from nowhere!

Full breaking news story here

I thought the line

“Local parents remain sceptical after a recent Ofsted report revealed that everyone attending St Usshers was an idiot. ‘I admit we don’t have the brightest pupils,’ said Dr Bryan, ‘but that’s hardly surprising since we don’t believe in selection.’

was genius!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve just seen a cool documentary about evolution that I thought I’d share with you all:

I’m especially liking the first land animal @ 0.24 as I was teaching my God-daughter (don’t ask!) about the Tiktaalik last weekend.  We talked about it, and sang the song:

and even primed her so that when her mother asked her what a Tiktaalik is, she was able to respond:

“A tetrapod able to hold up it’s own weight on land with spiracles showing it had primitive lungs”

She had no idea what that meant, but sounded like she did…

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have a clear, understandable argument for the existence of the Christian God!  Blogginbaldguy commented:

Here it is:

The Christian God (triune) is metaphysically necessary in order for unity and diversity to have a meaningful expression in the first cause. A strict monad would have ultimate unity but no natural expression of diversity and hence would *need* the diversity of contingent beings; in other words this being could not metaphysically have aseity at least as it is correlative to diversification.

Pantheism posits no distinction between unity and diversity; hence diversity is illusory though empirical experience militates against such a view. If diversity is illusory the antitheistic thoughts of a quasi-divine being must be considered identical with the positive conceptions of the theist.

Polytheism faces the opposite dilemma. Ultimate diversity negates unity and finds no expression for unity of thought. Therefore the Christian God is the only God that could possibly exist due to the rational-irrational tension of the other conceptions. Coincidentally, naturalism suffers a similar fate.

Now, I am partial to significantly substantial verbal articulations to an equal or greater extent as the subsequently minimally distant (from my reference plane) masculine hominid, but you Sir, are taking the Michael…

I like big words as much as the next man.

See how much easier that was to read, understand, or indeed think about?

I realise I’m opening myself up for looking like I don’t understand words of more than two syllables, but I do believe in clear, concise language.  The fancy words have their place, but the argument above seems to be deliberately hiding behind these words, and then, when decoded, are nonsensical anyway!

For example, Triune. As I’m sure you all know, this means “Three in One” (like the oil…),  the common word Trinity would have done as well, or indeed better as it is the one used to describe the triple christian deity by most people.

But lets look at the argument: (in English!)

“The Christian God (triune) is metaphysically necessary in order for unity and diversity to have a meaningful expression in the first cause.”

The Christian God is required for oneness and difference to be meaningful if it is to be used as a creator of the universe.

I have no need of oneness or difference for the universe to exist! To then argue that a God without many confusing parts makes no sense because it has no confusing parts is therefore not required.

I was going to go on with the rest, but my need for diversity leads me elsewhere…

Why not try it yourself?

Can you translate this into English?  I look forward to discussing this with you if you can…

People often ask me – “Why JugglinBob?”

Coz I can juggle?  And I am reasonably good at it?

Well, after looking at the ease that this machine juggles five balls, and more importantly, corrects it’s mistake at 1.07, then I might start doing something else more impressive…

Like perhaps making a working windmill model completely out of bread for the local flour show, (a poor pun – and I should know, but it’s not mine this time!) And no…  I’m not making it up!  The blueprints are completed, and the first cog trials will happen soon.  I want to use Salt Dough, but my compatriot keeps telling it’s not edible.  Flour, salt & water is edible… but maybe you just wouldn’t want to, or indeed be able to keep it down if you do… {insert religion gag as required}

Since I’m blogging again today I thought I take a moment to do what bloggers do and take about my own life.  The majority of my posts are news orientated or general comments on belief and religion, so maybe it’s time I take a moment to look at personal things.

As most of you know, I regularly pick my daughter up from her boarding school for leave weekends.  She gets one weekend off in 3 for good behaviour, and more if she give info on any tunnelling activity, or squeals on those bribing the guards for an extra smoke from the Red Cross parcels.  OK.  I apologise.  I’m being factitious.  They’re under-age, and the guards won’t give them smokes…

Anyway, moving on from this gag that I feel is falling flat fast (it’s a great school, and we are all so proud of her!), on the journey home last time I had all the news about how it’s going.  All of you who are parents of teenage children know how hard it is to know what’s going on with them – but now imagine you only see them once a month!  We talk.  I drag information out of her.  We talk.

And then silence….

(What the hell is wrong? thought I)

“Dad…” (big pause, and reluctantly continues)

“I’ve got something to tell you…”

Shit!  Many things run through my mind.

“I don’t want you to be upset..”

Oh hell

“… but I think I’ve become a Christian”

(Relief!)  Oh.  I now think I have to re-evaluate how my fundamental, almost evangelical, atheist beliefs are affecting my daughter.  I’ve always said that if she makes the choice, after looking at both sides then it’s ok, but the fact that she was so reluctant to tell me makes me think that maybe I’ve gone over the line somewhere.

Maybe I should be more accepting of others faith?  Maybe I should try to ignore the fact that most people’s faith is not a considered, intelligent choice, but one of inertia, determined by birth parents and not thought.  Ignore the fact that the bible is not only not internally consistent, but is also provably false against historical references?

Ignore that Churches become rich whilst praying (ahem) upon their constituents.  Ignore that religion still causes rifts, anger, and often incites violence upon fellow-man.  Just ignore it…

Nah.   See you for the next religion bashing post!

(Turns out it was not a matter of faith – but one of calm.  In the hectic life  of a boarder, a few minutes of peace in the Chapel before lights out was doing her a wonder of good psychologically.  So she’s not lost yet…)

As we all heard the world ended on the 21st May 2011.  The Devout (some 2 million people) were raptured and the rest of us heathens (some 6773 million!) left on Earth to suffer our fate.

Even the amazingly popular Rebecca Black got into the act:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc0s358b3Ys]

(EDIT:  This video no longer plays.  The original on Rooster Teeth is here)

And Yes – It’s a parody.  Ms Black not involved.  Though she does looks the type…  

Or at least that’s what Harold Camping thought was going to happen, and many of his followers decided to sell all their Earthly goods and promote his message.

The day came.  The day went.  No sign of anything happening.

On the day itself Harold went into hiding and refused to answer his door.  However, Mr Camping has now stated that he won’t be returning any of his followers money, as it was the “spiritual” and “invisible” day of judgement.  But come October, and we’ll see that he’s right!  Oh yes indeedy!  (We’ll just forget that he previously been proven wrong in both in 1988 and 1994 and give him the benefit of the doubt this time.)

Since we now have a few extra months without the promised earthquakes and mass destruction lets look at exactly how Harold came to this amazing revelation:

I was going to launch into a tirade here looking at how out of the norm Harold’s ideas and Maths are.  But I can’t.  I don’t have the time or the energy!  We move from proving that a day equals a thousand years via 2 Peter 3:8 onto Noah’s seven-day respite in Gen7:4

“For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth”

and goes on to explain that the 7 days in the above passage therefore means 7000 years.  Ok… but that would surely mean that the forty days would mean 40,000 years of rain, and Harold himself says that the flood was 4990BC, (but fails to explain that figure!), and therefore we should still be in the period of flood, and will be for a further 33,000 years!  Most thinking Christians take some parts of the bible to be truth, and some as allegorical, but Camping takes both sides in a single verse!  The remainder of his numerolgical argument gets even more bizarre and my head hurts at trying to go round the bends required, so I’ll stop.

I can’t think what the Millionaire Harold Camping gets out of all this… (But Mr Hubbard must be turning in his new “meat body“)

However, some atheists think that it’s a shame that the rapture didn’t occur…

Dammit!  I wanted my bottle of Darwin’s Genuine Draft too!

I’ve not been too hot on putting posts here, but one of my new new year resolutions is to try harder with this post, and to open it up to new avenues, rather than just bible bashing… (for those interested other resoltions include losing weight, gaining an academic qualification in something (anything!), and for the nerds amongst you – 1280×1080…

Ahem…

Today (if I get this typed quick enough) is also a major anniversary.  So big in fact that BBC radio 4 had a whole days worth of programs celebrating it.  It is the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the King James Bible.  (EDIT: It’s this year, not this date) I’m just up from dropping my daughter to boarding school and (as always) listened to radio 4 on the drive, and it’s long readings from the KJV tonight.

I was actually quite touched.  I know that the bible, especially the KJV, is a key text used, copied, and indeed parodied in English literature but having professional actors reading these texts really made it obvious.  So many English literature titles appear in Daniel or the Songs of Solomon.  So many pieces of Shakespeare are re workings, or rewordings of biblical texts.  The bible truly does play a major part in our literary lives.  I realise that I often appear here to be anti bible, but that’s not the case.  I’m not anti-bible in the same way that I’m not anti-viking, anti-pagan, or anti-Roman Parthenon.  All of these have had demonstrable impact on our British society, and as the bible is our most recent religion it has the most impact on our British society.  It’s an interesting text.  It contains fantastic pieces of narrative, and great quotes.

Now that Mohammed is the number one male first name in the UK one can only assume that in 400 years we will be looking back at pieces of the Qua ran in the same way.

However!

 

This use of the bible in popular fiction over the last 500 years does not in any way prove it’s correctness or it’s accuracy.  There are great stories, and especially in the new testament, popular works against those under those under oppression.  It is a self propagating meme – look at the first 4 (ish) commandments are just about keeping the faith (check here for details).

I accept the bible’s influnece on our society, and our literature.

I just don’t accept that it’s true, or indeed just.

Or that the modern interpretations even make sense….

What was there before the Big Bang?

The normal answers can include the religious one: “God” or the somewhat more scientific “Nothing – there was no time or space for anything to be in” (Which I find oddly similar to the conclusion of philosopher and writer St. Augustine of Hippo about this in his “Confessions”  written in the closing years of the fourth century: before God created the world there was no time and thus no before. “For there was no “then” when time was not.” Book 11:Chapter 13)

However a recent paper claims to have found evidence that supports the idea that there could have been many Big Bangs preceeding the one that created our visible universe.

Roger Penrose (Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Oxford University) and Vahe Gurzadyan (Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia) have published a paper “Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity (full PDF here)

The science in it is very complex, and I’m no where near understanding it fully!  I think I’ve grasped the basics however. All the articles that I’ve seen about this assume a basic level of knowledge, so I aim here to explain it in simple terms whilst covering the basics. I’ll also be adding my own twist at the end…

The idea is that clear concentric circles of small temperature ranges can be seen in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and that this indicates collisions between black holes.  OK, simple enough!  (Well almost, but I’ll try to explain it shortly)  The weird part is that the larger circles have been calculated to have occurred prior to the rapid expansion of the universe or “Big Bang”.

Lets start at the beginning, as it were – what is this CMB?

If one looks at the spaces between the stars and galaxies (the background) it is pitch black, even with the most powerful optical telescopes. So there’s nothing there right?  Wrong.  Radio telescopes can detect a faint background glow, which is almost uniform in all directions, in the microwave region of frequencies.

This was predicted by the Big Bang Model and its discovery was hailed as the landmark test of this model.  The discovery in 1964 earned Penzias and Wilson a Nobel Prize in 1978.  The story of this discovery is now famous as they were not looking for it!  They detected the radiation, but thought that it was caused by equipment interference and spent a lot of time and effort to remove this interference.  They rebuilt everything and even scraped off what they called in the academic papers as “white dielectric material” (bird shit to you and me!) from the antenna, and yet the hiss remained.  Nearby, in Princeton University, a different group of scientists were searching for this very same radiation without success, and eventually correctly identified the hiss after receiving a call asking for help from Penzias and Wilson.  The Princeton team did not get acknowledged by the Nobel Committee…

The CMB is the remnants of the explosive Big Bang. The scattering of the radiation occurred when the universe was less than 400 000 years old, and so is a “picture” of the state that the universe was at that time.  As the universe expands it cools (basic physics – and easily demonstrated.  The nozzle of CO2 fire extinguisher becomes harmfully cold to touch as the expanding gas rushes through it, and becomes covered in thick frost from solidified atmospheric water vapour.  Go on!  Give it a try!  But not at work please folks…)

When the universe was 379 000 years old it was cool enough (at 3000K!) to form hydrogen and the matter and radiation decoupled.   The CMB was “fixed” at this time, but expands as the universe expands. The mathematically calculated background temperature from the model exactly matches the observed CMB at just below 3K.  This correlation of theoretical and observable data provides strong proof that the Big Bang model is to some extent “correct”.

Another great thing about the CMB is that you have the ability to “see” this radiation for yourself.  You own a TV?  You have all the equipment required!  Tune the TV to where it doesn’t receive a broadcast signal and look at the “snow”.  1% of this snow is from the CMB.  Next time you are complaining that there’s nothing on TV, detune it and watch the decoupling of matter and radiation at the start of the universe occur in front of you!  “Nothing on?”  No – just all of creation!

And the circles indicate black hole collisions?

The paper goes to great length to demonstrate that the circles are there beyond statistical doubt, so they have to indicate something involving a great deal of energy. The collision between Supermassive Blackholes  is, according to Penrose and Gurzadyan, the most likely source.  I can (just) about keep up with the statistical analysis proving that the circles are there, but at that point my knowledge of physics breaks down.  I can’t follow the argument here.  But give me a break!  I’m a healthcare professional, and not a theoretical physicist! If anyone can explain this part to me please do – I’m always happy to learn.  What does seem common sense though is that the energy from these collisions expand spherically away from the point of origin, like a 3 dimensional ripple caused by a pebble dropped into a lake.  The wave front would appear as a circle in the “frozen” picture of the scatter field of the CMB, and so the concentric circles are from a single source at different periods of time.

And – and this is the big one! – The larger circles have been calculated to have occurred prior to the Big Bang?

Fortunately for me, and my somewhat injured knowledge of physics is pretty much back on track with this one!  Well, I think so anyhow…

The concept that needs to be understood here is that of light cones.  In brief, nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Imagine a graph plotting a point in space and time on the origin of a graph with 3 axes; time on one axis and space on the other two.  As you move up the time axis you have an area of influence that increases (moves along the space axes) by the speed of light.   Light (and therefore any information & therefore influence) can only be so far away from this origin in a certain amount of time, as determined by the speed of light.  Lets say you hold a hypothetical light up in the air, then one year later the light has therefore moved 1 light year away from you, and so up (time) and expanding across the 2 space axes of  the graph in a cone.  If you look at somewhere on your graph at a point 2 light-years distant the light has not yet reached it.

Light Cone - Image from WikiCommons

The figure to the left shows this graph.   Nothing that happens at the origin of the graph can possible have any influence on anything outside this triangle (or cone), as nothing travels faster than the speed of light.

Similarly one can imagine the same cone in reverse.  As you move back in time the area of influence cone increases in size along the space axis at the same gradient as defined by the speed of light.  Things inside this cone can have an influence on you, whilst anything outside this cone cannot affect you.

I really have an affinity for the light cone idea and I was introduced to it at an early age, and so I have difficultly explaining it as to me it makes innate sense, and so I have difficulty explaining such an obvious (to me) concept to others, but I hope this explanation worked…

Now that we have got that out of way we can look back at the question.  The circles lie outside of the light cone projecting the area of influence back to the decoupling event, as shown on the right.  Way past.  From the explanation above a circle of influence can by extrapolated backwards to their point of origin.  And this point of origin is prior to the time of the big bang.

And that’s it!  Observable proof that something prior to the big bang had an influence on the state of the universe at the point of the decoupling of matter and radiation.

Clear and simple!

No.  This is indeed tentative.  It’s not fact.  It’s almost not a theory, but it is part of the scientific model – trying to explain observable events, using all available resources.  This is cutting edge and may be proven to be false with further evidence.  That is the beauty of science – it is open to new ideas, even if it requires a compete rewrite of world view.  As new hypothesis are developed, predictions of what should be found experimentaly or by observation are made.  If these predictions are then shown to match to the evidence, then and only then does the hypothesis become a theory. Of course the theory can be disproved by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.  The “unprovable but falsifiable” concept is a core tenet of modern science.

For example, ideas that were held to be true by scientists of their time include that of a geocentric universe,  that aether exists as the medium of the propagation of light, that stomach ulcers were cause by stress rather than a bacterial infection, or that that the continents were immovable.  These were then later shown to be falsifiable, and new hypotheses developed to better fit the evidence.

Therefore scientists can be, and in fact are,  regularly proven wrong.  Yet they strive to learn the truth and adapt to new information, whilst the religious fundamentalists stick to their primitive views as defined thousands of years ago.

Oh come on!  Did you think I’d let piece go past without a quick bible / Koran / {insert any other primitive text} basher bashing?

I tried.  Sorry…

Even I may have thought of a possible cause for the circles to have expanded across the CMB faster than the speed of light, and therefore not be from events predating the Big Bang.  I can’t scientifically call it a theory though.  It is more of a (tentative) hypothesis.  It also seems so obvious that to be honest I’ve clearly missed something!  However I’ll write it down here as the scientific community takes the publishing date of information to form precedence – and I’d love this to be come known as the Jugglinbob Model…

Earlier I discussed that no influence can move faster than the speed of light.  This was then used to make the light cones and demonstrate that that the cone origin pre-dates the Big Bang.  However, this is not entirely true!  Hang on!  How can I, a mere healthcare worker, dare to say this?  Well, it’s a well known concept to science!  It is true that nothing can itself move faster than the speed of light, yet the universe can itself expand at a rate that exceeds this limit.  Far flung galaxies move away from us at great speeds, not because they themselves are moving fast, but that the space between us and the galaxy is expanding.  This is part of the modern models of the universe, and explains why the doppler shift (relative speed) increases proportionally to distance.  The details are far to complex for the purpose of this blog, but to explain briefly think of a balloon with dots at 1cm apart all over its surface.  As one blows air into the balloon all the dots move away from all the others as the balloon expands.  If you now pick any dot as “home” and measure the distance to a nearby dot you find that it’s now (for example) 2cm between then.  If you measure to the next nearest dot it will be twice this at 4cm away.  The new dot has moved away from us at twice the speed!  A dot, say, 10cm away from our mark before inflation is now 20cm after this same expansion, and so is moving away at a faster rate.  This works for any group of dots anywhere on the balloons surface.  Pick a new “home” dot and repeat and the result is the same.  The fact that (almost) all galaxies are moving away from us initially makes it look as if we are the centre of the universe, until one takes this inflation into account.  Observers anywhere in the universe will all see the galaxies moving away from them, and will therefore to them look like they are at the centre!  This played a key role in moving the scientific community away from the geocentric universe mentioned above.

Still there?  Ok.  The fact that it is space that is expanding and not the galaxies moving, and the concept that a far flung galaxy can be moving away from us at a speed that, if not quite breaks the speed of light barrier, at least bends it somewhat, is key to my idea.  The inflationary model of the universe states that the universe went though a period of expansion that was faster than the speed of light.  Lemonick and Nash in a popular article for Time describe inflation as an “amendment to the original Big Bang” as follows:

“when the universe was less than a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second old, it briefly went through a period of superchanged expansion, ballooning from the size of a proton to the size of a grapefruit (and thus expanding at many, many times the speed of light). Then the expansion slowed to a much more stately pace. Improbable as the theory sounds, it has held up in every observation astronomers have managed to make.”

Inflationary Universe - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/

If the universe underwent an inflationary period at a rate that exceeds the speed of light then the shock-wave of an event occurring within this time would be carried along with the increased expansion.  It would be moving at a speed greater than that of light!  Projecting these light cones backwards through time to their apparent origin before the Big Bang would therefore be incorrect.

I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone that really understands physics will probably be sniggering away now at how foolish I am.  In fact I know a clever chappie who took a degree in Astrophysics but I’m too scared of receiving his scorn to pass this on to him!

I’d love to hear from anyone who can show exactly where my logic took a left turn, so if you can please comment!

In a similar news style to the now infamous (at least in my mind) FaithandtheLaw Blog, I have a piece of cutting edge news….  From 2008.

This is a film first broadcast on the 19^th May 2008 on Channel4 in the UK.  The programme follows some of the leading members of Christian pressure groups as they attempt to win converts and convince MPs to base laws on Biblical beliefs.

It’s quite long – in 4 parts on youtube:

There’s quite a lot of interesting viewpoints here, but the one thing that I want to focus on starts at around 6 mins in when the documentary moves to a “government endorsed faith school”.  I do not have any problems with faith schools, and they are often good schools with a high level of academic achievement.  Indeed I went to a faith school, and look at where I am today…

The schools secretary at the time of making this documentary, Ed Balls later said: “Some concerns have been raised recently about practice in a small minority of independent faith schools and whether they are effectively preparing pupils for life in wider British society.”

My concerns are only raised when the content of all subjects is altered by the institution’s faith.  At my old school we had a few hours a week of CE – Christian Education as well as a daily assembly which included prayers and hymns.  BUT the other subjects were taught without the reliance of the bible as a source text.  The school in this documentary appears not to do so, and in fact the views that they are taught are so far off of those normally taught that I feel that this is indeed a form of child abuse.

Surely deliberately scaring young children is a form of mental abuse.  Have a read of this example from the video:

At 6.25 Teacher:  “Before Jesus came, people who sinned, {clicks fingers} died.  People who disobeyed God turned to a pillar of salt so thank God for Jesus, because we can actually say “Jesus, I’m sorry.  I did something wrong then”, and we don’t have to fear turning into a pillar of salt.  Which really really really happened…”

“Which really really really happened?” Even ignoring the opinion (held by pretty much everybody, including most Christians that this is apocryphal), it isn’t even true in the bible!  One person was transformed. One!  Genesis 19:26.  The Quran disagrees with even this one and has her destroyed with everyone else in the city (Ch 26:160-171).  So, no.  You are wrong either by accident, or by deliberate deceit.

It also appears that this scaremongering tactic, which is similar to many used in religion (for example the Catholic ideas of Hell and purgatory) has been used before on this children as one child immediately pipes up “We don’t also have to get sucked up into the Earth like the Isreal”{ites} Teacher:” They did, there were some Israelites who got sucked up into the ground.  The ground swallowed them up.  And when the Israelites were in the dessert God thought “Oh gosh!  I’m looking after them, and they’re moaning” so he sent snakes to bite them!”  Follow my teaching about God or you will be turned into a pillar of salt, sucked up into the ground and have snakes bite you!  Well, at least she has not told these 6 year olds some of the other things that happen to those who go against God. For example, after murdering all their fathers, all their mothers and brothers that “Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves  (Numbers 31:18).  One assumes for sock darning duty?

And this shows the level of influence that religion has on the education of these children:

6 year old Amy’s science paper:

I have tried to piece together as much of her science paper as possible.  Have a go yourself now!  And remember that this is Science, and not a Religious test…

1. Long ago there (rest of questions and all possible answers unseen)
2. Jesus _____ as God (answers: {unseen}, lives, calls)
3. Long ago there was no _______  (answers: word, God, world)
4. God _____ a beautiful world (answers: says, wanted, holds)
5. God made the world in ____ days (answers: five, six, seven)
6. God made light on day _____ (answers: one, two, three)  END PAGE EVEN
7. God called the light ____ (answers: unseen except Amy’s “Day”)
8. God called the dark time _______ (answers: night, light, might)
9. God made the _____ and clouds on day two (answers: sly, sky, fly)
10. God called the sky (Haven, Heaven, Hell)
11. God made the clouds to _____ water (hold, drink, know)
12. God made the ______ and plants on day three (band, land, sky)
13. God made the _______ on day three (lakes, bakes, rakes)
14. God made the ______ and oceans on day three (seas, sees, ?rats?) END PAGE ODD

And that’s all we see.  There is an instruction after question 14 “Go to the next page” so we know that there are more questions.  The question is how many more?  Well, the whole test paper is visibly very thin, so there cannot be many more questions.  Secondly we hear that she has scored 92%.  A very precise score, and one that mathematically reduces the possible number of questions.

If there were only 14 questions with 13 correct answers then she scores 92.86% which would be rounded up to 93%, or 12 correct equates to 85.71% which agrees with the “Go to the next page” instruction.  Therefore there are more than 14 questions.

If there were 26 questions and little Amy got 24 correct then she scores 92.31%

If there were 25 questions and little Amy got 23 correct then she scores 92.00% Dead on!

If there were 24 questions and little Amy got 22 correct then she scores 91.67%

All of these could be correctly called 92% at two significant figures.  The next series of number of questions that could result in a 2sf percentage of 92% starts at 33 questions.  The problem with this number of questions is that the book looks too thin to accommodate them.  I may be wrong.  It’s hard to tell on a youtube video!  But I feel that is the maximum number possible.  So on a science paper we have seen somewhere between 2/3 and a smidge under half the questions – and my bet is on the 2/3 option.  We don’t know what the other questions were.  They could have been anything – perhaps even something as difficult as name the missing state of matter (A question I heard on a quiz show recently “Liquid, solid and ?”  Hmmm… thought I.  Tricky!  The answer could be – Plasma!   Einstein-Bose Condensate!  Fermionic condensate!  Or indeed perhaps Gas, which was the answer they were looking for (idiots who know nothing about physics!)  However on the evidence provided we have to assume that the questions carried on in the same manner.  Even if they did not however a large part of the marks have been allocated to questions that are nothing at all to do with science.

Ok  So that was a test paper for a 6 year old.  The national curriculum in the UK doesn’t set 6 year olds science papers so perhaps I should back off?  For older children however it does become part of the key stage assessment.  So let’s examine the information given to 14 year old Jessie (8:45 in the film)

08.45  14 yr old Jessie.

“It was very exciting when the first men walked on the moon in 1969.  When scientists eagerly studied the moon soil and moon rocks, they found that the moon appeared to be about 6000 to 10,000 years old.  This was not surprising to scientists who were Christians, because the Bible indicates that the Earth is also somewhere between 6000 and 10,000 years old.  We know that our moon and Earth are about the same age, since God created Earth on the third day and the moon on the forth day of creation.”

So the scientists say that the earth is between 6000 years and 1 day and 10000 years and 1 day old then?  Factious?  Me?

Exactly which scientists say this?  Oh, sorry – “Christian Scientists”…

I’ve undertaken a quick net search but haven’t found any peer reviewed journal articles supporting this view.  The are several web pages that purport to prove the Young Earth idea, like this one for example.

I can’t really be sure what evidence the text book was referring to, but common reasons given for a moon of this age are that

1. the moon “should” according to Young Earth Creationists (YEC) have a layer of moon dust several miles thick
2. that the dirt on the moon does not reveal the amount of soil mixing that would be expected if the moon were very old
3. that the relative abundances of radioactive isotopes in lunar samples indicates a young moon.

These arguments are as old as the hills, and are flawed.  This may indeed be a straw man argument as I cannot be sure of the evidence that this text is referring to, but I can only use the evidence that I can find.

1. The data used to calculate the accumulation of dust was wrong, and therefore the calculation is erroneous.
2. This makes little sense.  The moon is geologically dead and has no atmosphere, so there is no soil movement and therefore no mixing!  Because of this for example, Armstrong’s boot print will effectively be there forever.
3. Yes. The isotopes of uranium and thorium normal discussed are short lived, but are created naturally from radioactive decay of other elements, and are in the expected relative abundances

I have not found any current scientific, peer-reviewed journal articles upholding the YEC view.

The headmaster David Owens (08:05) says that “we are using the bible, even in science, to explain things.  And history shows that using the bible to explain things has got scientists quite far in life.”  And then later (09:30) when asked why the school teaches a young earth model goes on to wonder that the between the arguments that the Earth is young or billions of years old “which has the most credibility”  Let me ponder that for a moment.  On one hand we have a self contradictory bronze age text, and on the other science, with all of it’s evidence making a coherent whole.  It’s certainly a tricky one!

We all teach falsehoods to children.  When my daughter was 8 I taught her the basic Bohr model of the atom, even though I “know” it is wrong!  I learnt it at school as this is what is going on inside an atom…

Until I moved into higher education where I was taught that it was wrong, and that a new explanation is correct…

Which I believed until again I studied at a higher level and found out… etc.  At each stage I was told to forget the previous incorrect model and to use this new “correct” version.  But in the case of my daughter at this age it was close enough for the discussion at hand (which was I think something to do with why water is H20 rather than HO or indeed HO2.  To be honest it went quite well – we even got onto Hydrogen bonding and the amazing effect that it allows – LIFE! At our planetary temperatures!  And the intrinsic beauty of a snow flake – the regular shape occurs because of this bond.  She’s 12 now though (and at one of the top schools in country (proud parent here!)) so it’s probably about time I broached that one again at the next level of complexity.  Or indeed the next level of “lies to children”.

In the book “The Science of Discworld” there is a long discussion of the concept of “lies to children” which it’s self is based on Wittgenstein’s ladder:

“My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.”

We all use these “lies to children” everyday as no one knows everything about everything, or indeed much about anything!  We all use simplifications that approximate fact, but are themselves not entirely true, but work well enough for our needs  The Bohr model above is an example of this.  I have a vague idea of how a petrol engine moves my car, enough for me to do very basic maintenance (like putting petrol and oil in!).  A mechanic knows more about the actual working parts, an engine designer needs to know more about the actual thermodynamics, the chemist for the petrochemical company about the reaction that occurs in the chamber etc.What I know isn’t exactly wrong, but it certainly isn’t the truth.  The Newtonian physics we all learnt at school is not quite the truth – but is close enough for me!  What is important is that we should understand that our vision of the world, and that the models  we use to approximate it, are not necessarily true; just close enough for our needs.

I understand that truth means different things to different people, and that truth itself can be considered to be an abstract concept.  My daughter was recently set an essay for Theology and Philosophy with the title “The Meaning of Truth” and concluded that:

“Each little piece is beautiful, strange and unfathomable. When they are all linked together it will make something amazing. We can never know everything. We will never have all the pieces. We will have to make do with what we have got.”

But the school in the documentary is not exploring all sides of the argument and empowering the children involved to make an informed, reasoned, choice.  This is nothing less than out and out brain washing.  If any “scientist” really thinks that the lunar samples prove a young moon model then they are vastly outnumbered by those that do not, yet the view of this 99% are completely ignored.  There is no discussion of the majority view, or indeed any proof of this skewed point of view, (as Carl Sagan famously said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”).

There is a big difference however, between “lies to children” and providing misleading or wrong information.  By only giving Jessie one side of the argument, and making the inference that this outlandish view is the one held by the scientific community, her education and her future life is detrimentally affected.

Children are programmed to believe what they are told by their elders – their parents and teachers, almost without question.  This is a survival trait.  “Don’t run into the road – you’ll be hurt”, “Don’t stick that fork in the socket – you’ll be hurt”, “Don’t sin – you’ll be turned into a pillar of salt or swallowed by the ground or snakes will bite you”

It is our duty as parents, teachers and elders to responsibly provide the next generation with the best possible opportunities for the future, something which I feel poor Jessie is not receiving.

Something a change of subject here, but it’s something concerns me.

There is a lot of backlash on the internet at the moment about the changes in airport security in the USA implanted by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration).  The same type of x-ray scanner was introduced to Britain’s airports last year are now the primary form of passenger screening at many US airports, however this is not the only option…

Travellers (whether US citizens or foreign nationals) now have to either go through the backscatter scanner (which produces an image of the traveller kinda naked), or undergo an “enhanced” pat-down which includes the travellers groin area.  Even children have to undergo these procedures:

Please note however that all is not quite what it seems, or indeed the video’s title states “Young Boy strip searched by TSA”.  In lukemtait’s words:

“The boy was shy so the TSA couldn’t complete the full pat on the young boy. The father tried several times to just hold the boys arms out for the TSA agent but i guess it didn’t end up being enough for the guy. I was about 30 ft away so i couldn’t hear their conversation if there was any. The enraged father pulled his son shirt off and gave it to the TSA agent to search, thats when this video begins”

A flight attendant was forced by TSA personnel to “remove prosthetic breast and humilitated in full public view”

Then there’s the absurd.  A US soldier coming back from Afghanistan who was carrying a rifle had his nail clippers confiscated as it could be “used as a weapon”

I have not flown to America, and I have never experinced an “enhanced” pat-down, but for some reason I always seem to cop for a normal pat-down at every opportunity in airports, so I know how uncomfortable even that made me.  My flight home from a recent Humanitarian mission involved no less than 7 separate fondlings!  One was  just by a random gun toting security guard not even at a security check point!  I guess I just have the look of someone who is either a terrorist or perhaps is just desperate for some human contact…

The question is – are these checks really necessary?  Is there any proof that this reduces the threat of terrorism?  These checks are also done after the flight at the inbound customs area.  As well as the potentially humiliating issue of having someone look at you in a state of pixelly undress there are also some health concerns.

Or indeed what happens to the images after the event.  Gizmodo has released a video of saved images from a machine in a Florida courthouse.

One person (with plenty of time to spare!) stood up for his rights and refused to go through the scanner or have his groin area included in the pat-down.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat long, story – and it only took him 2.5 hours to go through the security check point!

How many other people would have taken this route though?  Most people lack the in-depth knowledge of the procedures, and their rights, which are requisite to standing up for yourself.  It reminds me of the issues that photographers were having in this country where the confiscation of camera equipment was threatened, photographers arrested, and photos deleted all in the name of prevention of terrorism.

There’s a video of someone refusing to give his details after taking photos here.  He clearly knows the law and his rights.

At my child’s school performance we were told that we were not allowed to take pictures in order to “protect” the children, although one assumes that it is not terrorists that are the potential problem here…

The erosion of our rights worries me.  Surely if we cannot undertake normal activities then the terrorists have achieved their aim of spreading fear and impeding our lives.

Thanks to Slugboy for the heads up on this!

Apparently an evangelical Christian group in Brazil is forbidding its members to use USB technology as its symbol is in fact “a symbol of the devil”.

In case your browser doesn’t translate the page above automatically – here’s the translation according to Google:

The evangelical cult “Peace Beloved of the Lord” in the interior of Brazil forbids its followers to use any USB technology by contending that it uses a symbol that makes apology to the devil.

According to its founder, the Apostle “Welder Saldanha says that this is just a symbol of Satan, is always present in all Christian homes.

“The symbol of what (name even he likes to say) is a trident, which is used to torture souls go to hell. Use only a symbol of those shows that all users of this technology pífia are actually worshipers of Satan “- explains the “Apostle.”

Measures were taken so that all the USB connections of his followers were exchanged for common connections and even the Bluetooth (sic), which according to Saldanha Welder is permitted, as ”Blue was the colour of the eyes of our saviour Jesus Christ”.

Lets have a look at the offending symbol:

The idea is that this represents The Devil’s Trident.

It’s good to see that the Health and Safety Regulations are being implemented even in Hell as we can see from the two blunted tines of the fork.  Research has shown this to greatly reduce the number of accidental prongings in those surrounding the intended prongee.

One can only assume that they also forgo desserts as dessert forks only have three tines as any well-educated Englishman would tell you…

Nah.  I’m not that desperate for new readers that I’m gonna introduce each and everyone that comes here!  (although if you’ve got 15 seconds we could if you want to?)

I just found out a couple of days back that I’ve got an important new subscriber! Woo!

Maybe somebody in the media wanting to syndicate this blog?

Perhaps a prominent blogger looking for a new outlook on atheism?

Perhaps even (bows head, touches forelock, rolls left trouser leg up and applies cilice ) someone from the RDF?

Nah.

It’s me Mam!

“Hi MUM!”

I really shouldn’t have been surprised.  I linked this to one of my other blogs, plus I’m not hiding this at all, and so it is findable in many ways… but I was still shocked.  A thought went through my head – “have I said anything… bad?”  I’m an adult but you never stop being a child in the eyes of your parents…

I knew that she’d seen it (a comment gave it away!) – but then I went home and was brought to one side.  She was a little worried about some of the specifics I’d written about.  I’ve gone over the offending pages and…

well I don’t know.

I think that everything I’ve said is internally justified.  I could be wrong.  Yes.  Taken as a quote out of context then somethings may be wrong – but if you look at it a whole then not so much!  I hope that my (very few readers!) took these comments in the tongue in cheek manner in which they were spoken, or that they were made to make a point.

Now the question is… Do I continue here?

Am I ashamed of this blog?

Well no.  I’m not.  This is me.  This is what I believe.  This is what I think.  THIS IS ME!

Ok so sometimes I go off on an odd angle…  Would I have written the beaver gags knowing that this was going to be read by my Mum?  No.  But I stick by the fact that I thought it was funny!

I thought about abandoning this blog and starting anew – but how can I disappoint the loyal readers (all 3 of you!)?

Thinking about it – it all comes down to integrity…  Am I happy to stand up in front of my parents and say what I say here?

Yep.

But…

Apologies for the snatch gags, Mum…

It’s been a while.  Apologies to both of my readers… (Although I think that there may now be three of you! Woo!  More in the next post…  I’ve just read Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol and so now really understand how a narrative hook works – plus how obnoxious, irritating and pretentious it is…)

Thought I’d ease myself back in by slipping a little Fry in… (stop sniggering at the back Jenkins!) (I’m a bit surprised that this is how he announced his up and coming sex change – read the line on the vid tag – Stepheny?)

Love the quoted misuse of statistics at around 15.30 onwards.  The inferred idea is that the population who may have need of the use of a condom correlates to the same population that have a higher chance of catching an STD.  Or to put it another way – people that don’t have sex have less chance…  This type of false correlation occurs almost daily in the media…  It reminds me of the FSM argument that increasing global warming is due to a decreasing number of pirates…

Temperature rises as number of pirates decreases...

This is off topic from where I was originally going to go, (I’m trying a new organic writing style) but it is no wonder that in this day and age people don’t understand basic science when it is so often so poorly reported in the media.  In several posts below I’ve mentioned that people don’t understand science, but I’m not surprised when things like the statement “70% of the world is made of water” {quote from a BBC news report on TV this morning} are stated on national TV.  ”NO!”  (I shouted at the coffee room TV!) “70% of the Earths surface is water – it’s only 0.023% of the mass!  Morons!”

Yes. “70% of the world is water.”

“Evolution means that we were created in a chance event similar to a 747 being made from a whirlwind in a junkyard.”

“Evolution shows we are descended from monkeys.”

” There’s no such thing as half an eye.”

“You can’t get matter from a vacuum.”

“The bible provides a moral code to live by”

“Global warming is due to a decreasing number of pirates…”

It’s all the same…

I went to a colleagues leaving do the other night and he was amazed at the turn out, (unfortunately (or indeed fortunately, depending on your view) most of the people had gathered together for some other reason.)  This guy was overcome by the turnout and by the gifts he received (an engraved glass, a bottle of £50 whiskey and some cash).  Afterwards he came up to me and said:

“I know it’s not your thing, but I’ll have a mass said for you”

He’s saying a mass for me!  I didn’t laugh, I didn’t shout, or indeed slap him down in any way but just said:

“Umm.. thanks”.  Looking back I’m not sure if this was the right thing to do.  If I was a muslim, or a sikh then this would have probably be considered to be offensive religious intolerance. 

Why should I, as an atheist, feel that I have to not rock the boat in public?  Is it that I have been brought up to be respectful towards others?  Is it that I’m subconsciously ashamed of my lack of belief in a particular God?  (famous atheist line here – “you don’t believe in Zeus, Thor, Anu, Odin, Mars, Epona etc., I just don’t believe in one more than you.”)  Is it that I am in fact a nice guy and don’t want to offend anyone, especially on “their” leaving do?

I can’t link it so you’ll just have to click! http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Harry_Shearer/Deaf_Boys/HarryShearerDeafBoys_4878.aspx

It’s a song response to Father Murphy who reportedly abused up to 200 deaf children.

But just look at the quality of the video.  As an amateur film-maker myself I’m jealous.  Of the film.  Not abusing 200 vulnerable children.  Just to be clear…

Faithandthelaw commented on his page about my post.

For fairness I thought I’d copy them here, plus my response.

Hey Jugglinbob,

I realized the post was about a camp last year but the purpose of posting it was to raise awareness that atheists are proselytizing and indoctrinating children and teenagers to atheism. Sorry about the present tense. I will try harder next time. Although I think your reaction was a little over the top for a Brit. Thought the Brits were always cool-headed in the face of opposition and controversy. Churchillesque if that is a word.

I guess from your post that maybe the turnout was a little low as I assume Dawkins is not doing it again this summer. I let my Richard Dawkins monthly newsletter lapse so I was not current on his events. Although it is hard to fight against God and ever expect you can win.

I do like the one church of England response.

Thanks for your post as I always love hearing from our atheist friends. I will respond to your evolution comments later this week.

Faith and the Law Blog

 and my comment:

Thanks for your response.

I did understand your reasons for posting, but still stick with the fact that the majority of youth camps have some form of theistic leaning, so the fact that you are raising “awareness that atheists are proselytizing and indoctrinating children and teenagers to atheism” doesn’t really make any sense, as far more religious groups are “proselytizing and indoctrinating children and teenagers” by their use of camps.  I hope that you’ll address this fact in a future post.

As to my reaction – it mainly came from the fact that you reported (or at least copied and pasted a report) which misleadingly gave the impression that this was current news.  If you did know, as you have now stated, that this was a piece from last year then why didn’t you say so in the original post?  A quick header saying “found this about something that happened 11 months ago” before copy and pasting would have sufficed.  But you did not.  You reported this as NEWS.  OK enough said on that one – I think that you were deliberately misleading in your post, whilst you don’t seem to think that the 11 month gap was important…

However, I’m not sure where the bit about “I guess from your post that maybe the turnout was a little low as I assume Dawkins is not doing it again this summer” came from, (especially as Dawkins never “did it” in the first place!)  I’m sure that you’ll be glad to hear that it seems that it was indeed a success, as instead of one camp, like last year, that in fact TWO camps are being held in the UK! (http://www.camp-quest.org.uk/).  Mathematically, it’s growing at an exponential rate! {EDIT:  And both are sold out by the way! /EDIT}

I do however have some concerns about these camps…  mainly that the only children who would go to such a camp would be children of atheist parents, whilst I firmly believe that this sort of teaching should be given BY LAW to all children.  Give them the intellectual tools, ability, and opportunity to evaluate their beliefs, and then, and in fact, ONLY then, are they able to make an informed choice about their chosen religion or indeed, lack of one.  I agree with the sentiment and subtext of your copied post – indoctrination of minors is wrong, and immoral.  Giving minors the ability to decide (both intellectually and morally) about their religious belief has to be the only ethical way – and this is the aim of these camps.  I’m sure that you’ll agree with me here if your stated sentiments were honest. 

I wish that I’d been given this choice as a child, and it is one that I have given my own daughter, (who at the moment is some form of Christian, yet still understands that the bible is not necessarily accurate or true, but gives her some guidance about how to live her life)

I look forward to your comments about this, and about the evolution points I raised elsewhere.

Take care, Bob

I find it interesting that he “knew” that this wasn’t news (which is what peeved me originally) but thought that it wasn’t important…

And I really am interested in his response to this and the evolution comments!  Though I think mainly the evolution one will end up  with me saying “At least try to find out what Darwinian evolution actually is, and is not.”  Any takers on that bet?

I’ve just found out that someone found my blog by searching for:

“sadistic woman raping killing”

Oh!  Ermm…  Not sure how that happened…  I certainly haven’t written those words in that particular order!  I think it may have been this.

I’m thinking that it’s a bit like the magazine “Canada’s History“, which recently had to change it’s name from “The Beaver” as it was getting a large number of hits, the majority of which stayed on the site for less than 3 seconds… 

But I could be on to something here!  I have a naked wet Beaver photo above that might help…   I’m wondering what other post topics to write about to try and get more traffic?  

Perhaps something about cocks and peahens, or

glove-swimming and muff-diving,

or possibly a piece about…

a Scandinavian Seafood fast-food joint delivering food whilst folk dancing in a Bavarian style to hard to reach residences…

 entitled:

Swedish Clam-lapper Slappers taking it up the Back-alley.

Ahem.  Soz.

EDIT: I forgot to add the tags!  Silly old Bob, I won’t get the hits without the tags!  There.  That should do the trick!

Via (what is becoming an old favorite) Faithandthelaw’s Blog I came across this post.

Richard Dawkins Proves God Exists – by Mistake

In which he quotes Dawkins:

You often find people who say, well, evolution is a theory of chance, in the absence of a designer. If it really were a theory of chance, of course they would be right to dismiss it as nonsense. No chance process could give rise to the prodigy of organized complexity that is the living world. But it’s not random chance. Natural selection is the exact opposite of a chance process.

and then goes on to prove how this Dawkins has just proved that God exists!

Dawkins states evolution isn’t a random, chance process — in other words it contains information. And information is non-random and (gasp!) designed. For example, if a computer programmer only bangs on the keyboard randomly, no program would ever exist. But by non-random inputs of information, the programmer creates computer software…

Either evolution follows random chance occurrences (in which case Dawkins admits it’s absurd), or it’s non-random which implies a designer — some outside force pushing it along. You can call it god, the “force”, or whatever you want, but Richard Dawkins admits something designed life. You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Dawkins. Either evolution is random (and thus absurd), or it’s not and some “god” designed and guided it. Which is it?

IT’S NATURAL SELECTION YOU IDIOT!  IT’S IN THE QUOTE.  EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM! IT’S A NON-RANDOM SELECTION.  DON’T TALK ABOUT EVOLUTION IF YOU CLEARLY HAVEN’T BOTHERED TO EVEN LOOK UP WHAT IT MEANS.

AND YES! I was shouting.  Hence why I’ve got to go now and have a lie down…

Sorry.

“Don’t be Deceived: Evolution Can Never Explain the Beginnings of the Universe”

I thought I’d look through some other posts by the above mentioned Blogger.

Oh dear.

There’s a post titled

It’s worth reading it in full, but I take no responsibility for any damage caused by throwing something at your screen…

In case you don’t want to risk damaging anything, I’ll summarise.

I hope you are sitting down though as this could be a shock – especially if you liked evolution as much as I did before reading this piece…

Evolution cannot and does not explain how the universe came to be.  It doesn’t explain the complexity of the universe.  It doesn’t even (sob…  sniffle…) bother to explain how life first occurred and so isn’t science!   Whah!  Sob!  Sniffle!  (I need a bosom to cry on if anyone’s available.  No.  Not you.  I was thinking of a female one – but thanx for the offer anyhow…)

How can I carry on?  How did I not see that this proves that evolution is false?  My life is ov… Hang on!  Sorry, say again? It doesn’t do what?  It doesn’t explain things that it didn’t try to?  By the same logic, maybe I should get rid of my car because of it’s lack of ability to microwave pigeons?

Yep that’s right.  Evolution is not a science, as it has no “foundation“.  Hmm…

If overwhelming evidence and support for evolution proves it as fact, someone should be able to supply peer-reviewed, experimental data for the following (after all, evolution can’t begin, let alone complete, unless all four are true). We’ll give a tongue-in-cheek summary of the theory of beginnings and evolution, and then in parentheses give the scientific principle requiring experimental data.

1. First there was nothing (matter comes from nothing).
2. And then it exploded (explosions produce order. Mythbusters would have fun with this one).
3. From the goo, to the zoo (abiogenesis — life comes from non-life. Another one for Mythbusters).
4. To you (new species evolve from mutations).

Here’s what I said -  Maybe too harsh?  You decide loyal readers (yep – both of you!)

I felt that the information provided in evolutionary data1 DID provide some scientific evidence, but this may be because I actually have some scientific knowledge.  You have shown that you do not by your “tongue-in-cheek summary of the theory of beginnings and evolution”

Let’s take this one by one:

1.First there was nothing (matter comes from nothing).

Yep.  Interesting implied question, but this isn’t evolution though.  Darwinian Evolution is the accumulative non-random selection of random changes, which results in a heritable change in a population.  Talking about the beginning of the universe is outside of the scope of ANY discussion on evolution, and belongs to physics one (or perhaps metaphysics?)

2.And then it exploded (explosions produce order. Mythbusters would have fun with this one). 

Ermm.  See above!

3.From the goo, to the zoo (abiogenesis — life comes from non-life. Another one for Mythbusters). 

And again – see above!  Any form of Darwinian Evolution does not try to explain abiogenesis.  This is possibly a chemistry discussion, but is certainly not evolution.  Evolution explains the diversity of life ONCE IT HAS BEGUN!  The only sorts of people who think that evolution is to do with these three points are the sorts that say “evolution is like a hurricane going through a junk yard and creating a working 747!”  (I realise that this is an Ad Hominem attack, and REALLY hope that you do not equate evolution to chance events as that really is laughable…)

4.To you (new species evolve from mutations).

Woo!  We got there!  Yep!  That’s evolution.  The others – nope!  And wow! the in-depth scientific proof of evolution is so overwhelming now, with fossils, DNA analysis, the distribution of similar life, and even lab work (for example Lenski (try http://thebobdelusion.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/intelligent-design-equates-kitten-growth-to-evolution/ for a primer on how an ID proponent tried to discredit his amazing work).  Evolution has been proved again, and again, and again.  Once presented with the facts (which are easily available online if you bother to look!) I think that it would be difficult for any rational person to disagree. 

However the points 1 to 3 raised are more interesting although science is making inroads into these as well.  There’s a great video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo) which is worth spending an hour watching.

Your whole concept that evolution has no foundation because of the questions still remaining in points 1 to 3 makes no sense whatsoever, especially as evolution has never tried to answer these points!  It has the same validity as me saying that the bible is false because you don’t (nor indeed do I) understand the chemistry needed to formulate the ink it is printed with. 

If you are going to attack evolution as a non-scientific theory, then do so using science, but to set up an elaborate, (and to be honest I think deliberate) straw-man in order to do it is (to me anyhow) both offensive and humorous. 

Maybe I’m being to harsh, and it is indeed the fact that you don’t understand what the scientific theory of evolution is actually about – in which case I apologise, and hope that you now use some of these thoughts to explore evolution in more depth.  It is beautiful, it is amazing.  It’s a fact!

It’s science! 

I’m not sure whether I should continue exploring this idiot/undereducated’s blog – I’m not sure my heart can take the strain!  But it’s fun – and they say you should try to get your heart racing everyday (and I’m trying to cut back on porn…)

Just wandering around in Blogland and came across todays post (well tomorrow’s actually because of nature’s amazing time travel ability by time zone!) Faithandthelaw’s Blog, in which we learn that Dawkins is setting up an atheist camp!  The piece is written in present and future tenses – which is a little odd as this happened almost a year ago, and was reported in the Times, the Beeb, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Guardian, and various others.

From these other (possibly more reliable?) sources we also learn that Dawkins is not (or more factually, was not) “setting up” this camp, but rather that he merely supported the idea.

All the way through Faithandthelaw’s post this is presented as news, even though that site links to one of the papers above, and therefore must have been aware that this was a year ago.  It’s not just this deliberate misrepresentation that offends me though, it’s the overall tone and misrepresentation of facts.

“Dawkins has spent his personal credibility on a project to put atheistic messages on London buses“   Did he now?  Again, I thought that he merely supported a campaign set up by the British Humanist Association.  I have in my past supported Comic Relief, Children in Need, Help for Heros, etc etc.  Am I now able to add to my CV that I set these up? 

My comment on that part of the post:

As to the bus campaign – as a Brit I can confirm that it was a success.  It prompted debates both at nation level in the media and at the “water-cooler” level (as you Yanks might say) in the workplace.  This is what the whole campaign was meant to do! 

However, I did like the come-back that one Church of England group came up with.  They paid for signs at bus stops (in the same font and style) stating “There’s probably no bus”.

{EDIT:  Whilst looking for this image I have found out some bad news.  It’s fake.  Boo!  But from a B3ta member! (Hedgehog from Hell to be exact) Yay!  To be honest as soon as I saw it I thought Photoshop, and then remembered seeing it on b3ta.com.  So, my bad.  Sorry.  Although a quick funny story here – one blog linked the image from where he found it, rather than the (IMHO) more intellegent and safe method of downloading and uploading it afresh…  The problem was, that as so often happens with the work of B3ta members, it was nicked.  By the Daily Mail.  Who put it on their site without credit.  So Hedgehog from Hell changed the linked image.  And if you know B3ta - you KNOW what image that probably was.  And you’d be right.  There may be no God, or indeed bus, but there was an image of a man’s {censored} with his{censored} in {censored}.  And in deep, too.  This image has stayed with me since I first saw it anyhow, but after application of some neat H2SO4 my eyes are ok now.  Ish.{/EDIT}

And then we get to the good bit!  Faithandthelaws Blog:

At a deeper level, the existence of this camp in Great Britain and its sister camps in the United States indicates something of the intellectual insecurity of contemporary atheism and agnosticism.

Resulted in my comment:

The fact that this item became news a year ago indicates that it is unusual for a camp to have no theistic leanings. If setting up ONE atheist camp in the UK shows the intellectual insecurity of atheism, then how insecure must the theists be, as they have hundreds of camps? Surely it must be proportional? Or not, in which case your argument is proved invalid.

Please note, that this camp was organised NOT to teach atheism, but rather to teach basic philosophy, and empowering children to decide for themselves!
Perhaps is it OK to indoctrinate children at camp TOWARDS a religious belief, whilst teaching them the tools to make up their own minds is wrong?

I am concerned about your logic here!

As well as being concerned about the lack of honesty that Faithandthelaw’s post demonstrated…