Archive for the ‘science’ Category
Ray Rewrites
A few days ago I mentioned how wrong Ray Comfort was when he remarked:
Light is invisible. We can’t see it.
I’ve checked back to Ray’s blog regularly to see what he does about this basic misunderstanding of physics and how the eye works, and to check up on the comments that his post got (almost all of them were mocking him). He appears to have now edited the article so it reads:
The essence of “white” light is invisible. We can’t see it. Despite this, science has taught us that it’s actually made up of seven beautiful colors that are undetectable to the human eye until they are refracted through a prism. Of course, we know that the seven colors are the amazing colors we see in a rainbow–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Nice bit of rewording he has done. Unfortunately it makes even less sense now than it did before his edits. What exactly is the “essence” of white light? Is he talking about the spectrum? That’s not invisible either. In fact that’s exactly how we see colours.
Ray Comfort: “Light is invisible”
I really had hoped to write something interesting for the 100th post on this blog (yay for the first milestone!), but this just appeared in my feed reader and I had to post it.
If you don’t know who Ray Comfort is, he is the guy behind the infamous banana argument / atheist’s nightmare:
Discovery Institute vs. Dawkins
It seems that the Creationist organisation Discovery Institute is attacking Richard Dawkins over his involvement in the Louisiana “academic freedom bill” which allows teachers to discuss theories that oppose Evolution. Simply put, it is allowing Intelligent Design into the classrooms.
The Discovery Institute reported that Barbara Forrest, leader of LA Coalition for Science has written an article on the Richard Dawkins website, pleading people to contact the Louisiana Governor and stop this bill being passed. The Institute rather snobbishly remarked:
Newsflash for Richard, we’re not a British colony anymore.
Well pointed out, but of course they forget that Richard Dawkins runs The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, a charity registered in both the UK and the USA. They also seemed to overlook the fact that his website isn’t tied to any specific country and as such has a large majority of American visitors. Forgetting as well that the article in question wasn’t even written by Dawkins but by a citizen of the United States, and their accusation that Richard Dawkins is somehow trying to “dictate education policy” to the U.S falls completely apart.
More conversations with the deluded
A few days ago I published some quotes from a Muslim who has contacted me to try and convert me away from atheism. I’ve continued the conversation with him just to see where it goes next, and in all honesty it is pretty entertaining. Every time I try to end it, he just says something even more outrageous that I feel compelled to email back and get him to explain his views. So again, for your enjoyment, the deluded stylings of Abu:
If human evolution was taking place why fir example haven’t the people of Antarctica (eskimos) over a thousands of years evolved by growing body hair like the polar bears so it naturally keeps them warm.
Erm…because they already had clothes to keep them warm? Since short-haired Eskimos don’t die out there isn’t an over-abundance of long-haired genes going around the Eskimo community. I guess we’d better demand they all live naked from now on and see what happens a million years down the line…perhaps not.
Science is concrete evidence whilst a theory is just a theory open to opinions. So please let me differentiate the difference between science and scientific theory because homosexuality, darwins (human) theory are scientific THEORIES.
Yet another misunderstanding of the difference between scientific theory and scientific fact. Scientific fact is an observation that we know happens (i.e. Evolution), scientific theory is our understanding of that fact (i.e.Theory of Evolution). A theory isn’t open to any opinions at all. People might like or hate a theory, but that doesn’t have any affect on whether it is true or not…
Also, I love how homosexuality is now a theory. That’s a big blow to the gay community…”I’m sorry guys, but you can’t PROVE you really are gay…”
Conversations with the deluded
Firstly, let me apologize for yet another absense on the blog. I’ve only just worked out how to post-date articles so it shouldn’t happen again in the future. During the past 2 weeks I’ve finished university (first year anyway), passed all my exams (yay!), gone on holiday, got badly sunburnt, and then had to pack my entire room into a transit van and move back home.
Onto the topic of this article. I was contacted a week ago by a muslim named “Abu” who opened his email like so:
right in this moment in time I’d love to lose my rag bang the computer and
scream infernally! But I’d like to alter your skewed views on life and the
pointless, deity-less movement that is atheism. Why verily only the arrogant,
proud, the incessently stupid believe in atheism…
He outlined what he thought were good arguments against atheism, including the “There are no atheists in foxholes” argument and Pascal’s wager (both easily refutable). The ongoing discussion has covered about 6 emails now and they are a pain to read all at once, so I’ve chosen the best bits for you:
