University Challenge: Science v Religion

I'm always rather bemused as to how much the science and religion debate still rages on the interwebs. After all, I thought we'd sorted it out in Britain back in 1976 during a quarter final round of University Challenge.

In case you don't remember, here's a few stills from that episode which I have kindly annotated with the original transcripts of the show.

I seem to recall science made it to the final that year where they had a cracking game against philosophy.

BTW, apologies for using such tired and cliched questions, but it was David Aaronovitch's avatar what made me do it.

How To Make Your Very Own Chupacabra

Eye witness accounts of the Chupacabra or "goat sucker" have been reported ever since 1995.

The first documented sighting by Madelyne Tolentino in Puerto Rico was investigated by skeptical researcher Benjamin Radford. Tolentino described the animal as walking on its hind legs with quills down its spine. In fact, come to think about it, almost identical to the creature “Sil” from the 1995 Hollywood blockbuster, Species, which Tolentino had coincidentally only just watched a few weeks previously.

Once established, the chupacabra phenomenon quickly became a rather handy first port of call to explain the killings of any local livestock. However, not wishing to miss out on all the chupacabra fun south of the border, inspired yahoos from the States started reporting sightings of shabby dogs and coyotes as further evidence of the phenomenon.

Chupacabras soon became the criptid of choice in the Americas and entered popular culture.

Chupacabras therefore make the perfect gift for the budding cryptozoologist and are fun and easy to make.

To make your very own chupacabra you will need:

• 1 large friendly family dog
• 4 cans of shaving cream
• 2 packets of disposable razors
• 1 set of novelty werewolf fangs
• 1 tube of superglue
• A pointy stick (to provoke the beast)
• Time on your hands
• incorrigible deviant tendencies

Before

After

Bring Out Your Gay!

In the unlikely event you haven’t read this weeks news about the banned  “Gay Cure” bus adverts booked by the Core Issues Trust click here. Similarly if you haven’t read Lord Carey’s bigoted rant in the Telegraph click here. Finally I’ll take it as read that, like me, you know your Holy Grail verbatim.

MIKE DAVIDSON:  Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!
      [clang]
      Bring out your gay!

  CHRISTIAN:  Here's one -- where's the cure?

  GAY PERSON:  I'm not gay!

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  What?

  CHRISTIAN:  Nothing – where’s the cure?

  GAY PERSON:  I'm not gay!

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  Here -- he says he's not gay!

  CHRISTIAN:  Yes, he is.

  GAY PERSON:  I'm not!

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  He isn't.

  CHRISTIAN:  Well, he will be very soon, he knows the names of lots of colours and he’s very well coordinated.

  GAY PERSON:  I fancy that Katy Price bird with the big knockers!

  CHRISTIAN:  No, you don't -- you like that nice Mr. Clooney.

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  Oh, I can't cure him like that -- it's against regulations.

  GAY PERSON:  I don't want to be cured!

  CHRISTIAN:  Oh, don't be such a baby.

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  I can't cure him...

  GAY PERSON:  I feel heterosexual!

  CHRISTIAN:  Oh, do us a favor...

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  I can't.

  CHRISTIAN:  Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes?  He’ll listen to his musicals again in a minute.

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  Naaah, I got to go on to Elton John's -- they've got loads.

  CHRISTIAN:  Well, when is your next round?

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  Thursday.

  GAY PERSON:  I think I'll go and buy a copy of Nuts magazine.

  CHRISTIAN:  You're not fooling anyone y'know.  Look, isn't there something you can do?

  GAY PERSON:  I feel straight… I feel straight.

      [reparative therapy]

  CHRISTIAN:  Ah, thanks very much.

  MIKE DAVIDSON:  Not at all.  See you on Thursday.

  CHRISTIAN:  Right.

      [Lord Carey chips in with a warning about Christian’s being vilified]

 BORIS JOHNSON:  Who's that then?

 KEN LIVINGSTONE:  I don't know.

 BORIS JOHNSON:  Must be a former Arch Bishop.

 KEN LIVINGSTONE:  Why?

 BORIS JOHNSON:  He's talking shit.

xckd: Austin Powers and the Enfield Poltergeist

The Enfield Poltergeist

Explain Love You Atheist Bastard

You’ll be familiar with this situation. Sometime after the event, perhaps whilst on the drive home, you’re mulling over the conversation in your head. At the time you didn’t have a good answer to that unexpected question. You hesitated, you floundered, perhaps you went off on a bit of tangent, but now that you’ve had time to think about it, you now know what you should have said. After five mental iterations of the conversation you have honed your answer. Now you have a clever, profound and witty riposte. If only you had thought at the time to call him a bellend and tell him to fuck off. But the moment has passed. The opportunity is lost.

Three years ago I packed my son and daughter off on a summer camp. Camp Quest was the UK’s first summer camp that openly promoted a rational worldview. In addition to the normal camping activities there were sessions on philosophy and critical thinking. The media jumped on the story, relabelled it as an Atheist Summer Camp and found a way to connect it to the ever popular Richard Dawkins. In addition to deftly fielding the unnecessary and arbitrary media interest herself the camp director also asked if any of the parents would be prepared to talk to the media. I put my best foot forward.

I did a short interview for the BBC World Service, the local BBC TV evening news and a local radio phone-in show with a rather pious Anne Diamond. I also got asked to pop into Broadcasting House to record a piece for the Radio 4 Sunday morning religious slot with Roger Bolton. The interview went quite well, Roger was a very likable host and I think presented a reasonable and balanced overview of the camp. He did however catch me slightly unawares with a perennial poser that I really should have anticipated. I’m not quite sure why I happened to be thinking about it again this morning, but only three years late, I have finally composed my rejoinder.

After establishing my lack of belief and my preference for more rational and scientific explanations I was posed the familiar question of how I explain love. An emotion so overwhelming that its explanation transcends the ability of mere science to explain or even comprehend. Leading to the only possible conclusion that love is evidence of some divine power beyond the realms of human logic. I’m sure there’s also an unspoken implication in the question. By daring me to reduce the appreciation of art or even love itself to a series of mere electrical impulses or chemical reactions I would demean the whole experience. By denying the unexplainable spiritual nature of such experiences I would somehow lessen them. Perhaps it’s even assumed that such cold rational reasoning has rendered me incapable of experiencing love with the same intensity of the faithful. If such an implication exists, I object to it.

Time to wheel in the analogy. I’m sure it must have been made before, but it’s only just occurred to me…

I do like a nice magic trick. When Penn & Teller or Derren Brown perform some inexplicable feat of magic that appears to contradict the fundamental physical laws of the universe, I am suitably impressed. I am suitably impressed despite realising that rather than actually breaking the fundamental physical laws of the universe the magicians have simply tricked me. Indeed appreciating the skilled sleight of hand or the ingenuity, planning, practise and banal ground work that is required in order to achieve an effect that I cannot easily explain, is actually more impressive than a naive belief in magic. Removing the irrational belief in magic has not cheapened the trick, on the contrary it has forced me to consider more complex, fascinating and ultimately, more truthful mechanisms. I invariably fail to conclude the exact method of the trick, but there is no doubt that it is a trick. The more you understand the magician’s techniques, the more impressed you tend to be by a really good trick. Nature can pull of some pretty neat tricks too, and love is certainly one of it’s better ones, trying to understand it in biological terms will inevitably add more awe and wonder to it than indiscriminately crediting it to an supernatural force. I may still have failed to answer what love actually is, but I shan’t be cajoled into thinking that when science eventually works it, it will be in anyway diminished.

So I’ve committed these thoughts to memory just in case. In the unlikely event I am ever asked back on the Ann Diamond show and am posed once more with Roger’s tiresome love quandary, I shall be ready with my prepared retort: “Fuck off Anne, you bellend.”

More Quacking Word Art

I rather enjoyed knocking up a few religious symbols yesterday, so thought I'd knock off another one this morning. BTW, the word art was created using this rather nice website.

What Do Religious Symbols Say To You?

I'm sure religious symbols say many different things to many different people. Here's what they say to me...

The Kepler 22B Curiosity Rover

The discovery of brave new alien worlds has always excited and fascinated humanity.

The verifications of other planets within our solar system by the early astronomers have rightly been identified as momentous scientific discoveries. The earth-based optical telescopes used to discover our immediate neighbours in the solar system may not be capable of glimpsing planets around other stars. However, new and innovative scientific methods such as gravitational microlensing, radial velocity and the transit method are now being deployed to detect a host of exciting new exoplanets beyond our solar system.

The Kepler Spacecraft launched in 2009 has used the transit method to observe the brightness of a star dimming as an orbiting planet passes in front of the star from our vantage point. Observing this dimming allows astronomers to calculate the size of the planet, the length of its year (based on the frequency of the transits) and occasionally even the composition of its atmosphere using spectral analysis.

Kepler 22b is one such recently discovered exoplanet which many scientists believe could even have oceans, continents and may possibly even have living creatures roaming its alien surface.

Enthused by the prospect that such a planet in the “Goldilocks” zone could potentially harbour extraterrestrial life, NASA are already contemplating a new Curiosity Rover mission especially designed to search for and explore life on this distant world.

The probe carrying the Kepler Curiosity Rover would take a slightly disappointing 11,000,000 years to complete its epic journey to Kepler 22b, but once there, will be capable of beaming back the results of its extraterrestrial investigations at the speed of light, reaching our earth bound eavesdropping scientists in a mere 600 years.

The project will of course dwarf the 2.5 billion dollars invested in the Mars Curiosity Rover, but thanks to specially designed scientific life detecting equipment developed by NASA, scientists are optimistic that their advanced technology will ensure they yield the maximum available data on any alien species encountered on Kepler 22b.

Like the Mars Curiosity Rover, the Kepler Curiosity Rover is too heavy to deploy airbags like those used to cushion the landing of the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers and will instead rely on a series of thrusters to manage a controlled descent onto the planet surface.

Once the landing sequence has successfully completed the Kepler 22b Curiosity Rover will ensure that it cannot be seen by any credible alien witnesses. The Rover will then await an unsuspecting local idiot that no one will ever believe and incapacitate them with a bright light.

Once the alien subject has been suitably debilitated the Kepler 22b Rover will deploy its undercracker removal unit to detach any garments blocking access to the subjects’ lower exploration portal. Once the approach has been cleared the Kepler 22b Curiosity Rover will insert its scientifically enhanced rectal probe into the unwary arsehole of the alien subject.

A made up spokesman for NASA stated that scientists have explored many options in alien communication methods. This has included both audio and visual signals transmitted at various wavelengths and frequencies in order to convey universal non random patterns such as prime number sequences that are capable of being interpreted by intelligent life forms that have evolved in an alien environment. However, extensive research of alien visitations here on earth has shown that such methods are in fact far less effective at gaining an understanding of alien biology, physiology and culture than strategically bum raping them with a shiny metallic dildo.

Multi-faith Transubstantiated Snacks

Those who have frequented church services in the past will be aware that Christian worship often includes a short brunch, lovingly referred to as the Eucharist. This jolly little ceremony is of course based on the last supper and bread and wine are drank and eaten in remembrance of the Christians beardy best friend.

The wine represents the blood of Christ and the bread (or more commonly, wafer) the body of Christ. However in a spectacular attempt to stretch credulity to its absolute limit, good old Roman Catholic theology takes this sacred snack one step further. Once the presiding cleric has uttered the magic spell: “This is my body, broken for you etc etc”, the wafer ceases to be a mere wheat based nibble and quite literally becomes a piece of the actual body of Christ. Not a symbolic representation. A genuine actual real sliver of raw flesh faithfully butchered from the scrawny body of a rather mouthy Nazarene joiner. I shit you not.

I’ve comfort snacked on our Lord and and it turns out that Jesus actually has a rather vapid flavour and would probably benefit from a condiment or two. However, I am reliably informed that it is bad form to season our Lord and Saviour before you pop him into your mouth. But despite his rather insipid taste he’s the Sunday morning breakfast of choice for over a billion devoted Catholics.

Perhaps some of the other religions could take heed of this popular gastronomic ritual and provide their own followers with a similar morsel of holy tuck, flavoured with the deity of their choice.

Large congregation packs of communion wafers are indeed already freely available to purchase from your favourite online retailer. Why not simply provide the wafers or indeed any wheat, potato or maize based deep fried snack pre-blessed and transformed into the fleshy tissue of your preferred divinity?

In much the same way that traditional potato chip manufactures add various flavours to their snacks, an assortment of priests, mullahs, monks and poojaries installed at the end of the factory production lines could magically transubstantiate the savoury nibbles into the required god by muttering a quick incantation as they pass by.

In a consumer driven, connivence seeking, modern multi faith society like ours, I think a range of pre-blessed god snacks, suitable for all faiths could be a real winner. Here’s some suggested lines that I think would go down a treat:

Winchester Skeptics: 29th Feb - Prof. Sophie Scott on Faulty Memories

RDFBO UK/Ipsos MORI Poll #3: How Bewitched are UK Harry Potter Fans?

RDFBO UK Press Release 3:
23 February 2012
Only 1 in 10 UK Harry Potter fans own a magic wand.

UK residents who think of themselves as Harry Potter fans show very low levels of witchcraft belief and practice, according to new research.

A poll carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for the Bleeding Obvious (UK) in the week after the 2011 Census focused on the beliefs, attitudes and practices of UK adults who say they were recorded as Harry Potter fans in the 2011 Census (or would have recorded themselves as Harry Potter fans if they could have been arsed to answer the question).

When asked why they think of themselves as Harry Potter fans, the research found that fewer than three in ten (28%) say one of the reasons is that they believe in the magic of witchcraft.

People are much more likely to consider themselves to be Harry Potter fans because they have seen one of the films on DVD (72%), because their parents had read them one of the books when they were younger (38%) or because they think that Daniel Radcliffe is a bit dishy (51%), than because of a personal belief in sorcery.

As many as half (50%) do not think of themselves as wizards or witches and less than a tenth (9%) claim to have a magic wand.

Indeed, many Harry Potter activities, including the playing of quidditch and the casting of spells, appear to be unsupported amongst respondents self-identifying as Harry Potter fans:

•       One in six (15%) admits to having never spoken in parseltounge, with a further one in three (36%) believing that snakes can’t even talk.

•       The majority (60%) do not own their own cauldron and a further 20% don’t even have a black cat.

•       Around two thirds (64%) were not able to identify Gerald Gardner as the creator of the first “Book of Shadows”, when given only four answers to choose from.

•       Over a third (37%) have never or almost never made a magic potion, with a further 6% saying they have never used a polyjuice potion.

•       Only a quarter (26%) say that they regularly attempt to fly a broomstick, with one in five (21%) saying they do not really believe that you can actually fly on a broomstick.

At the same time, many who self-identify as Harry Potter fans had read other books that are incompatible with the writings of J.K. Rowling, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit (27% in each case), The Da Vinci Code (36%) and The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe (64%).

The low level of Wicca belief and practice among those calling themselves Harry Potter fans is reflected in coven attendances. Apart from special occasions such as Halloween, half (49%) had not dressed up in a black pointy hat in the previous 12 months. One in six (16%) have not danced around naked at a summer or winter solstice in the previous 12 months, and a further one in eight (12%) have never burnt a wicker man.

Fewer than half (44%) of those self-identityng as Harry Potter fans had participated in any pagan ceremonies at all in the previous year.

Asked why they had been recorded as Harry Potter fans in the 2011 Census, only three in ten (31%) said it was because they genuinely believe in the dark arts with four in ten (41%) saying that it's just a nice old yarn that has entered the public culture and their not bloody stupid.

Overall, the findings suggest that a good number of UK adults self-identifying as Harry Potter fans can actually tell the difference between a very popular story book and reality.

Welcoming the findings of the research, and looking even more smug than usual, Richard Dawkins said:

"I fucking knew it.”

ENDS


NOTES TO EDITORS:

1.     The Richard Dawkins Foundation for the Bleeding Obvious (UK) is a made-up charity invented by The Science, Reason & Critical Thinking blog.

2.     Ipsos MORI conducted no such survey and will no doubt deny everything.

3.     A copy of the real survey can be found here.

4.     Richard Dawkins will be available to give sanctimonious answers to journalists at his own convenience.

Baroness Warsi and the Blue Screen of Death

It appears that the good Baroness is in need of a reboot. Here's a screenshot …

Militant Realism Threat to Fantasy, warns Warsi

Ancient myths are being "sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere", Conservative co-chairwoman Baroness Warsi whined in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

The Muslim peer said Europe needed to become "more confident and more comfortable with its middle eastern fairy tales ".

She will also highlight the issue in a speech at the Vatican later on Tuesday.

"I will be arguing that to create a more divisive society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their spiritual fantasies," she wrote in the Telegraph.

"In practice this means individuals not accepting reality and nations implementing policies that will allow special privileges to certain religious groups.”

Baroness Warsi, who is Britain's first female Muslim cabinet minister, went on to write: "You cannot and should not extract irrational beliefs from the evolution of our nations any more than you can make the Pope wear a rubber Johnny on his head"

She wrote that examples of a "common sense" taking hold of society could be seen in a number of things - "when people aren’t allowed to discriminate against poofters or when schools are not allowed to teach creation myths as established science; and where magic sky fairies are sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere".

She also compared the intolerance of religion with totalitarian regimes, which she said were "denying people the right to delusions”

Her comments come days after the High Court ruled that a Devon town council had acted unlawfully by allowing councillors to talk to their invisible friends at meetings.

On Baroness Warsi's article and speech, a BBC political correspondent said it was not the first time a senior Conservative had called for a revival of The Dark Ages.

"Last December, Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK was a Christian country and 'should not be afraid to torture heretics and burn witches like we did in the good old days”.

Original Article here

Shortlisted for an Ockham

Don't you just hate that sycophantic drivel people come up with when they've been nominated for an award. You know the sort of stuff, "I don't expect to win, but it's a real honour to be shortlisted amongst these other really brilliant people".

What a load of old bollocks.

Anyway, turns out that I've been shortlisted for an Ockham award by the Skeptic Magazine (I should bloody well hope so too, I nominated myself enough times). You wont have heard of the dreary collection of blogs I'm up against. Some ranting liberal biologist with a weird cephalopod fetish, a mob of dissident tarts who whinge a lot, an annoying Scots git who gets other people to write his blog for him and some Irish clever trousers.

Pathetic.

Anyway, after being robbed of the Orwell Prize last year, I have taken steps to ensure I triumph over this band of no-hopers. After acquiring his address from a surprisingly helpful PR consultant in Texas with time on his hands, I now have skeptical prodigy Rhys Morgan gagged and tied to a chair in my garage.

So French, Grossman, Ronson, Singh and Wiseman, I have a copy of Stuck in the Middle by Stealers Wheels on my iPod, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Bad Science Infographic

On increasingly frequent occasion I receive some ready prepared suggested content for my blog that I am assured will be just the thing for my readers. I don't normally oblige.

However, yesterday I received a rather nice infographic from @jenicarhee summarising the inherent human flaws that can exist within my beloved scientific method.  This one seemed worth sharing, so here its is ...

Created by: Clinical Psychology

Original Source here