Friday, November 20, 2009
"Is Catholicism a Force For Good?": Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. Ann Widdecombe and Bishop (1 of 5)
Thanks to Blakeley Nixon for this link. Surprising vote at the end. To be fair to the Catholic side: as speakers, Widdecome and the Bishop were pretty awful and entirely outclassed.
Postscript. By the way, for anyone interested in this topic I would strongly recommend David Ranan's Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church, which is at least as exciting as The Da Vinci Code.
The Catholic Herald wrote:
Speaking of how other people may see us, I have been reading a fascinating, if somewhat uncomfortable book called Double Cross by David Ranan (Theo Press). When I tell you that it devotes 350 pages to attacking the Church ... you will understand why I would not recommend it to anyone who is not familiar with Church history and the general cut and thrust of apologetic debate. ... whenever I was able to check references they proved satisfactory. Withal, I found the book salutary. It reminds me how the credibility of the Church has so often been endangered not only by bad individuals but by bad trends. -- Catholic Herald, November 2007
Also see my blog debate with commentators on HIV, condoms and Catholicism - check comments.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
STUDENT ESSAY COMPETITION
Express yourself!
Campaign for Free Expression Essay Contest
The Campaign for Free Expression is a CFI initiative to focus efforts and attention on one of the most crucial components of freethought: the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects—especially religion. To encourage free expression and to emphasize the importance of this fundamental right, CFI and its sister organization, The Council for Secular Humanism, are sponsoring this contest.
Free Expression Essay Contest: Students enrolled in an accredited college or university are invited to submit an essay about "The Importance of Free Expression and Its Limits (If Any)." Each entry must address the question of what limits national governments or recognized international bodies, such as the United Nations, may justifiably place on free expression. First prize is $2,000 (USD).
Open to UK STUDENTS, e.g. mine!
* Download Free Expression Essay Contest Rules and get full details here.
For more information about the Campaign for Free Expression, please e-mail info@centerforinquiry.net.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A terrible justification for keeping TFTD exclusively religious
The BBC Thought for The Day debate rumbles on. I notice that, according to an Ekklesia report, the BBC Trust defended the exclusively religious contribution to the TFTD programme against charges that this failed the test of 'due' impartiality on this ground:
“The requirement of ‘due’ impartiality means that the approach required depends on audience expectations” the BBC Trust report ruled. Since the audience expected a certain range of contributors, then the status quo was acceptable in the Trust's opinion. [Source here].
But of course, if this is the justification, it is terrible. Impartiality does not depend on audience expectations in this way.
Notice that, if it did, then a racist programme that excluded black contributors would qualify as 'impartial' if the audience did not expect black people to appear.
E.g. an openly white supremacist radio show that banned black people from appearing on it would qualify as showing 'due' impartiality, so long as no one expected black people to be on it, which of course they wouldn't, if it was openly a white supremacist station.
Or maybe 'the audience expected a certain range of contributors' means, the audience believes non-religious contributors ought not to appear (whether or not they think they will appear)? But then much of the BBCs audience does not believe that. So the BBC Trust's justification (if accurately reported) is based on an obvious falsehood.
But in any case, showing 'due impartiality' clearly doesn't mean doing what your audience thinks you ought to do. Otherwise, in a profoundly racist country, a radio show that discriminated on the basis of race would still be showing 'due impartiality'.
The summary report (available here) also says:
The ESC found that, given due impartiality is about what was said rather than
rather than the contributor, the fact that the choice of contributors to
Thought for the Day is limited to those of religious faith does not in itself
amount to a breach of the guideline on impartiality.
Oh, so a show that excludes black people, but does ensure the views expressed are balanced, shows 'due impartiality', then?
The full report is available here, but I have not waded through all of it. I should say, in fairness to the BBC Trust, that, skimming it, I could not find anything to support the precise interpretation placed in it by first of my quotes (from Ekklesia), but then it is massive, and I am short on time...
Read Simon Barrow - a Christian - on TFTD here. Very good.
Illustration - example of an organization showing BBC Trust-style 'due impartiality'?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Thought For The Day will continue to exclude non-religious
The BBC Trust announced today:
The BBC Trust today announced its findings on a number of appeals about the broadcast of Radio 4's Thought for the Day and BBC editorial policy on non-religious content.
The Trust found that the editorial policy of only allowing religious contributors to participate on Thought for the Day does not breach either the BBC Editorial Guideline on impartiality or the BBC's duty to reflect religious and other beliefs in its programming. Go here.
The BBC Trust today announced its findings on a number of appeals about the broadcast of Radio 4's Thought for the Day and BBC editorial policy on non-religious content.
The Trust found that the editorial policy of only allowing religious contributors to participate on Thought for the Day does not breach either the BBC Editorial Guideline on impartiality or the BBC's duty to reflect religious and other beliefs in its programming. Go here.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
My notes for the McGrath debate
Here are the notes I used for the debate with Professor Alister McGrath on the 29th October. I ended up only alluding to the second objection as I thought it too technical on the night.
Does the natural world point to God?
Cosmic fine-tuning arguments - that God provides the best, or even a half-decent, explanation of the character the natural world in which we find ourselves - face FIVE main types of objection.
I am going to briefly outline all five. But, I intend to rest my case on just the last two. So the first three will just be sketched out, and are merely for your information only.
FIRST OBJECTION. As Alister acknowledges in his book, the science on which fine-tuning arguments are based is by no means uncontroversial.
For example, some scientists believe there may well be a multiverse – a plethora of universes governed by a wide range of different physical laws. If there is a multiverse, then it’s not particularly unlikely that there should happen to exist a universe that has the Goldilocks property of being “just right” for life.
Even if there’s only one universe, a number of scientists in any case question whether there is only a very narrow range of physical parameters within which life can plausibly emerge.
Physicists including Victor Stenger, Anthony Aguire, and Craig Hogan have studied those universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by several orders of magnitude, and have found that stars, planets and life can plausibly emerge within many of them.
According to these physicists, then, it simply is not true that there is only a very narrow set of physical parameters within which life can plausibly arise.
But still, let’s concede, for the sake of argument, that Alister is correct, and these physicists incorrect, about the science on which cosmic fine-tuning arguments are based.
SECOND OBJECTION. Even if there is only a very narrow set of physical parameters within which life might plausibly emerge, it doesn’t follow that the chances of the actual universe falling within these parameters is low. In fact, several philosophers reject the suggestion that we can even assign such a chance to the physical universe.
Take Professor Hugh Mellor of Cambridge University, who is an acknowledged expert on probability theory.
According to Mellor, there are two kinds of probability: epistemic probability and physical probability (or chance). Epistemic probability is, roughly speaking, the likelihood of something’s being true given the evidence. Suppose I am looking at a roulette wheel on which I can see the ball has landed on slot 26. For me, the epistemic probability that the ball is in slot 26 very high – I have overwhelming evidence that’s were it is because I can just see it there. On the other hand, the physical probability of the ball being there – by which I mean the chance of the ball landing there given the laws of nature and a certain specification of the conditions under which the ball was thrown into the wheel - is pretty low: only about one in 37.
Now when proponents of fine-tuning, such as Alister, insist the “probability” of the universe producing life is low, they clearly do not mean epistemic probability. The epistemic probability of life is very high – we can see it all around us. So the notion of probability proponents of fine-tuning are appealing to must, according to Mellor, be physical probability.
But then notice that if the physical universe is the only physical universe there is, it cannot have a physical probability.
The universe will only appear to have such a probability if we smuggle in a quasi-physical setting for its creation, supposing, for example, that the cosmological constants were fixed by something like the spin of a cosmic roulette wheel. So, concludes Professor Mellor, the fine-tuning arguments are just confused.
Other philosophers, such as Neil Manson, Elliot Sober, and also Timothy and Lydia McGrew (who incidentally, are religious) concur with that conclusion, for other, independent reasons.
Still, let us also concede, for the sake of argument, that Alister is correct, and these various objectors are all mistaken. Let’s suppose we can talk meaningfully about the chances of the universe having a life-producing character.
THIRD OBJECTION. Even if we concede that the probability of the universe having a life-producing character by chance is otherwise low, that still does not provide any significant support for the suggestion that some intelligence designed the universe that way, if either (i) the probability of such an intelligent being is itself very low (as Richard Dawkins suggests), or (ii) if the very idea of such a being actually makes no sense (as I am about to suggest).
Suppose I claim that there exists a special sort of chair – a chair that transcends physical reality, existing in a non-spatial, non-temporal way. You would rightly be sceptical. Not just because there is no evidence for such a chair, but because the idea of such a chair is nonsensical. In order for something to be a chair, it must have arms, legs, a seat, and so on, and these are features that require spatial extension. The idea of a non-spatial chair is just confused.
But is the idea of an intelligent cosmic designer any less confused? If this designer is the creator of space and time, then he exists, or existed, non-temporally. But how can an intelligent agent exist non-temporally? The concept of an agent is the concept of someone or thing with beliefs and desires on which they might more or less rationally act.
But just as the concepts of chair arms and legs are essentially rooted in a spatial context, and make no sense when applied outside it, so the concepts of belief and desire are essentially rooted in a temporal context, and make no sense when applied outside it.
For example, beliefs and desires are psychological states, and as such necessarily have temporal duration. They are held for periods of time. The idea of a non-temporally held desire makes about as much sense as a non-spatially extended chair leg.
The concept of design is also essentially rooted in the temporal. You draw up a design, and then you subsequently realize it – a temporally ordered sequence of events. If the design does not precede the realization, then it was not designed at all.
So far as I can see, then, talk of some sort of super-agent or designer transcending time and space is just so much gibberish, like talk of a non-spatial chair.
We have taken a concept with which we are familiar – a chair, or an intelligent designer – and projected into a realm where its application no longer even makes sense. That’s not profundity. That’s meaningless twaddle.
But let’s suppose that even this third class of objection – which includes both Dawkins’s objection, and this objection concerning meaningless twaddle - and can be overcome.
Let’s just sweep all three categories of objection to one side. There still remain two more. It is on these last two – the fourth and fifth objections - that I rest my argument that the natural world does not “point to” God.
FOURTH OBJECTION. It is a huge leap from the conclusion that the universe is the product of an intelligence to the conclusion that this intelligence is the all-powerful and limitlessly benevolent God of love that Christians worship.
As the Templeton-prize-winning physicist Paul Davies points out at the end of his book The Goldilocks Enigma, even setting aside all the other difficulties, (I quote)
“The other main problem with intelligent design is that identity of the designer need bear no relation at all to the God of traditional monotheism. The “designing agency” can be a committee of gods, for example. The designer can be a natural being or beings, such as an evolved super-mind or super-civilization existing in a previous universe, or in another section of our universe, which made our universe using super-technology. The designer can also be some sort of superdupercomputer simulating this universe. So invoking a super-intellect…is fraught with problems.”
Davies is correct, of course.
Alister’s supposedly fine-tuned features, even if they did point towards a designer, no more “point towards” the existence of the Christian God than they point towards the universe being a computer-generated Matrix-type simulation, or the creation of an earlier super-civilization.
Which of course they don’t really “point to” at all.
FIFTH OBJECTION. I come now to my final, and most important, objection to the suggestion that the natural world points towards anything remotely like the Christian God.
It seems to me that, unlike the suggestions that the universe was designed by an earlier super-civilization, or superdupercomputer, the suggestion that the universe was designed by Alister’s God is just straightforwardly empirically falsified.
There is abundant empirical evidence that, if even if the universe was designed, it was not designed by the particular deity Alister believes in.
I am talking of course about the evidential problem of evil.
Last week I watched an episode of the BBC TV series Life. At the end of the programme, one of the cameramen was interviewed, and I was struck that he said that, after just a few weeks on the job, he was already considering of giving up wild-life photography because it was too emotionally harrowing – he was struggling to cope with the extraordinary degree of suffering the creatures he was filming were going through. That kind of suffering – appalling suffering, on a vast, global scale – has been going on, not just for two weeks, but for many hundreds of millions of years, long, long before we humans made our very recent appearance.
And of course, we humans suffer too. Consider a not uncommon occurrence [EDITIED: I have removed this second example as touches on matter in which I have some personal involvement and do not want posted on the internet).
Perhaps the universe is the product of an intelligence. I don’t think that’s likely, but even if it were, surely it is pretty obvious that the intelligence in question is not the Christian God of love – in all his limitlessly powerful and benevolent glory.
If you think that’s not obvious, well, consider another possible cosmic designer – suppose there is just one god – a supremely powerful and evil being. His cruelty and malice and know no bounds.
How likely is that? I am sure you will agree it is an absurd suggestion. Why – because it is straightforwardly empirically falsified by the enormous amounts of good that there are in the universe. Why would an evil God create love, laughter and rainbows? Why would he allow us to reduce suffering?
In short, just as, if you believe in a good God, you face the problem of evil, so if you believe in an evil God, you face the problem of good.
Because of the problem of good, it is clearly absurd to suggest that the natural world points towards an evil God.
But then why isn’t it equally absurd to suggest that natural world points to a good God?
Alister’s position, it seems to me, is like that of someone who wanders into a concentration camp, notes the stoves designed to provide meals and warmth and the mattresses designed for sleeping on, and concludes that not only was this camp designed by an intelligence with some interest in sustaining human life, it actually “points towards” a wonderfully loving and benevolent designer
The truth is, not only does the available empirically evidence not point towards the camp having such a wonderfully benevolent designer, it actually points very firmly away from the camp being the creation of any such being.
Ditto the universe.
Does the natural world point to God?
Cosmic fine-tuning arguments - that God provides the best, or even a half-decent, explanation of the character the natural world in which we find ourselves - face FIVE main types of objection.
I am going to briefly outline all five. But, I intend to rest my case on just the last two. So the first three will just be sketched out, and are merely for your information only.
FIRST OBJECTION. As Alister acknowledges in his book, the science on which fine-tuning arguments are based is by no means uncontroversial.
For example, some scientists believe there may well be a multiverse – a plethora of universes governed by a wide range of different physical laws. If there is a multiverse, then it’s not particularly unlikely that there should happen to exist a universe that has the Goldilocks property of being “just right” for life.
Even if there’s only one universe, a number of scientists in any case question whether there is only a very narrow range of physical parameters within which life can plausibly emerge.
Physicists including Victor Stenger, Anthony Aguire, and Craig Hogan have studied those universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by several orders of magnitude, and have found that stars, planets and life can plausibly emerge within many of them.
According to these physicists, then, it simply is not true that there is only a very narrow set of physical parameters within which life can plausibly arise.
But still, let’s concede, for the sake of argument, that Alister is correct, and these physicists incorrect, about the science on which cosmic fine-tuning arguments are based.
SECOND OBJECTION. Even if there is only a very narrow set of physical parameters within which life might plausibly emerge, it doesn’t follow that the chances of the actual universe falling within these parameters is low. In fact, several philosophers reject the suggestion that we can even assign such a chance to the physical universe.
Take Professor Hugh Mellor of Cambridge University, who is an acknowledged expert on probability theory.
According to Mellor, there are two kinds of probability: epistemic probability and physical probability (or chance). Epistemic probability is, roughly speaking, the likelihood of something’s being true given the evidence. Suppose I am looking at a roulette wheel on which I can see the ball has landed on slot 26. For me, the epistemic probability that the ball is in slot 26 very high – I have overwhelming evidence that’s were it is because I can just see it there. On the other hand, the physical probability of the ball being there – by which I mean the chance of the ball landing there given the laws of nature and a certain specification of the conditions under which the ball was thrown into the wheel - is pretty low: only about one in 37.
Now when proponents of fine-tuning, such as Alister, insist the “probability” of the universe producing life is low, they clearly do not mean epistemic probability. The epistemic probability of life is very high – we can see it all around us. So the notion of probability proponents of fine-tuning are appealing to must, according to Mellor, be physical probability.
But then notice that if the physical universe is the only physical universe there is, it cannot have a physical probability.
The universe will only appear to have such a probability if we smuggle in a quasi-physical setting for its creation, supposing, for example, that the cosmological constants were fixed by something like the spin of a cosmic roulette wheel. So, concludes Professor Mellor, the fine-tuning arguments are just confused.
Other philosophers, such as Neil Manson, Elliot Sober, and also Timothy and Lydia McGrew (who incidentally, are religious) concur with that conclusion, for other, independent reasons.
Still, let us also concede, for the sake of argument, that Alister is correct, and these various objectors are all mistaken. Let’s suppose we can talk meaningfully about the chances of the universe having a life-producing character.
THIRD OBJECTION. Even if we concede that the probability of the universe having a life-producing character by chance is otherwise low, that still does not provide any significant support for the suggestion that some intelligence designed the universe that way, if either (i) the probability of such an intelligent being is itself very low (as Richard Dawkins suggests), or (ii) if the very idea of such a being actually makes no sense (as I am about to suggest).
Suppose I claim that there exists a special sort of chair – a chair that transcends physical reality, existing in a non-spatial, non-temporal way. You would rightly be sceptical. Not just because there is no evidence for such a chair, but because the idea of such a chair is nonsensical. In order for something to be a chair, it must have arms, legs, a seat, and so on, and these are features that require spatial extension. The idea of a non-spatial chair is just confused.
But is the idea of an intelligent cosmic designer any less confused? If this designer is the creator of space and time, then he exists, or existed, non-temporally. But how can an intelligent agent exist non-temporally? The concept of an agent is the concept of someone or thing with beliefs and desires on which they might more or less rationally act.
But just as the concepts of chair arms and legs are essentially rooted in a spatial context, and make no sense when applied outside it, so the concepts of belief and desire are essentially rooted in a temporal context, and make no sense when applied outside it.
For example, beliefs and desires are psychological states, and as such necessarily have temporal duration. They are held for periods of time. The idea of a non-temporally held desire makes about as much sense as a non-spatially extended chair leg.
The concept of design is also essentially rooted in the temporal. You draw up a design, and then you subsequently realize it – a temporally ordered sequence of events. If the design does not precede the realization, then it was not designed at all.
So far as I can see, then, talk of some sort of super-agent or designer transcending time and space is just so much gibberish, like talk of a non-spatial chair.
We have taken a concept with which we are familiar – a chair, or an intelligent designer – and projected into a realm where its application no longer even makes sense. That’s not profundity. That’s meaningless twaddle.
But let’s suppose that even this third class of objection – which includes both Dawkins’s objection, and this objection concerning meaningless twaddle - and can be overcome.
Let’s just sweep all three categories of objection to one side. There still remain two more. It is on these last two – the fourth and fifth objections - that I rest my argument that the natural world does not “point to” God.
FOURTH OBJECTION. It is a huge leap from the conclusion that the universe is the product of an intelligence to the conclusion that this intelligence is the all-powerful and limitlessly benevolent God of love that Christians worship.
As the Templeton-prize-winning physicist Paul Davies points out at the end of his book The Goldilocks Enigma, even setting aside all the other difficulties, (I quote)
“The other main problem with intelligent design is that identity of the designer need bear no relation at all to the God of traditional monotheism. The “designing agency” can be a committee of gods, for example. The designer can be a natural being or beings, such as an evolved super-mind or super-civilization existing in a previous universe, or in another section of our universe, which made our universe using super-technology. The designer can also be some sort of superdupercomputer simulating this universe. So invoking a super-intellect…is fraught with problems.”
Davies is correct, of course.
Alister’s supposedly fine-tuned features, even if they did point towards a designer, no more “point towards” the existence of the Christian God than they point towards the universe being a computer-generated Matrix-type simulation, or the creation of an earlier super-civilization.
Which of course they don’t really “point to” at all.
FIFTH OBJECTION. I come now to my final, and most important, objection to the suggestion that the natural world points towards anything remotely like the Christian God.
It seems to me that, unlike the suggestions that the universe was designed by an earlier super-civilization, or superdupercomputer, the suggestion that the universe was designed by Alister’s God is just straightforwardly empirically falsified.
There is abundant empirical evidence that, if even if the universe was designed, it was not designed by the particular deity Alister believes in.
I am talking of course about the evidential problem of evil.
Last week I watched an episode of the BBC TV series Life. At the end of the programme, one of the cameramen was interviewed, and I was struck that he said that, after just a few weeks on the job, he was already considering of giving up wild-life photography because it was too emotionally harrowing – he was struggling to cope with the extraordinary degree of suffering the creatures he was filming were going through. That kind of suffering – appalling suffering, on a vast, global scale – has been going on, not just for two weeks, but for many hundreds of millions of years, long, long before we humans made our very recent appearance.
And of course, we humans suffer too. Consider a not uncommon occurrence [EDITIED: I have removed this second example as touches on matter in which I have some personal involvement and do not want posted on the internet).
Perhaps the universe is the product of an intelligence. I don’t think that’s likely, but even if it were, surely it is pretty obvious that the intelligence in question is not the Christian God of love – in all his limitlessly powerful and benevolent glory.
If you think that’s not obvious, well, consider another possible cosmic designer – suppose there is just one god – a supremely powerful and evil being. His cruelty and malice and know no bounds.
How likely is that? I am sure you will agree it is an absurd suggestion. Why – because it is straightforwardly empirically falsified by the enormous amounts of good that there are in the universe. Why would an evil God create love, laughter and rainbows? Why would he allow us to reduce suffering?
In short, just as, if you believe in a good God, you face the problem of evil, so if you believe in an evil God, you face the problem of good.
Because of the problem of good, it is clearly absurd to suggest that the natural world points towards an evil God.
But then why isn’t it equally absurd to suggest that natural world points to a good God?
Alister’s position, it seems to me, is like that of someone who wanders into a concentration camp, notes the stoves designed to provide meals and warmth and the mattresses designed for sleeping on, and concludes that not only was this camp designed by an intelligence with some interest in sustaining human life, it actually “points towards” a wonderfully loving and benevolent designer
The truth is, not only does the available empirically evidence not point towards the camp having such a wonderfully benevolent designer, it actually points very firmly away from the camp being the creation of any such being.
Ditto the universe.
Really Really Big Questions
My skeptical kid's book Really Really Big Questions was one of the top fifty winter reads in yesterday's Independent (it was number five, in fact):
Go here.
'This is one book I wish I'd written,' admits Joe Craig of Dr Stephen Law's philosophical compendium, which any child over the age of eight should find some treasure in. 'It is definitely worth spending time on every page of this life-enhancing book. Every home should have a copy,' he adds.
The book aims to develop independent, critical thinking about weird and wacky stuff, from fairies to spoon-bending to God. A sort of skeptical primer that aims to be a lot of fun at the same time...
Publisher Kingfisher
How much? Normally £12.99. But currently just £6.49 from amazon uk:
and also from amazon US.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
New blog for young thinkers
There is a new blog publishing articles by young people aged 16-21 on topics relating to humanism, science, philosophy and atheism.
The url is:
http://www.youngfreethought.blogspot.com/
The url is:
http://www.youngfreethought.blogspot.com/
Friday, November 6, 2009
MONSTERS FROM THE DEEP! A Fortean adventure
If you are in the vicinity of London and are interested in Fortean and skeptical topics, do please come to Monsters from the Deep! It promises to be a fascinating journey into the deep sea myths and legends, from the perspective of science.
Registration 10.30-11am. Finish 3pm (QandA session till 3.30pm if you want to stay longer).
No booking required - just show up. Directions here.
SPES/CFIUK present:
MONSTERS FROM THE DEEP!
An interactive skeptical odyssey – with sound effects! University experts investigate tales of sea-monsters, mermaids, etc.
Saturday, 7th November, 11am-3pm (with good break for lunch) £10.
Free to members of cfi uk, glha, spes, bha, new humanist and subscribers.
Dr Charles Paxton, a scientist from the University of St Andrews, is one of the country’s most qualified cryptozoologists, and he will be running both a lecture and workshop on monsters from the deep – mythical and real. Dr Darren Naish is a researcher at The University of Portsmouth, who will talk about the ‘prehistoric survivor paradigm’ and what it means (or doesn’t mean) for ’sea monster’ sightings. An interactive skeptical odyssey….
Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL – Main Hall.
Registration 10.30-11am. Finish 3pm (QandA session till 3.30pm if you want to stay longer).
No booking required - just show up. Directions here.
SPES/CFIUK present:
MONSTERS FROM THE DEEP!
An interactive skeptical odyssey – with sound effects! University experts investigate tales of sea-monsters, mermaids, etc.
Saturday, 7th November, 11am-3pm (with good break for lunch) £10.
Free to members of cfi uk, glha, spes, bha, new humanist and subscribers.
Dr Charles Paxton, a scientist from the University of St Andrews, is one of the country’s most qualified cryptozoologists, and he will be running both a lecture and workshop on monsters from the deep – mythical and real. Dr Darren Naish is a researcher at The University of Portsmouth, who will talk about the ‘prehistoric survivor paradigm’ and what it means (or doesn’t mean) for ’sea monster’ sightings. An interactive skeptical odyssey….
Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL – Main Hall.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Poll finds over half of Britons support teaching Creationism and Intelligent Design along with Evolution
From IBTimes:
"A Mori poll has found that over half of Britons believe Creationism and Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolution in science lessons.
The poll, which was part of a worldwide study into attitudes to the teaching on the origin of life on earth, saw 1,000 Britons questioned on the subject.
Around 54 per cent of those who responded said they thought teachers should talk about “alternative perspectives” to the Theory of Evolution, however only six per cent said they felt Creationism or Intelligent Design should be taught instead of Evolution.
Just over one fifth of respondents said that only the Theory of Evolution should be taught, as is currently the case under the national curriculum." Read more...
Guardian article here.
What explains these statistics, and what if anything should be done?
"A Mori poll has found that over half of Britons believe Creationism and Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolution in science lessons.
The poll, which was part of a worldwide study into attitudes to the teaching on the origin of life on earth, saw 1,000 Britons questioned on the subject.
Around 54 per cent of those who responded said they thought teachers should talk about “alternative perspectives” to the Theory of Evolution, however only six per cent said they felt Creationism or Intelligent Design should be taught instead of Evolution.
Just over one fifth of respondents said that only the Theory of Evolution should be taught, as is currently the case under the national curriculum." Read more...
Guardian article here.
What explains these statistics, and what if anything should be done?
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