Battle Kangaroo. RSS

Watch out

Archive

Jun
19th
Sat
permalink
Comments (View)
Jun
18th
Fri
permalink

To deny or erase the rich, colorful history of scientists and other thinkers who have invoked divinity in their work would be intellectually dishonest. Surely there’s an appropriate place for intelligent design to live in the academic landscape. How about the history of religion? How about philosophy or psychology? The one place it doesn’t belong is the science classroom

If you’re not swayed by academic arguments, consider the financial consequences. Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery- the frontier that drives the economies of the future- would be incalculable. I don’t want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don’t understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don’t understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson in Death By Black Hole
Comments (View)
Apr
30th
Fri
permalink

Oh, Elvis…

Comments (View)
permalink
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins“The Root of All Evil”, UK Channel 4, 2006
British ethologist, geneticist, & popularizer of genetics (1941 - )
Comments (View)
Apr
29th
Thu
permalink
Comments (View)
permalink

Michael Shermer on strange beliefs 

Comments (View)
permalink
Comments (View)
permalink
You can say that a miracle occurs… but that doesn’t explain anything.

via www.codingconundrums.com

You can say that a miracle occurs… but that doesn’t explain anything.

via www.codingconundrums.com

Comments (View)
Apr
21st
Wed
permalink

Moral Compass?

Lot, speaking to mob in Sodom:

“I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.  Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof” (Genesis 19:7-8)

Levite, speaking to mob in Gibeah:

“Nay, my brethren, nay, I mine house do not folly.  Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you; but unto this man do not so vile a thing” (Judges 19:23-4)

Why is the raping of women such an acceptable, and even encouraged, collateral to protect men in the bible?  I would think that “Thou shall not rape or abuse women and children” would have made the top 10 list, perhaps ahead of keeping the sabbath or the pronouncement of a god who would have such a petty human emotion as jealousy. 

Comments (View)
Apr
15th
Thu
permalink
Comments (View)
permalink

Fear of Science Will Kill Us

Comments (View)
Apr
14th
Wed
permalink

Evolution is a fact,

Beyond reasonable doubt

Beyond serious doubt

Beyond sane, intelligent, informed doubt

Beyond doubt,

Evolution is a fact

Comments (View)
permalink

Only Carl Sagan can turn a discussion of dimensions into and Allegory of the Cave-esk narrative. 

Comments (View)
Apr
13th
Tue
permalink

“The public, it appears,seems to have this burning need to have an answer to what is unknown.  And so you go from an abject statement of ignorance, to an abject statement of certainty” - Neil DeGrasse Tyson 

Comments (View)
permalink
Comments (View)