Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
So I attended a great talk last night that took place at Reading Skeptics in the Pub by Matt Parker, a mathematician, stand-up comedian, and skeptic. It sounded fun, and even if the maths went zooming over the heads of all, the standup comedy would still make it worth attending. It was indeed great fun, and Matt … Read more
In response to various stories that criticise belief I’ve seen the moral argument pop up. For example, David Quinn writes in the Irish Independent a response to Stephen Fry’s observation that the God of the bible is quite immoral.. But matter cannot produce a moral law. It cannot produce ‘justice’. If matter and its emanations … Read more
Today’s BBC Big Questions has three – ‘Are the rich paying their fair share?’, ‘Should the NHS fund homeopathy?’ and ‘Are women taking over religion?’ Oh this is easy … “No”, “No”, and “Nobody cares (except a few religious folks)”, ah but getting there will be fun, because as I start to write this prior … Read more
Freedom of speech is a rather important right, and while it is quite easy to support the concept when it is manifesting itself as criticism of ideas we oppose (drawing Mohammed for example), what happens when we are faced with the promotion of things that we find to be highly offensive and utterly absurd – … Read more
Harriet Hall, the skeptic-doc, writes over on Science Based Medicine a fabulous article all about why people ignore the facts and instead buy into absurd ideas when it comes to making decisions that can potentially be the wrong side of the line between life and death. (Side note: she is a fascinating person, not only is she … Read more
Now this is interesting, it’s a TED talk, but in a format I’ve never seen before – they have animated it, and also it is a duo, not a single individual. The TED site describes it as follows … In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally … Read more