Richard Dawkins talks about GMO crops
Thirteen years ago, Richard Dawkins, noted secularist, author and evolutionary biologist, wrote an open letter to Prince Charles, noted promoter of pseudoscience and heir apparent to the British throne, about the Prince’s hostility to science. Even though the letter was written more than a decade ago, the salient points still ring true today:
…Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the natural-ness of ‘traditional’ or ‘organic’ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago – too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.
Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified – admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? We’ve been playing God for centuries!
(more…) «Richard Dawkins talks about GMO…»
iPhone and iPad Apps–skepticism and atheism (update 2)
There’s an app for that.
Update 2. Just added one more app that I’ve been using and just forgot to put in the original article.
When I write about skepticism, sitting at my trusty MacBook Pro, I have access to every source and bit of information that is required to write about evolution, vaccines, global warming, and the existence of sasquatch. If I need to dig up a link to an article that debunks some silly anti-vaccination lunatic’s claim, it’s easy to do. However, since people make pseudoscientific claims all the time, it’s always good to have access to information right at the tip of your fingers. Of course, it’s relatively easy to put your question in google, in the hope of getting a good answer. Then again, you have to weed through the 100 hits that might actually support the bogus claim.
Richard Dawkins says he’s an African ape–yes we are.
Whenever I read statements from the anti-evolution/creationist crowd, I often wonder if they’re satisfied with their intellect and knowledge. Their level of denialism is so high that they cannot even get basic science right. In Vasko Kohlmayer’s Washington Times article, Is Richard Dawkins an ape?, decides to deny most basic biological knowledge just to make some point that humans are somehow “better” than an ape, and use it to “disprove” evolution. Kohlmayer’s logic, if you can call it that, is so fallacious, I’m not sure which fallacy would fit. Maybe I’ll just use them all.
Before we start, you should know a little bit about The Washington Times. It was founded by the Unification Church (better known as Moonies, from their namesake, Sun Myung Moon) as a competitor to the Washington Post, a rather progressive newspaper in Washington, DC. The Post had written some negative articles about Moonies back in the late 70′s, while it was the only newspaper in the US Capital. The Washington Times has a very conservative editorial bias, based upon anti-communism and “Judeo-Christian values.” Of course, the paper is generally a mouthpiece for the conservative movement in the US, with its preference for climate change and evolution denialism.
(more…) «Richard Dawkins says he’s an…»
iPhone and iPad Apps–skepticism and atheism (update 1)
When I write about skepticism, sitting at my trusty MacBook Pro, I have access to every source and bit of information that is required to write about evolution, vaccines, global warming, and the existence of sasquatch. If I need to dig up a link to an article that debunks some silly anti-vaccination lunatic’s claim, it’s easy to do. However, since people make pseudoscientific claims all the time, it’s always good to have access to information right at the tip of your fingers. Of course, it’s relatively easy to put your question in google, in the hope of getting a good answer. Then again, you have to weed through the 100 hits that might actually support the bogus claim.
(more…) «iPhone and iPad Apps–skepticism and…»
Richard Dawkins and the existence of god
You’re going to be reading this story about Richard Dawkins and his doubts about the NON-existence of god. The Telegraph, a British newspaper, wrote about a recent public discussion between Dawkins and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the traditional head of the Church of England (known as Anglicans outside of the USA, and Episcopalians in the USA):
There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.
The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.
An incredulous Sir Anthony replied: “You are described as the world’s most famous atheist.”
Huffington Post and quote mining–one more reason to ignore them
The Huffington Post published an article recently entitled, Science and religion quotes: what the world’s greatest scientists say about God. I rarely read HuffPo, despite my having a similar political point-of-view, because of what I perceive to be a high number of anti-science articles. In this case, HuffPo tries to show how some of the great scientists were actually deeply spiritual if not religious. Using quotes as evidence for a history or biography of an individual is pathetic and disingenuous, especially if taken out of context. It would be as if we tried to describe Los Angeles based on a snapshot of one house in San Pedro.
(more…) «Huffington Post and quote mining–one…»
