This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in november 2007. The main driving force for creationists is not science, but ethics. Their trump card is that “evolution is immoral”: they cite “might makes right” and eugenics, quote Darwin’s supposedly racist terminology in The Origin and Voyage, […]
I was listening to an old episode of the SETI institute’s podcast Are We Alone, in which they talked to a CSICOP (or whatever it is they call themselves these days) investigator. He described how he approached claims of the paranormal: he was neutral, and he “suspended disbelief” while he […]
I’ve posted a quick review of The Way The World Is, physicist-vicar John Polkinghorne’s attempt at explaining to other scientists why he is a Christian. It’s a tedious and embarrassing piece of work. The book, that is. The post, I hope, is at least entertainingly sarcastic. Read it here.
I’ve been reading John Gribbin’s In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat. He casually mentions the atomic (or, rather, ‘atomistic’) theories of the ancients — in particular Democritus. Gribbin accuses historians of science and popular writers of attributing too much to Democritus, whose ideas about the world do not resemble modern physics. […]