Friday, April 27, 2012

Friday Link Dump ~ 4/27/12





Virginia 'conscience clause' allows discrimination in adoption They meant to call it the Homeless Children are Safer on the Streets than with Loving Gay Families Clause.”  Can we agree to stop calling bigoted, prejudicial groups, movements, and legislations by these saccharine euphemistic names?  I propose that we make the following changes:  NOM: National Organization of Criminalizing and Alienating Gay Marriage, Family Research Council: Erroneous Heavily Biased “Research” for Straight, White and Frightened Christians.  WBC: Westboro Baptist Church (what?)  I think in the long run it would help them recruit the true believers without those awkward  moments when kind, socially conscious individuals joining groups with the word “family” in the title only to find out that they just joined a hate group whose definition of family is the repressed iconic 1950’s nuclear family that never really existed.

The Burden of Proof

Vast Structure of Satellite Galaxies & Star Clusters Discovered Surrounding Milky Way --Nixes the Existence of Dark Matter in Universe Science wins precisely because you can say “New evidence calls previously held beliefs into question!” and the immediate reaction is curiosity and skepticism rather than anger and outrage.

Obama and Fallon Slow Jammed the News Can you get political points for cool?  I don’t care that it was a strategic political message aimed at a specific demographic.  He was still on stage with THE ROOTS.

Thinking in a Foreign Language Makes Decisions More Rational Unless you’re a bible translator.

Lawrence Krauss: another physicist with an anti-philosophy complex

Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?

White House Should Focus on the Constitution, Not the Bible Revolutionary idea, yes?

The first 4,000,000 digits of Pi, visualized in a single image

Nothin’ to Explain – Victor Stenger is one of the select few reasons to read HuffPo.

How much does google know about me?  This is bigger than your porn habits people.  Beware.  

What Particle are you? Caffeine and snark of course.

American Nuns vs. the Vatican Patriarchy Clearly this is an institution that is sick, archaic, unable and unwilling to adapt.”

Breaking: Private company does indeed plan to mine asteroids... and I think they can do it Well, if we “can’t afford NASA” I guess I’ll take it.

Herd Thinking

For Most Of Human History, Being An Omnivore Was No Dilemma In Pennsylvania, it is still legal to use trans fat in your food.  Personally, I think it’s a nefarious plot by New York to take over as soon as we are too fat to put up a fight.

Random Quotes of Pat Robertson's Tired & Confusing Opinion of Science

Knowledge, Belief & Faith

‘Spectrum of Theistic Probability’ Survey  Tell us.  Where do you fall on the Dawkins Scale?

Through These Godless Eyes

What Doesn’t Kill You The psychology of luck.

Why Do They Hate Us? How much does Saudi Arabia hate women? So much so that 15 girls died in a school fire in Mecca in 2002, after "morality police" barred them from fleeing the burning building -- and kept firefighters from rescuing them -- because the girls were not wearing headscarves and cloaks required in public. And nothing happened.”

No 'God Spot' In Brain?

For a dentist, the narwhal’s smile is a mystery of evolution

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies Awesome site.  They even have posters.

The Great Accomplishments Of Faith

Dawkins' letter to his daughter

Invisible Borders That Define American Culture

Catholic Priest Tries to Use Pascal’s Wager in an Online Debate; An Atheist Politely Destroys Him This is a bit dry, but at least the atheist wasn’t “shrill”, or “strident.”  I hate that.

Announcing the Foundation Beyond Belief International Team

Zoom Out, and You'll See People Are Improving  Cheer up, the people around you are not getting dumber as you may have thought.  We’re all getting smarter.  You are probably just getting smarter before everyone else.  

Modular gene networks as agents of evolutionary novelty  Can I just say that I really like it when PZ talks about science?

Beautiful Minds: Richard Dawkins

Norwegians sing to annoy mass killer “During his trial for the killings of 77 people last summer, Breivik cited the song as an example of Marxist influence on Norwegian culture

Analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, research shows

Pictures: Huge "Snowballs" Seen Piercing Saturn's Outer Ring








2 comments:

Steve said...

The Norwegians are handling all this amazingly well. They aren't treating him like a militant. They are treating him like a loser. It takes the power away from his actions and beliefs.

Steve said...

Lawrence Krauss clears some things up regarding his opinion of philosophy. The Consolation of Philosophy