Ragged Clown

How come they don’t have science education programmes like this over here?

Tom recommended a great TedTalk. So did Jeff. My turn (actually, my wife’s). Ken Robinson on education. Amazing.

Over lunch, Bob and I disagreed on several aspects of the English language and its origins. According to Bob, English has fewer irregular verbs than ‘typical’ languages (and is generally more regular) is predominantly influenced by Latin and Greek I disagree with both of those notions (English is more irregular and predominantly influenced by its […]

My lovely wife sent me this: Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had […]

Captain Groggy Swagger and I were having a pleasant chat in the comments to my post on Songs of Praise about whether it is appropriate for an atheist to sing Carols or say Grace. There are some religious things that are ingrained into our daily lives that do bug me. What do you do when […]

Affect or effect quiz? Question Your Answer The Correct Answer Your Response is: Question 1 affect affect Correct Question 2 effects effects Correct Question 3 effect effect Correct Question 4 affect affect Correct Question 5 affect affect Correct Question 6 effect effect Correct Question 7 affected affected Correct Question 8 effect effect Correct Question 9 […]

Since the real Wikipedia is tainted by reality’s well-known liberal bias, conservatives now have their very own source of reliable information, Conservapedia. Truthiness now has a life of its own. Maybe it’s evolving? Unlike the entry for Theory of Evolution (redirected from Evolution): After much debate, the Conservapedia Panel has finished reviewing the Theory of […]

The BBC is awesome. This is the kind of programme that only the BBC can make and is likely to cause me to say something that will merit the response “Why don’t you go back to your own country then?”. To which I might reply “Maybe my new country can learn something from the old […]

My wife just asked me if I have booked that flight yet. When I get home, she will ask me if I have submitted my expenses yet. The answer to both is no – because I was reading this. Of course, she won’t read that because she is not a procrastinator and doesn’t understand how […]

Scott Adams has this trick that he calls philosotainment. He announces that he is going to say something silly to wind people up Then he says that something is self-evident and no reasonable people can argue with it Then he says something vaguely plausible but wrong If someone questions the silly,wrong point, he makes fun […]

Every now again I get some spam that’s actually interesting to read. I thought I’d share it. So here’s Heather Locklear on the beach playing football, flirting, and generally acting young. And while her body is still in great shape, the signs of ageing are starting to show. Most notably in her face, where it […]

We had that “but you can’t prove it” discussion at our beer bash at work the other day. The one where your co-debater suggests that, if you believe something without proof, you are making a leap of faith. Consider the proposition, The cow jumped over the moon. Those who consider the proposition true have no […]

I like sciences the closer they are to maths

What would it be like to learn maths with other people who like maths?

The New York Times just had a review of Natalie Angier’s The Canon. I expected the book to be good (despite the review) but I read a couple of chapters in Borders to see if it was worth buying and couldn’t get past what Pinker called “the distracting wordplay”. I think Angier has a quota […]

Walking in Betrand’s footsteps.

Dawkins

There are somethings that parents make up to amuse their children. Can you guess what they are?

The defeat of the Spanish Armada, in 1588, marked the end of Spain as a global power. Before sailing, one Spanish commander “reasoned” as follows: “It is well known that we fight in God’s cause. So when we meet the English, God will surely arrange matters so that we can grapple and board them, either […]

Should we encourage singing in the car?

Bob moved his blog and when I popped over to check it out, I saw that he had been continuing our discussion about Belief in Belief without me 🙁 From Bob’s comments, Since there is no proof of the existence AND THERE IS NO PROOF OF THE NON-EXISTENCE of God or FSM, any position taken […]

I thought this guy was me when I first read the subtitle of his blog. But I am not a mac-user. His criticism of Sullivan is similar to mine though. Sullivan champions an idealized form of conservatism that is so distant from what actual conservatives believe that most actual conservatives reject Sullivan as one of […]

The Church of England was like the kindly old man who lived down the road.

The recent flurry of humanist literature is partly a reaction to the re-emergence of creationism as a challenge to evolution. But, in this piece, My God Problem, Natalie Angier wonders why scientists don’t worry about the more central Christian beliefs. Few scientists, for example, worry about the 77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus […]