nothing else today, please go to Bad Science and read Ben Goldacre’s article on Matthias Rath. The article was supposed to be a chapter in Goldacre’s excellent book: Bad Science, but had to be removed because at the time of original publication, Rath was pursuing legal action against Goldacre and the Guardian newspaper. Rath has now dropped the action and the missing chapter can now be published.I have posted before on the human disaster that is the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, but Goldacre’s meticulous setting out of the exacerbation of the scale of the disaster brought about by Rath, Brink, Mbeki, and Tshabalala-Msimang is essential reading.A truly damning indictment of a shameful episode in South Africa’s history.Leave a comment
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Desert Nightmare
Another brilliant article from Johann Hari, this time recording the voices of the damned in that hell on earth: Dubai.Leave a comment
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Foghorns In The Mist
Our Maddy of the Sorrows is back with another of her hand-wringing pieces. This time Madeleine Bunting is being sorrowful that real debates about religion are being drowned by the foghorn voices of the “New Atheists”. Funny that, I always thought that foghorns served a useful purpose of warning sailors lost in the mist that there were dangers ahead.
It’s a strange piece. She quotes approvingly folks such as Alain de Botton, John Gray, Karen Armstrong and Mark Vernon – all of whom seem to me to be taking the simple trusting faiths of the faithful into a looking-glass world where it becomes de rigueur to believe six impossible things before every breakfast. Indeed, Madeleine apparently believes the same:
Intriguingly, where Gray, Armstrong and Vernon all end up is with the apophatic tradition of theology. Apophatic is a word no longer even in my dictionary, but it’s a major tradition of Christian thought, and central to the thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas: it is the idea that God is ineffable and beyond powers of description. S/he can be experienced by religious practice, but as Armstrong puts it: "In the past, people knew we could say nothing about God. Certain forms of knowledge only come with practice." It makes the boundary between belief in God and agnosticism much more porous than commonly assumed.
Bunting quotes Armstrong as saying:
What "belief" used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of "love", "commitment", "loyalty": saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles.
I’m all for the idea of “love”, “commitment” and “loyalty”, but these I try to express towards my fellow human beings, not towards some mythical monsters. Frankly, I’d far rather be warned about life’s dangers by the sound of foghorns than be seduced by the cruel songs of sirens.
Update: As usual, Ophelia dissects Bunting’s piece to reveal the nonsense and stupidity within. Oh, and perhaps it’s just me, but do I detect just the faintest whiff of sour grapes in Maddy’s crack that “Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion”?
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Not Fully Human
I see Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has let slip the mask of niceness and shown something of what lies beneath again. This time he was on BBC Radio 4 saying that atheists are "not fully human". What a lovely man.Update: the radio interview has hit YouTube, so that you can listen to the Cardinal’s words for yourself. Here’s a link via Stephen Law.Leave a comment
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Do I Look Fat In This?
Neurophilosophy has a great post on the latest research into body integrity and identity disorders.Leave a comment
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Apocalypse Now
Here’s a very entertaining look at a variety of doomsayers by the sociologist and editor of New Humanist, Laurie Taylor. They range from the very personable Father Dom Benedict Heron to those on the wilder shores of human behaviour. The video dates from 2007, but it’s still very relevant.I must confess to suspecting that a human apocalypse is on the way, not for any religious reasons, but simply because global warming is likely to pass the tipping point pretty soon and usher in a new round of human misery. Johann Hari thinks so too.Leave a comment
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Here We Go Again
Slipping back into barbarism. A crowd of men stands by, watching silently.Leave a comment
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Under The Skin
That’s the title of the first novel by Michel Faber. And I guarantee that Under The Skin will, in all probability, get under your skin. If you want to have your assumptions rattled, then get it and read it. You may need a stiff drink handy. While the plot devices creak just a teensy bit, the audaciousness more than makes up for it. Simply brilliant. Pierre Boulle is probably kicking himself.2 responses to “Under The Skin”
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[…] I wrote back in 2009, Michel Faber’s first novel Under The Skin will probably get under your skin, and provoke a […]
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[…] Gilead (an elderly Congregational minister writes to his 7-year old son). However, Faber also wrote Under The Skin, which engrossed me with its strange atmosphere and […]
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An Open and Shut Case
Here’s a nice little video about open- and closed-mindedness. Good advice in under 10 minutes.(hat tip to RichardDawkins.net)Leave a comment
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Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
Austin Dacey reports on the recent events in the UN’s Human Rights Council during the debate on the "Combating the Defamation of Reglions" resolution. It makes depressing reading. His observation on the behaviour of the chair just about sums up the level of some of the participants.Leave a comment
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Pot, Kettle, Part II
And here’s another wonderful example of cognitive dissonance at work: the news that the Catholic Church in America has banned the use of reiki in Catholic institutions, branding it "unscientific" and "inappropriate".*facepalm*Update: Over at Supersense, Bruce M. Hood makes reference to a pontifical report into New Age practices and beliefs, and suspects that what it really all boils down to is the fear of losing bums on seats. He’s probably right.Leave a comment
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Pot, Kettle, Black…
I caught the last forty-five minutes of a one-hour programme on BBC 2 last night: Did Darwin Kill God? In it, Dr. Conor Cunningham, of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at Nottingham University, argued that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is completely compatible with Christianity. His thesis, according to the BBC’s blurb, is that the theory has been
“hijacked by extremists: …fundamentalist believers who reject evolution, and … fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin’s theory rules out the possibility of God”.
I’m not really sure what a fundamentalist atheist is, it sounds like a category error to me. Things are not much better over at the Centre of Theology and Philosophy’s news site – the programme is spun as:
“The main purpose of the documentary is to offer a critique of both Christian fundamentalists who reject evolution, doing so, Conor argues, because they display a complete lack of understanding about the Christian tradition, and Darwinian fundamentalists – those such as Dawkins who take Darwin’s theory beyond the domain of science and apply it to all aspects of life, and is so doing undermine the very cogency of evolution as a science”.
Oh gawd, I get extremely worked up about strawmen such as “those such as Dawkins who take Darwin’s theory beyond the domain of science and apply it to all aspects of life”. It’s a travesty of Dawkins’ views and writings, and Dr. Cunningham is being disingenuous in suggesting this. Well of course, it could be that the writer of the blurb on the Centre’s web site is as guilty of over-egging the pudding as the Beeb’s writer. However, from what I saw of the programme, Dr. Cunningham himself was furiously erecting strawmen and making non sequiturs throughout much of it. I found myself shouting “nonsense” and “category error” at the screen much of the time. As far as I am aware, Dawkins and Dennett have never stated that the Theory of Evolution has “ruled out the possibility of God”. It is simply that God is not required in the process. And while Cunningham may claim that it impossible to accept both the implications of memes and the theory of evolution, I fear he’s missed the point completely. A meme can be both itself and an objective truth (e.g. 1+1=2) simultaneously. As an aside, I rather like meme theory – it’s Zen for rationalists. It may even have some truth to it.
Dr. Cunningham is a Christian, and he sees no conflict between the Theory of Evolution and Christianity. That conviction was supported in his interviews with Francis Collins and Michael Ruse. Charles Darwin, on the other hand, would have disagreed. I’m with Darwin on this one. I see no evidence in this world whatsoever of the workings of the god of the Christians. What I did observe in last night’s programme was an awful lot of cognitive dissonance. It was truly awe-inspiring.
Update: Over at Mark Vernon’s blog, Mark thought the programme was wonderful. Sometimes I wonder about Mark. As an ex-priest turned agnostic, he often strikes me as being rather reluctant to let go of his woo-filled roots.
Update II: Now the fun begins. The programme has been cited on RichardDawkins.net. Stand by for fireworks. I have to say though that the programme struck me as a particularly meretricious piece of work. Just reading the transcript of the subtitles makes me want to whack Dr. Cunningham around the chops with a wet fish a few times.
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Mapping The Brain
A terrific article by Jonah Lehrer in Wired about the work of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. Worth reading.Leave a comment
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Boiling The Frog
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is under attack by the very body that should be upholding it – the UN Human Rights Council. Roy Brown writes about the latest racheting up of the attack.Leave a comment
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Equilibrium
A fine review of a not-so-fine restaurant by the Guardian‘s Food Critic today. One almost feels sorry for the restaurant owners. Almost.Leave a comment
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