This cannot go on. Shame on all you non-Christian Americans. I imagine the Buddhists are particularly oppressive.
I may have been a bad influence
6 hours ago
28 October, 2010
Religious intolerance rife in the USA
22 October, 2010
Useful links for exposing Sye TenB
I've put together some links to particular comments from Sye in which he has made inconsistent or just down right silly claims. These should prove useful to expose the absurdity of his worldview and presuppositionalist argument.
1) Sye contradicting himself and lying all in one go
Sye always says that his worldview is proven by the 'impossibility of the contrary'. I challenged him to refute my position that the Invisible Pink Hammer was actually the real omnipotent omniscient creator of the universe and could reveal things to me for certain and he replied:
"Although I do not believe that it would be possible, I have never claimed that it would be impossible, I am simply challenging you to formally debate our respective deities and revelations from same. You are unwilling to(for obvious reasons)." [Bolding mine]
I think the inconsistency between 'impossibility of the contrary' and 'I have never claimed that it would be impossible' is clear for all to see. And by stating the latter, he is simply lying. Indeed, many others have similarly requested that he refute all possible alternative worldviews, and yet he never does - he simply asserts that they are refuted.
2) Sye being a hypocrite
Sye refuses to address claims that his opponent does not actually hold, as they are just 'wasting his time'. Of course, when I proposed the Invisible Pink Hammer worldview, it was to illustrate the problem with his argument - that he cannot refute my position without also refuting his own. In this sense, I was adopting a hypothetical situation which showed the absurdity of his argument. Sye wouldn't play (for obvious reasons). But of course when he can use this type of argumentation to his advantage, Sye will use it, as he does here in a debate with another Christian.
Opponent [talking about the position that Sye does not hold]:
"Since this is an argument that anyone could easily make, you should be able to easily find me someone who has, in fact, made it. Even internet hack atheists don't make this argument."
Sye:
"I’ll make it then John, and you refute me. Here goes: “Perhaps someday there will be a naturalistic explanation as to why a body which was dead for 3 days came back to life.” There ya go John, refute me."
What a complete hypocrite. For further details on this particular incident, see here.
19 October, 2010
TAM London Day 2
After a night on the beer, Day 2 of TAM London started off with a lot of water and coffee...
The first talk of the day was by Marcus Chown, who gave a talk on the "Top 10 Bonkers Things About The Universe" (much of which is covered here). For instance, all the matter that makes up the human race is actually only the size of a sugar cube - by virtue of the fact that the majority of an atom is empty space. Also, time isn't constant as it is influenced by gravity. The closer you are to a strong gravitational force (i.e. large mass), the slower time actually goes, meaning someone at the top of a staircase is ageing faster than someone at the bottom. Oh and he ended with a space montage to the sound of Ziggy Stardust. Nice.
DJ Grothe then gave probably the only talk of the weekend that was solely about skepticism. He issued a bit of a rallying call and encouraged everyone to be more active, in setting up skeptical blogs, sceptical meetings and so on. So I'll dedicate this post to you DJ. Happy? :-D
17 October, 2010
TAM London Day 1
I'm just back from TAM London. It was amazing alright. Here's a brief summary of Day 1...
(photos from various TAM London Facebook members - cheers!)
Richard Wiseman was the host and he did a great job all weekend, breaking up each talk with a few jokes or a magic trick. My favourite was probably this:
I've just signed up to Reincarnation Weekly. It was a bit expensive - £200 - but then I thought, what the hell, you only live once
Susan Blackmore was first up. She spoke about her journey from being an avid believer in the paranormal through to becoming a skeptic. She talked us through some of the experiments she did on paranormal activity and ESP, including when she debunked a series of ganzfeld studies. Her talk was very interesting and she is a good enthusiastic speaker. She is also known for expanding on the theory of memes, although she didn't go into this aspect of her work.
Next up was Richard Dawkins. He gave a lecture entitled "Evolution: The New Classics" in which he proposed the idea that evolutionary mechanisms tie into to almost all other aspects of education and are important for many seemingly unrelated subjects, including engineering, computer science, etc. I was glad that he came up with new material for the talk as I had been worried that he might just rehash the same old stuff we've all seen him say a million times. So I was impressed, although I heard a few other participants say otherwise. Dawkins doesn't really engage with the crowd much and comes off a bit robotic so this might have disappointed some people.
16 October, 2010
PZ Myers....and me....and beer!
TAM London starts today. I went to register yesterday evening in the Hilton Metropole, following which I sauntered up to the hotel bar. Who was standing there, but only PZ Myers!
We spoke over a beer for about 15-20 minutes. Really nice guy. I mentioned to him that he had linked to my blog in the past, with respect to my email debate with Casey Luskin. Actually, PZ also left a comment here on another thread.
Anyway, good start!
I also saw Randi, sporting a full length black cape and hat. Nice.
Go TAM!
11 October, 2010
10 October, 2010
08 October, 2010
Spammers are getting plain lazy
I've posted before about those email scammers who try to convince you that you've won some lottery you never entered or need your help getting large sums of money out of a central African country. You know what the email usually entails, a convoluted story and a plea for help.
Well, it seems they are getting lazy. Check this one out that just came into our work email address:
Re: FUNDS FOR YOU
I am Mrs Stella Ethan, a Christian. I have picked you for an inheritance, Everything is available. Please contact me for more details. Private contact email: mrs.stallaethan@jpwind.com
They're just not putting the same effort in these days, huh?
05 October, 2010
Flight of the Conchords Yo!
Just found this live show filmed in Amoeba Records in New York...
Here are a few of my favourite FOTC tracks:
01 October, 2010
A reply to homeopath Sheelagh Behan
I recently co-authored a letter to the Irish Times in response to a letter from homeopath Sheelagh Behan, in which she offered a defence of homeopathy following an earlier anti-alternative medicine article by Paul O'Donoghue (founding member of the Irish Skeptics Society). The letter wasn't published and so I have posted it here instead.
Madam,
Sheelagh Behan's defense of homeopathy (letters, 17th September) uses some fairly common strategies employed by homeopaths to bolster their art, but she fails to actually provide any compelling reasons to endorse the prescription of water for medical conditions more serious than dehydration. Her arguments can be summed up as a combination of the fallacies; i) appeal to the people, ii) appeal to authority, and iii) pseudo-scientific language.
i) Yes homeopathy is widely used; so were leeches, but no matter how many people used them they were never more effective than a placebo. Science is not a democracy - it relies on reproducible experimental evidence.
ii) Regarding the two studies actually mentioned; the first, a study of E. coli in Dutch piglets was published in a journal entitled "Homeopathy", an outlet unlikely to critically examine homeopathic hypotheses. The second, namely Luc Montagnier's study of electromagnetic signals from DNA in water did not even directly test the power of dilution but instead attributed an effect to dilution following a *filtration step*. Indeed, unfiltered bacteria gave no signal at all when diluted, in direct contrast to the central tenet of homeopathy. Also, the electromagnetic signals reported following filtration were mostly unaffected by dilution rather than enhanced by it, and the authors make no claim to have shown a mechanism for homeopathic efficacy. All in all, their results might be true, but using Occam's razor one would first need to rule out simpler explanations, such as the filtration process introducing a contaminant that may emit the signal. (Edit: see here for a thorough rebuttal of Montagnier's study)
iii) Lastly, hormesis, the belief that a little poison is good for you, is neither widely accepted in toxicology nor does it validate homeopathy's second principle of so called "potentization". It is closer to Murphy's law (which isn't a law) or the 80-20 rule (which isn't a rule) than to any scientific law and it does nothing to prove there is any trace (or memory) of the original "remedy" left after so many dilutions. If there are such traces (or memories), then patients would also receive the effects of whatever else the water has previously diluted.
While people in any free society should have the right to seek whatever treatment they prefer, they should be completely informed as to what they might be paying for, whether directly or through health insurance premiums. Homeopathy makes claims that its treatments are more effective than a placebo and, therefore, does not reliably inform patients and the public.
As Dara O'Briain says, when alternative medicine works, it simply becomes *medicine*...
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