Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch

The dramatis personæ here were Jerry Coyne, well-known atheist, evolutionist and blogger at Why Evolution is True and John Haught, a prominent US catholic theologian. The topic of the debate was "Science & Religion: Are They Compatible?" and it took place on 12th October in the University of Kentucky.

In short, Coyne mauled Haught. Not that Haught, or at least Haught's views, didn't deserve it -- the latter certainly did -- but I don't think I've seen an debate in an academic setting in which theology and religion in general are so thoroughly thrashed. Following the debate, Haught reneged on his commitment to release the video, a decision he had to reverse after some intense pressure following threats of legal action against Coyne. Coyne blogged about Haught's reneging here.

Haught's verbal fog is the usual pointless, pseudo-scientific, verbal quagmire and takes up the first 25 minutes or so. Coyne gets going at 26:00. The Q+A following the debate is in the second video. The Powerpoint slides used by both guys are available here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlQ1TunESn8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGy6BIofwzQ

robindch

Here's the Beeb underneath the antarctic ice, time-lapsing a 'brinicle':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMhBuSBemRk

Full article here.

The Mad Hatter

Interesting TED Talk by Robin Ince on why science doesn't destroy the magic of reality. It also includes the best answer I've heard to the "if love is just a chemical reaction then you don't feel it" rubbish we see here from time to time.

Link.

robindch

^^^ All the TED stuff is up on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9sa2ZAqHl0

Penn

robindch wrote: »

^^^ All the TED stuff is up on youtube:

Only just subscribed to The Infinite Monkey Cage podcast he does with Brian Cox though haven't listened to it yet. What's the TEDtalk ones about?

sephir0th

robindch wrote: »

Haught's verbal fog is the usual pointless, pseudo-scientific, verbal quagmire and takes up the first 25 minutes or so.

I think this is a very kind review of Haught's speech.

Liamario

40% of americans don't "believe" in evolution, yet 70+% believe in angels..... WOW

sephir0th

Liamario wrote: »

60+% believe in angels..... WOW

That was 78% actually

Liamario

sephir0th wrote: »

That was 78% actually

That's what I said

robindch

Nowt to do with A+A, but instead, an interesting commentary on the problems facing the euro just now:

http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2011/11/27/thinking-the-unthinkable-on-a-euro-break-up/

recedite

Good diagrams alright. The key to understanding the whole euro crisis thing is to accept that "money" is just credit. Like an IOU note it only has value insofar as you trust the person who issued it can and will pay you back.
In this respect German money has in reality a higher value than Greek money, unless the Germans officially agree to indemnify any Greek debts.

The Mad Hatter

Stephen Colbert interviews Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXh9RQCvxmg

Edit: And, if you don't watch the whole thing, at least watch the last minute and a half

Standman

Burgo

http://www.primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/scale-of-universe-v1.swf

recedite

AAh...... but did it ever happen? Who were these "scientists"? Men wearing glasses and white coats, or just marketing men doing a powerpoint presentation? "We have a great new idea; its called a paradigm shift".....


Change the story a bit and the moral changes completely.

No hose with cold water. The banana is poisonous and makes any monkey eating it violently ill.
The monkeys learn to not eat the banana. They'll try to keep other monkeys in their troop from eating the banana.
They pass this knowledge on to new monkeys brought into the cage as the old monkeys are slowly removed.
Even after all the original monkeys are removed the current monkeys are protected by the "we've always done it that way" mentality.

Every old wives tale has its equal and opposite, just like every bible quote

dmw07

recedite wrote: »

AAh...... but did it ever happen? Who were these "scientists"? Men wearing glasses and white coats, or just marketing men doing a powerpoint presentation? "We have a great new idea; its called a paradigm shift".....


Change the story a bit and the moral changes completely.

No hose with cold water. The banana is poisonous and makes any monkey eating it violently ill.
The monkeys learn to not eat the banana. They'll try to keep other monkeys in their troop from eating the banana.
They pass this knowledge on to new monkeys brought into the cage as the old monkeys are slowly removed.
Even after all the original monkeys are removed the current monkeys are protected by the "we've always done it that way" mentality.

Every old wives tale has its equal and opposite, just like every bible quote

True, both these scenarios highlight how group mentality works when faced with different events which ultimately affects the individuals collectively. When punished and made fearful of the unknown these animals, in this hypothetical scenario, reacted with anger and violence to each other to teach themselves. When the animals were faced with the adversity of poisoning, they came together, learned and thought one another peacefully.

It's nice how that works out and it points to making rational decisions based not on fear of the unknown, but based on the courage to understand, works out so much better for the group.

Dades

dmw07 wrote: »

It's nice how that works out and it points to making rational decisions based not on fear of the unknown, but based on the courage to understand, works out so much better for the group.

That's assuming that all bananas are poisonous. If only that first banana was "off" then due to tradition the monkeys are missing out on yummy bananas because that's the just the way it is.

Bacon and Judaism, anyone?

Sarky

I honestly don't know how any kosher society manages to survive. Bacon is clearly the best food that ever existed.

recedite

See what I'm getting from Santa this Christmas; It fires airburst munitions with programmable fuses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2_2cCmzovc

dmw07

Dades wrote: »

That's assuming that all bananas are poisonous. If only that first banana was "off" then due to tradition the monkeys are missing out on yummy bananas because that's the just the way it is.

Bacon and Judaism, anyone?

I read "The banana" as a metaphoric pluralization of all bananas (In the cage anyway!), and not singular and i also felt that it would take several monkeys to get violently ill before they learned not to eat it, so that is why i never got to this conclusion

I do like bananas though, and i am glad that in moderation they are not harmfully poisonous

dmw07

Sarky wrote: »

I honestly don't know how any kosher society manages to survive. Bacon is clearly the best food that ever existed.

Every Chinese year should be the year of the pig. Long live the pig!

Turtwig

To be honest that monkey thingy sounds like another one of those internet glurge ****e that goes on the web.

fitz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEeBPSvcNZQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXh9RQCvxmg

I can't get enough of Neil deGrasse Tyson's talks on science lately. He's a much better fit for putting across the scientific perspective than Dawkins IMO. He never comes across as condescending and he's much more personable than Dawkins.

Dades

Malty_T wrote: »

To be honest that monkey thingy sounds like another one of those internet glurge ****e that goes on the web.

Yes, but can you prove it's not true? :pac:

mikhail

The Straight Dope, a popular U.S. newspaper column which usually tackles questions of obscure trivia, minor historical facts, and the like, tries its hand at "Does God Exist?"

They conclude he doesn't.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3025/is-there-a-god-revisited

Hotblack Desiato

dmw07 wrote: »

I do like bananas though, and i am glad that in moderation they are not harmfully poisonous

They are ever so slightly radioactive though.

sephir0th

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-most-powerful-photos-of-2011?sort=posted&z=2NNLJ6
A world controlled by a loving god?

CiaranMT

sephir0th wrote: »

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-most-powerful-photos-of-2011?sort=posted&z=2NNLJ6
A world controlled by a loving god?

Terribly moving.

amacachi

More than one tear was brought to my eyes looking through those. This soggy little island has more than some charm.

Delirium

Exoplanet Kepler 22-b offers best hope yet for a new Earth

A new planet outside Earth's solar system has been identified with many similarities to our own – making it the latest best potential target for life.

Kepler 22-b, which is about 2.4 times the size of Earth and lies in the so-called "Goldilocks zone", has a relatively comfortable surface temperature of about 22C (72F) and orbits a star not unlike Earth's sun.

But while astronomers believe that it "probably" also possesses water and land, earthlings secretly harbouring hopes that such a planet could potentially host new colonies from our own increasingly overpopulated home may be in for a disappointment.

About 600 light-years from Earth, Kepler 22-b is a considerable trek away while experts are not yet sure if it is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid

The discovery was made by Nasa's Kepler planet-hunting telescope. It is the first time Kepler confirmed a planet outside Earth's solar system in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold habitable zone.

Twice before, astronomers have announced planets found in that zone, but neither was as promising. One was disputed; the other is on the hot edge of the zone.

More than 1,000 new planet candidates have been discovered by the Kepler telescope, nearly doubling the previously known count. Ten of the candidates are close to Earth's size while Kepler-22b is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at Nasa headquarters in Washington.

"Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of Nasa's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at Nasa's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler 22-b. "The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season." Separately, a cosmic directory that lists the planets and moons most likely to harbour alien life was also launched by astronomers.

The online catalogue was created to make sense of the ever-rising number of distant worlds that researchers have spotted with modern telescopes.

More than 700 "exoplanets" have been spotted and verified outside our own solar system in recent decades, while thousands more await confirmation by missions such as Nasa's Kepler space telescope.

The Habitable Exoplanets Catalogue in essence ranks the habitability of planets and moons according to three criteria: their surface temperature, similarity to Earth, and capacity to sustain organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

Source