Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
First, just for completeness, here is a quick definition. The term “Echo Chamber” is a reference to the idea that people are increasingly being only exposed to the ideas that they agree with, and don’t hear the arguments of those with whom they do not agree. The net effect is that we become more polarised. … Read more
Comedian Michelle Wolf delivered a glorious standup routine at the annual Whitehouse Correspondent’s dinner. You most probably heard that she did this, and perhaps also picked up a few snippets from it. It is simply too good to let it slip by without underlining it, and so here it is in full. (Video and also … Read more
To the outsider looking in, a system of belief can appear to be one huge collective with some minor variations, but more or less the same. It may in fact be very tempting to view all those with a belief in god as one unified group. In reality, the degree of fragmentation tends to be … Read more
This posting is a regular one where I put up a list of Weird Religious News that has popped up during the past seven day. Religious belief is generally accepted by most without giving it too much thought. It is simply part of a cultural inheritance. Most who believe tend to be decent honourable people … Read more
Whenever something dramatic happens, for example 9/11 or a school shooting, you are more or less guaranteed to find somebody popping up to explain that it is all part of some plot, and that behind this event there are puppet masters pulling the strings manipulating events. It’s supposedly a conspiracy of epic proportions. The Puppet … Read more
Mammal extinction is not simply something from the dim and distant past. In 1680 Sir Ewen Cameron killed the last Scottish Wolf in Killiecrankie (Perthshire). In 1786, the last wolf was killed in Ireland. So what other mammals once existed in the British Isles and when did they go extinct? Here is a brief list (culled from here) … Read more