Science « quietAtheist

Simon Singh wins libel court battle

By Slugsie, on April 1st, 2010

Science writer Simon Singh has today won his appeal against the libel action brought by the British Chiropractic Association.

Full details here.

*UPDATE*

I was slightly overzealous with the celebrations above. What Simon has won is the right to use his argument that his statements were opinion, something that should be protected under freedom of [...]

Intelligent Design, or Plagiarism?

By Slugsie, on February 17th, 2010

I was just watching this funny Youtube video when my mind wandered a little and a few random thoughts connected themselves.

[...]

Intelligent Design video dissected

By Slugsie, on January 31st, 2010

A few days ago I stumbled upon a web site which linked a video titled “The Scientific Case for Intelligent Design – Darwinism Debunked“. I didn’t have the time to watch it then so I put the link aside. Today I had a quiet afternoon and so I watched it. Below are my notes dissecting the [...]

Anthropogenic Global Climate Change

By Slugsie, on December 24th, 2009

I’ve been trying to decide if I should post something about Global Warming (or Anthropogenic Global Climate Change AGCC – my preferred moniker) for a while now. Following a couple of posts by leading sceptic James Randi (see here and here) which cause a little bit of a storm amongst the sceptic community I thought [...]

Creationism in UK education

By Slugsie, on November 2nd, 2009

According to this Poll, 54% of UK Adults support the teaching of Creationism alongside Evolution in science classes! GAH! [...]

Science is Fascism

By Slugsie, on October 13th, 2009

Pretty much sums up how I felt after watching the recent Bill O’Reilly interview of Richard Dawkins.

How Richard Dawkins manages to stay calm and collected whilst being interviewed by these wing-nuts I’ll never know. I wouldn’t succeed.

Today is International Blasphemy Day

By Slugsie, on September 30th, 2009

As you may, or may not, be aware, today is International Blasphemy Day, and to that end, here is my little bit of Blasphemy… (edit: and dreadful comma abuse, sorry)

[...]

Breaking the Laws of Physics?

By Slugsie, on September 29th, 2009

It’s quite common for Creotards and IDiots to argue that certain scientific theories break certain laws of physics. It’s an interesting attempt at an argument, using science to disprove science! [...]

Simons Singhs article on Chiropractic

By Slugsie, on August 10th, 2009

I know I’m a bit late with this, but I was on holiday and not keeping up with the blogging world (yes, it is possible ). Anyway, here is a copy of Simons article that got him in trouble. Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh. [...]

Inside Natures Giants

By Slugsie, on July 21st, 2009

I’ve been watching Channel 4′s Inside Natures Giants. It’s a fascinating series where a team of experts dissect some of the largest creatures on the planet. They have tackled a Whale, and Elephant, a Crocodile, and a Giraffe. The dissections were all undertaken primarily to understand why the particular individual animal died, but it also [...]

Evolution Test

By Slugsie, on July 9th, 2009

Over at the Missing Universe Museum website (another Creation/ID website that can provide many many hours of entertainment) they have created an little Evolution Test which they propose students give to teachers to see how they react. As you can probably already imagine, the test is rather silly, and the questions posed are almost entirely rediculous. However I (as a non educator and non scientist) shall attempt to provide at least reasonably accurate answers. [...]

Always check the numbers

By Slugsie, on June 24th, 2009

The current Swine Flu epidemic has prompted the company I work for to install little bottles of alcohol based hand sanitisers everywhere. I quickly scanned the label on one today and noticed it claims to kill 99.999% of all bacteria. That sounds impressive, but it made me think, what exactly does that mean. [...]

People are sheep

By Slugsie, on June 16th, 2009

The average human being is a simple creature. They go about their daily lives, obeying the law, obeying any commands given to them by authoritative figures, and obeying signs and notices all over the place. So it was that a week or so ago in the kitchen of my place of work (I work for a large US based international IT company with offices in most countries) a cardboard box appeared, with a note attached requesting that milk bottle lids be left therein. No further information was given at all. Being the human sheep (sheople?) that we all are, milk bottle tops began to appear in the box. [...]

Does religion have greater “epistemic authority” than science in some areas?

By Slugsie, on June 15th, 2009

Take a look at this article by Tom Clark at Naturalism.org; it’s about the misguided notion that in some areas faith can give us genuine answers to questions before which science is impotent. This is the NOMA (”nonoverlapping magisteria”) refrain that we hear constantly from organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, the National Center [...]

The Height of Space