Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
An international team of astronomers has used a new technique to study the bright disc of matter surrounding a faraway black hole. Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, combined with the gravitational lensing effect of stars in a distant galaxy, the team measured the disc’s size and studied the colors (and hence the temperatures) of … Read more
Vasko Kohlmayer has written an article in the Washington Post in which he claims that nobody can really be an atheist and that anybody who claims they are is being intellectually inconsistent and also partial to cognitive dissonance. OK, lets take a look at what he wrote. According to the dictionary, an atheist is “one … Read more
This is a bit out of date, I just happened to stumble across it here in the Washington Post and thought that it was simply hilarious. Westboro Baptist did their usual attention seeking thing, I have visions of them all gathered around and muttering, “Oh look, somebody famous has died, lets go protest“. These are … Read more
In all variations of belief and non-belief you will find some truly eccentric individuals who spout outrageous ideas. While they can all indeed be mocked and ridiculed, most can also be safely ignored. However, when community leaders, politicians, or clerics take up the mantle of insanity, then it is time to truly worry, not just … Read more
I blogged a couple of days ago about the challenge presented to supposedly Psychic Sally Morgan, and suggested that she would be a no-show. Hey guess what … (now deploy your very best guess) … yep, she ducked out, apparently too busy. Ian Sample has an update for us in the Guardian today, … Morgan’s … Read more
Because I experienced a religious conversion as a teenager, then later in life changed my mind about it all, I’m able to look back and consider what really happens during such a conversion. If asked during my time as a believer, I would have claimed that it was not simply a personal choice, but was … Read more