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Absolute classic from The Orb that’s been playing in my head all morning so I thought I’d share. The video is a bit naff but for sheer put your feet upism this is hard to beat. Enjoy!
Filed under: Friday music, Video | Tagged: the orb | Leave a comment »
Perhaps my title is unnecessarily confrontational but the water supply to my house stopped this morning (frozen/burst pipes) and I had to come to work without having a shower so I’m grumpy. Very grumpy. I’m also somewhat fragrant, but best not to dwell.
Anyway back to the question. From time to time I run into people who believe in the efficacy of things like Homoeopathy or dowsing and when I talk to them about why they think this they respond with anecdotes. Sometimes they are personally involved in the anecdotes, sometimes these are something they heard from someone who heard it from someone… etc. interestingly they rarely question either their own perception or the stories they are told. They also rarely question how these things work.
I’ve thought about this for a while and it seems there is a certain personality type, and this may be the majority of people, that will more readily believe subjective stories than objective evidence. Not only do they not see subjectivity as a weakness they see it as a positive strength.
I remember 25+ years ago hearing people discuss the link between smoking and cancer, the tobacco companies were still claiming there was a scientific controversy (denialists never change). I recall several times hearing statements like – “my aunt Joan smoked 60 a day and lived to be 90” – always delivered with a self satisfied tone as if this supposed fact trumped every medical study on the connections between smoking and lung cancer. Recently I watched a video of a debate on Homoeopathy on Ben Goldacre’s site and the comments at the end were of exactly the same type.
My question for you all is why should this be so? Why when someone is told that water has memory or that there is an ethereal substance called Qi disturbances in which cause illness and the balance of which can be restored by sticking pins in you (or not), don’t they question? Were these people born bereft of BS detectors? Is it purely an educational issue?
A more practical question is what do you do when confronted with a True Believer? Is it best just to smile and back away slowly?
Filed under: debate, skepticism | Tagged: acupuncture, dowsing, homoeopathy, magic, qi | 4 Comments »
Having read a few blogs about this news post on Grandparents.com, something has struck me as extremely odd.
Society generally frowns upon those of its number who are generally ne’er-do-wells, dropping out of Secondary Education, remaining unemployed, mooching from the Welfare system and/or their parents etc… and getting pregnant at an irresponsible age (by Society’s reckoning), so, if that is indeed the case, why in the Seven Hells (and the one we don’t know about) are people from all over the world applauding Bristol Palin sending her and her child mountains of gifts when, if her mother was not a Governor or a previous runner for Vice President most of society would be decrying her as just another waste of space 17-year old wasting her waste of a life…?
Why do the religious (because Palin and McCain’s supporter were decidely so) spend all their time decrying the overwhelming immorality of our modern society, marking widespread irresponsible teen pregnancy as one of the hallmarks of our imminent donwfall (Rapture, anyone?) and yet as soon as one of their cute little number irresponsibly gets a bun in the oven, “oh yes, lets send them loads and loads of gifts, for they are the pinnacle of our society!” (Obviously I’m heavily paraphrasing there 😉 )
I’d ask for a show of hands on whether or not this hypocritical bulls**t is typical of these people, but I really don’t think that’s necessary.
I will however applaud the Palins and the Heaths in their unwavering support of the teens and their new son.
Peace.
Filed under: religion | 1 Comment »
Proving that my “regular” feature, “Shameless Plug Saturday”, is, in fact, variable and decidely un-regular, I now present you with today’s Shameless Plug Sunday feature!
Having recently watched Joyeux Noel and having heard “The Call” by Regina Spektor in the ending credits for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian I recently wrote a song from the point of view of a spouse, decidely androgynous, watching their loved one head off to battle, vowing to wait for them understanding the reality that they may never come back and attempting to rationalise their experience against that of their loved one.
It’s called “Spectre”, as it’s inspired by the words and melody of Regina Spektor’s heart-string-tugging song “The Call”. Since the medium of Youtube is not just auditory, but visual also, I’ve included some related imagery I scavenged from Google in the video, and though I’m not visual maestro, I hope it adds to the atmosphere and emotion of the song.
Enjoy!
Filed under: humanism, Video | Leave a comment »
This Friday music, I’m finally getting around to posting about Greydon Square – an atheistic rapper who has been featured on popular sceptical podcasts such as Skepticality and Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. Rather than regurgitating what I learnt about him from the aforelinked, I’ll let you look into it yourself if you’re interested (Skepticality spend a bit more time with him).
The song I’ve embedded below is called ‘Squared, and it’s from his album, ‘The Compton Effect’. I downloaded this album over the summer, and found it generally enjoyable for sheer novelty value alone, as it’s quite satisfying to hear rational lyrics accompanying some funky hip-hop beats. That said, I don’t think I’d be doing my job as a sceptic if I didn’t highlight some negative aspects before slapping a hearty seal of approval on it, so bear with me for a bit.
After a few listens, the lyrics begin to cause some dissonance – I’m aware that rap is generally predicated on exaggerated metaphors and healthy narcissism, but it’s still hard to take a self-professed sceptic seriously when he uses a line like “What makes Republicans and Democrats any different than Bloods and Crips? / Absolutely positively nothing” (from the song Pandora’s Box)
Due to the constraints of the medium, Greydon either over-simplifies his topics or interrupts the flow to get his points across, which is hopefully a shortcoming that will be addressed in the next album, (which I intend on downloading over the next few days).
For the low low price of $3.99 from Soundclick, you can get 19 very varied tracks of atheistic-infused hip-hop, DRM free (and at a bitrate of 320kbps) – which is an absolute bargain. Even if you don’t like hip-hop, you should support this artist, just to hear some bitesize atheistic rhetoric – for less than €3(!) what have you got to lose?
Please to enjoy:
Filed under: atheism, Friday music, Video | Tagged: Greydon Square | Leave a comment »
Since he was featured as one of the New Humanist Advent podcast guests and was mentioned on Pharyngula I have been listening to/watching a lot of Tim Minchin and liking him more and more.
Below is a song that seems particulally apt for this blog. There’s lots more on YouTube but I like to keep things PG around here and most of it is NSFW so I’ll let you search for it yourselves.
Filed under: Friday music, humour, skepticism | Tagged: comedy, Tim Minchin | Leave a comment »
Good morning happy people! Since it’s technically Friday (I’m posting at 4:50am) welcome to another edition of Friday Music.
Today our feature is an acoustic guitar duo who originally hail from Mexico City, but now call Ireland, more specifically, Dublin, their home.
Rodrigo y Gabriela really stole my heart when I first heard them play, because I was just beginning to learn how to play guitar, and all of a sudden I was introduced to a world of flying fingers and quickly strumming hands and it completely blew my mind. Now that I’m a dab hand at the ole guitar myself, it still blows my mind! I managed to see them live on two occasions, once in Dolans in Limerick and once in Vicar St. in Dublin. They were both completely unforgettable experiences!
So, this is a song called “Diablo Rojo” from their latest album “Rodrigo y Gabriela”. If you ever get the chance to see these amazing musicians live, take it! You will not regret it!
Filed under: Friday music | Leave a comment »
As some of you may know Creationists and other Christians have been using false DMCA notices to stop free debate on YouTube for some time now. Now a group of the most vocal and popular pro-reason contributers on YouTube have banded together to fight back.
It’s wonderful to see this sort of spontaneous organisation. If you’re a YouTube user please do anything you can to support this effort.
Edit – An excellent background to all of this can be found here.
Filed under: announcements, debate, Video | Tagged: andromedaswake, aronra, cdk007, creationism, djarm67, DMCA, donexodus2, extantdodo, free speech, potholer54, thetaomega, thunderf00t, western values, youtube | 1 Comment »
Mark Henderson, the science editor of The Times sees some value in the Pope’s latest outburst against homosexuality.
In his address to Vatican staff, Benedict XVI declared the Church’s belief in a natural order of men and women, and asked “that this order, set down by creation, be respected”
Henderson’s contention is that in general religious people object to homosexuality because it is a moral choice outside the norms of natural behaviour. Most gay men and women do not believe that they have made a choice about their lifestyle and their view is supported by science. Science is proving that homosexuality is naturally occuring accross the animal kingdom and that in humans it is in every known culture.
The Pope is calling for an ecology of man; well he should take his own advice and respect the ecology as it exists. As Henderson says:
Science has made it clear that homosexuality is part of the rich diversity of that creation. That is something we should all respect – the Pope included.
Read the full article here
Filed under: humanism | Leave a comment »
Fron Edward Current some humour
and from shanedk a little history lesson.
Filed under: humour, religion | Tagged: Edward Current, history, humor, hypatia, Pink Unicorn, shanedk | Leave a comment »
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