Monday, December 31, 2007

Human history in 60 seconds

Happy New Year!For the new year, here is Professor Alan Charles Kors summarizing the entire human history in 60 seconds - hmm...this is the most efficient way of learning history. (On a longer timescale, Alan Charles Kors has done an excellent Teaching Company course titled, The Birth of the Modern...

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Lawrence Krauss on Science & Religion and more

Point of Inquiry has a new podcast with physicist Lawrence Krauss. The first half of the interview deals with politics, science, and science communication. The second half focuses on science & religion and Krauss talks about strategies in this debate and the benefits of having Richard Dawkins stirring...

Saturday, December 29, 2007

This is your brain on Faith

This is interesting but the study, most likely, would not have made it to Time magazine without Sam Harris. But this is good stuff:Sam Harris is best known for his barn-burning 2004 attack on religion, The End of Faith, which spent 33 weeks on the New York Times best-seller List. The book's sequel,...

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Off-Topic: Uncertainty in Pakistan after Bhutto Assassination

What insanity! This is one way to ensure more chaos in Pakistan. It is still way too early to say how things will go - but the choices are between terribly bad and very bad. Here are couple of articles related to Bhutto's assassination and some quick political commentaries:About the Assassination: Bhutto...

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Nano-Bible, failed resurrection, and the four horsemen

Three things on Christmas (in declining religious reverence):In Israel, scientists have succeeded in writing a version of the Bible on a chip smaller than a pinhead. Now they are working on a machine to shrink people to a size where they can read this nano-Bible comfortably. Ok...so ignore the second...

Following Darwin's footsteps to paradise

New York Times has a nice Travel piece on the Galapagos Islands: Sailing Toward Paradise.The Galápagos have served as a laboratory for life ever since they bubbled up above the ocean’s surface more than five million years ago. Today there are 13 main islands, and the newest are still being created by...

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Conversion, He Wrote.

It was big news that a prominent atheist and philosopher (or should I say an atheist philosopher?), Anthony Flew had found God after decades of not finding Her/Him/It. Then the story got a bit complicated. Here is a review of Anthony Flew's new book (or is it Anthony Flew's new book??), There is a God:...

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Do you have any questions for the Al-Qaeda leadership?

If you do, please send a "brief and focused" question addressed to Al-Zawahri, and he will respond ASAP. huh??(and please be "brief and focused" ... you really don't want to upset this guy...)From Faithworld at Reuters:Al Qaeda’s second-in- command Ayman al-Zawahri will take questions from around the...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Darwin on stage - "Trumpery"

A play about Darwin has recently premiered in New York and its getting good reviews (time for a Darwin biopic??). The play, Trumpery, starts with Darwin being pushed into publishing his Origin of Species for the fear of being scooped by Alfred Russell Wallace:Given the furor he feared it would unleash,...

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Christian God wins the (Intelligent) Design derby

Intelligent Design (ID) proponents used to avoid directly invoking God as the Designer (though it was always presumed). Well not any more. In addition, it turns out the Designer is not just any God, but the Christian God. Here is Bill Dembski, one of the leading ID proponents, talking about his new...

Friday, December 14, 2007

God out to get Shalom Auslander

Shalom Auslander has a memoir out titled, Foreskin's Lament, and it is on my Christmas reading list (a perfect time to read it). He is very funny (he had an excellent article in January 2007 New Yorker and here is a link to his Fresh Air interview) and his memoir seems to be quite perceptive regarding...

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Saving lives from cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh

Science (Dec 7) has a short piece on Hassan Mashriqui, whose calculations helped save lives from the recent cyclone, Sidr.Mashriqui studies how hurricanes blow water onto the shore and has adapted his model for Bangladesh. So on 13 November, just 2 days before Sidr made landfall, Mashriqui requested...

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Portions of Baghdad museum now open - but is it a smart move?

The Baghdad museum was open for a few hours yesterday to some journalists and local politicians, and there are plans to open two of its 16 galleries soon. From The New York Times:The museum still houses hulking centuries-old statues and intricately patterned stone panels, items too heavy for plunderers...

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Vaccinations, faith and science

There has been an idiotic campaign against polio vaccination in some parts of the Muslim world, and against Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) in some developed countries. Here is an article in The Independent on the subject:But today, some of the followers of faith-based thinking are waging a global war on vaccinations. At the turn of the 21st century, the WHO's vaccination programme was on the brink...

Sunday, December 09, 2007

No Scientology for Germany

Germany is planning to ban Scientology in the country because of its "cult-like" practices. From a BBC news story:Germany's federal and state interior ministers have declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, clearing the way for a possible ban. The ministers have asked Germany's domestic...

Evolutionary firing

So a biologist, who does not believe in evolution, was fired from a project that dealt directly with evolutionary biology. This should be a logical thing. However, now he has filed a lawsuit claiming that he was dismissed for his Christian beliefs. Details are below.Nathaniel Abraham filed a lawsuit earlier this week in US District Court in Boston saying that the Cape Cod research center dismissed...

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Freedom, religion and Romney's nonsense

This is not directly related to science & religion, but the separation of church and state indeed impacts a number of issues at the intersection of science & religion. So here is Keith Olbermann's wonderful take on Mitt Romney's religion speech which included the claim that "freedom requires religion":And here is New York Times editorial from yesterday on the subject: The Crisis of Fai...

Friday, December 07, 2007

God facing more legal issues

It seems that God (or gods) has more legal issues to worry about. In September a senator from Nebraska filed a lawsuit against God for making threats to people and causing earthquakes and floods. Now a judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to resolve a property dispute:Judge Sunil...

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Not just good...but excellent! However, only astronomers will be able to appreciate the true geekiness of this. I've had my share of cloudy/rainy/snowy observing runs at telescopes, but now I know how to spend that time constructively - make a video and upload it on Youtube. This is a job very well done! Enjoy Hotel Mauna Kea. (tip from Dynamics of Cats)Not just bad...but dumb. Now this is the same...

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Mess in Texas

Yes, Texas is finally on the proper ID-evolution controversy map. Yesterday, NYT reported on the firing of Texas Education Agency's director of science, Christine Comer. And the grounds for her dismissal? Forwarding an e-mail to the local community about a talk by Barabara Forrest, a philosopher and...

Monday, December 03, 2007

US$20 million for assessing quality of Arab universities

This is a wise move:The universities of the Arab world will receive a thorough check-up by education specialists from the United Nations Development Programme in a joint venture with the largest private foundation in the Arab world.The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the UNDP will spend US$20 million over the next five years on the project. A note from the UN agency said it would undertake...

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Doubt: A lecture by Jennifer Michael Hecht

As part of Science & Religion lecture series at Hampshire College, Jennifer Michael Hecht gave a lecture on Doubt - Where you'd least expect it on October 25, 2007. Here is the abstract for her talk and below you will find the full video of her lecture:AbstractThe recent "God wars" hide how long...

Saturday, December 01, 2007

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