08.30.09
From BIPED site: Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship
The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship
Part One: Illuminating the Occult Origin of Darwinism
History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship
Part One: Illuminating the Occult Origin of Darwinism
I have commented multiple times on Mooney’s new book on this blog. But just to reiterate an important issue: the complaint against ‘unscientific’ America totally fails to see that if scientists can’t get evolution right, while the public tends to demur statistically on this point in a vague suspicion, then any hope by scientists of improved commiunication is doomed from the start.
Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science and Religion Dialogue
Hyung S. Choi*
Single molecule’s stunning image
by Jason Palmer – BBC
from Dawkins site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8225491.stm
‘Honour killing’ is terrorism
by James Morton – The Toronto Sun
from Dawkins site
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2009/08/25/10599876-sun.html
The Vatican
by Penn and Teller – Bullshit – via Atheist Media Blog
http://www.atheistmedia.com/2009/08/penn-and-teller-bullshit-vatican.html
from dawkins site
Aired August 27, 2009 on Showtime
Penn & Teller discuss the Catholic Church and their involvement in anti-homosexuality efforts, condom use, and the cover up of the priest abuse sex scandal. They talk with an Italian comedian that was punished for criticizing Pope Benedict the XVI.
(Un)wired For God
by Sharon Begley – Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/211746
from dawkins site
At last check, intimations of mortality had not been banished from the human mind—the Grim Reaper still stalks our thoughts. Nor have our brain circuits shaken their habit of perceiving patterns in chaos, such as seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of burned toast; imagining the invisible hand of a supernatural agent in acts of randomness, as in “answered” prayers; and conjuring what anthropologist Pascal Boyer of Washington University calls “non–physically present agents.” We use the same circuitry to envision “what if” scenarios about our pasts or futures as we do to imagine angels and demons. Yet scientists have invoked both the fear of death and the fact that normal mental processes predispose us to belief in the supernatural to explain the near universality of religious faith down through the ages. (Of course, humans might believe in God because a deity designed that belief into our brains, but that hypothesis is not amenable to scientific investigation.) But there’s nothing like facts to spoil a good story.
Before I get to the pesky new data, it’s worth emphasizing that there are intriguing neurobiological findings suggesting that the brain may indeed be wired for God. In addition to the habits of thought that lead us to see the supernatural in the natural and the extraordinary in the ordinary, neuroimaging studies suggest that we come preloaded with the software for belief. For instance, the brain has a region, the parietal lobe, that detects where our body physically ends and the larger world begins. But this circuitry can be silenced by intense prayer or meditation, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg has found, producing a sense of oneness with the cosmos or God.
…
Continue reading
http://www.newsweek.com/id/211746
Link to Evolutionary Psychology research article by Gregory Paul
http://c0122981.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/090829Article.pdf
from dawkins site
Two articles on Western liberal failure to attack Islamic misogyny
by Nick Cohen and Clive James – STANDPOINT
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2041/full
Turning a Blind Eye to Misogyny
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2042/full
A Veil of Silence Over Murder
5 Ways to Build a Fascist-Proof America
By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America’s Future. Posted August 27, 2009.
If we want to build a fascist-proof America for the long haul, we must stand up now for everything we believe and everything we are.
Richard Dawkins Calls for Apology for Alan Turing’s Prosecution
I thought this was interesting and wanted to share. I found interesting as someone who majored in math and is now a computer programmer, but part of it, I think will appeal to the interest of the larger community here.
Two articles:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-turing-enigma-camp…
and
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/dawkins-calls-for-official…
A bit of background: If you do not know, Alan Turing was a mathematician and a computer scientist who lived during the first half of the 20th century. The intro. for his biography in Wikipedia sums up some of his accomplishments and contributions well from ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing )
Why Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory (part 2): ID the anti-concept
gnxp
We are a culture of liars. Maybe we’d all benefit from brushing up on our skills
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213575
gnxp
Male free-tailed bats sing intricate and complex “love songs” to woo prospective female mates, new research has found
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8222000/8222370.stm
gnxp
Imagine controlling machines, typing text or juggling balls using nothing but the power of thought. What sounds like far-fetched science fiction is gradually becoming possible, providing hope for disabled patients — and new gimmicks for the computer gaming industry
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,644296,00.html
gnxp
The price and privilege of beefcake
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14302009
RG mail
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6814856.ece
August 30, 2009
The atmosphere at the Climate Camp in Blackheath, southeast London, last
week was resolutely good-natured
Giles Hattersley
It is the Thursday morning rush hour in Blackheath, southeast London. The
roads around the park are clogged with commuters, and, overhead, planes
are ascending from nearby City airport at an alarming rate.
Beneath a cloud of transport fumes lies Camp Climate, home to 1,000
slightly smelly, resolutely cheerful, mostly middle-class do-gooders who
plan to save the world.
Tunnels Concentrate Air Pollution By Up To 1,000 Times
ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2009) — A toxic cocktail of ultrafine particles is lurking inside road tunnels in concentration levels so high they have the potential to harm drivers and passengers, a new study has found.
Scientists First To Image ‘Anatomy’ Of A Molecule
ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2009) — IBM scientists have been able to image the “anatomy” — or chemical structure — inside a molecule with unprecedented resolution, using a complex technique known as noncontact atomic force microscopy.
Published on Sunday, August 30, 2009 by The Miami Herald (Florida)
Luster is Off Obama’s `High Moral Ground’
by Leonard Pitts
Published on Sunday, August 30, 2009 by The Independent/UK
Millions Facing Famine in Ethiopia as Rains Fail
International aid agencies fear that the levels of death and starvation last seen 24 years ago, are set to return to the Horn of Africa. Paul Rodgers reports
Published on Sunday, August 30, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
India’s Generation of Children Crippled by Uranium Waste
Observer investigation uncovers link between dramatic rise in birth defects in Punjab and pollution from coal-fired power stations
by Gethin Chamberlain
Their heads are too large or too small, their limbs too short or too bent. For some, their brains never grew, speech never came and their lives are likely to be cut short: these are the children it appears that India would rather the world did not see, the victims of a scandal with potential implications far beyond the country’s borders.
RG mail
by Richard C Cook
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com (February 26 2009)
We Hold These Truths (2007) by Richard C. Cook
President Barack Obama showed a great deal of gumption in standing before
Congress last night delivering his first speech to the joint assembly. All
the trappings of power were on display as members of the House and Senate,
the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, the Cabinet, and the VIP guests
hugged and waved at each other, radiant in their tailored attire only two
nights after the Hollywood stars put on their own show on Oscar night.
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/the-us-economy-designed-to-fail-by-richard-c-cook/
sciftp
Africa Seeks Climate Change Cash
Ministers from 10 African countries have met in Ethiopia to try to agree a common position on climate change, months before a crucial UN meeting.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8217449.stm
Liberalism has let itself become a kind of false ideology associated with Darwinism and scientism, and it has become in part for that reason the object of hatred by religious conservatives who now associate it with atheism, but the real history of liberalism is something far deeper, with a connection to a ‘transcendent’ realm greater than that of the ideologically debased religions inherited from antiquity. The real history of liberalism is a long study, and its xray in the context of the eonic effect is illuminating: Freedom Evolves? The Discrete Freedom Sequence
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