by Carl Howard | Jul 12, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Blogging the Bible, Language, Science and Skepticism
I’ve been moving and in the pandemonium have stuffed up the schedule so you might have seen a half-baked version of this yesterday. Here’s the real thing! A recent episode of the Atheist Experience has made me aware of one of the most ridiculous arguments for...
by Carl Howard | Jun 16, 2010 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Charity and Philanthropy, Science and Skepticism
About 8 months ago I did a post about World Food Day where I mentioned microfinance (especially Kiva.org) as a great way of doing more useful things with donor funds. Skeptical fail: I applied an abysmal level of critical thinking to the area of charities/development....
by Carl Howard | Jun 15, 2010 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Evolution and Biology, Philosophy
[This post is a follow-up to my 5 min challenge to readers I posted last week. To get the most out of it, please do the challenge first.] In the last post, I presented a disturbing video of cow/calf abuse at a dairy farm. The context was not to see it in terms of...
by Carl Howard | Jun 8, 2010 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Ethics, Evolution and Biology, Philosophy
The 5 min challenge that I would like everyone to take is to watch this video in its entirety and note your reactions. It’s only about 3.5 mins long so not a burden. But, do not switch tabs or open any windows, just give it your full attention: YouTube link...
by Carl Howard | May 14, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Evolution and Biology, Medicine, Philosophy
Via Pharyngula, here’s an amazing video of an elephant’s birth which I invite you to watch before reading on. (If you’re reading this by email the video won’t render so here’s a link to it on YouTube) Let’s forget the drama of the calf appearing lifeless at first and...
by Carl Howard | May 3, 2010 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Charity and Philanthropy, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Science and Skepticism
I think the most famous quote from Stalin, or at least the one most famous outside the Russian-speaking world is “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic”. This looks to be an urban legend but the sentiment is certainly true. We are...