Month: July 2010
An intriguing, if maybe a bit obvious, parallel
Nice article from Salon talking about how the notion in the movie ‘Inception’ that the most persistent and powerful ideas planted in our minds are the ones we think are our own ideas is reflected in the modern media landscape: http://www.salon.com/news/media_criticism/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/07/30/inception_media_messages
I know exactly how she feels
Author Anne Rice, who publicly returned to her Christian faith a few years ago after years as an atheist, has renounced her membership of the Christian church, while remaining a follower and worshiper of Jesus Christ. Here’s the full text of her two Facebook posts: For those who care, and I understand if you don’t:…
The right to freedom of speech does not include the right to freedom from disagreement
A few times recently, when people have made some particularly ignorant and prejudiced comment in public, and I’ve called them on it, they’ve responded with “Oh, I thought it was a free country – don’t we have the right to our opinions any more?” (or words to that effect). WHAT? Yes, of course you have…
A sense of priorities
This article from Paul Syvret is mostly about tax exemptions for churches, and is pretty satirical in tone: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/its-your-chance-to-pray-for-pay/story-e6frerdf-1225897081649. But some of the numbers he brought out struck me. Hillsong gives $1m tax-free expense accounts annually to 5 of its senior staff – that’s $5m. And that’s in addition to million-dollar houses, cars, free flights…
Latest review of the scientific consensus on climate change
There was a good review done a few years ago by Naomi Oreskes about climate scientists’ views in relation to climate change. Here’s the newest one, published this month: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107. Conclusion? “Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97-98% of the climate…
Motivation and Autonomy
Via my good friend Mark Patterson. Well worth a look. Autonomy is definitely one of the things that makes my job a great job.
Evolution and Faith (and lots of other stuff)
This report on a recent survey of Americans on their attitudes to science and religion has its own particular spin on the issues, but it does link directly to the research report. Definitely interesting stuff: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/vcu-survey-on-science-and-religion/. As I may have mentioned before, we’re in the midst of an extended study of the ‘Test of Faith’…
David Mitchell on Climate Change
I guess it’s possible that it’s me…
…who is morally confused: http://adventistforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/375500/1.html
On Pie, and Games with Non-zero Sums
I think it’s a massive blind spot that both ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ fall into (oops, mixed metaphor). The ‘pie’ of wealth and resources in the community is very unevenly shared. The wealthiest couple of percent of the population have the vast majority of the pie, the middle class share a small slice amongst a large…
Energy Futures
(repurposed forum post) Finally got around to the promised post on energy solutions and futures. First up, even if we leave aside the issue of climate change entirely, fossil fuels are finite resources. (Barring a few fantasies about endless renewal from currently on-going natural processes (someone posted a link on that here a while ago…