Archive for Biology, Neurology, and Medicine

What the Higgs boson shows about rationality

Jul 04, 2012 1 Comment by

A new particle has been discovered, almost certainly the Higgs boson first predicted 48 years ago. If so, then at last the final prediction of the Standard Model has been confirmed. To be sure, there are many questions still to answer, such as how real physics deviates from the Standard Model at very high energies, [...]

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If only religious apologists understood statistics…

Apr 06, 2012 Comments Off by

The last time I uploaded many articles in quick succession, I had just returned from on the all-inclusive holiday with my parents in Spain during which I authored said articles. My return to writing for this site after a long recess also involves authorship during such a holiday. This is what is often called a [...]

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On miracles: how religious people don’t understand their own concept

Nov 22, 2011 Comments Off by

In September 2011 neutrinos were apparently spotted exceeding the speed of light. This week we received confirmation a second experiment had apparently spotted the same thing. We’re far from having enough evidence to confidently say whether or not neutrinos really have broken the light speed limit, though physicists highly doubt they have because so much [...]

Biology, Neurology, and Medicine, Christianity, News, People, Physics and Cosmology, Religions and other Belief Systems, Sciences, World Read more

“Spiritual health” (whatever that is)

Nov 03, 2011 Comments Off by

Archbishop Sentamu has suggested in the House of Lords the NHS cater to “spiritual health”. This concept does not originate with Sentamu, and has been brought up in American and British medical and military contexts frequently in recent years. While one would hope the NHS would limit its treatments and list of properties considered unhealthy [...]

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Atheism and autism (and why theists bring it up)

Oct 30, 2011 4 Comments

Before I launch into this post it is only right I acknowledge having Asperger Syndrome, as it makes me an example of the sort of correlation evidence is beginning to uncover (and at this stage could well be wrong about), and which some theists have already become crowing about. There has been an occasional suggestion [...]

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Creationism moving backwards

Oct 30, 2011 Comments Off

Nicolaus Steno, the only saint to also be a scientist, introduced to geography in the seventeenth century the principle of superposition, which says geological strata that look alike are equally old and those on top are younger than those underneath them. Taxonomy, the systematic classification of living things, began in the eighteenth century with Linnaeus, [...]

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Novelty in the new atheism … or theism

Oct 22, 2011 Comments Off

Post–9/11 atheist works have been characterised as the New Atheism. Many atheists have objected that atheism doesn’t come in strains; you either lack a belief in a god or gods, or you have one. They add that the arguments on both sides haven’t changed much historically either. They concede only one new aspect of atheism, [...]

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Religion-defending arguments as scientifically bad as religion

Oct 20, 2011 Comments Off

One thing I don’t recall hearing critics of religion ever saying, but which I think should be said, is that the effort by scientifically literate theists, including religious scientists, to render their religious views compatible with science often requires them to adopt views at least as empirically ridiculous as their religious views. (I will in [...]

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The Last Of The Humans

Jun 27, 2011 Comments Off

Not long ago, human beings as we know them today were just one of a variety of different human species living on planet earth. All of these species had evolved in a similar way to us. Evolution had noticed a gap in the market that was larger brains, capable of designing and utilising tools, and [...]

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