ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 780
January 29, 2015
Atheist Experience #92: Celebrating Atheism
The Atheist Experience #92 for July 18, 1999, with Jeff Dee, Vic Farrow, and Don Lawrence. Celebrating Atheism.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
Atheist Experience #91
The Atheist Experience #91 for July 11, 1999, with Jeff Dee, Vic Farrow, and Rohan Wynar.
We welcome your comments on the open blog thread for this show.
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
YouTube comments are at present disabled in our channel, to the displeasure of some. However, each video has a prominent link to the associated open thread that appears on our blog. In the past we’ve tried opening up the channel to comments, but we found that a very high number of episodes wound up being flooded with a combination of spam, long winded apologists, and various obscene or misogynistic comments directed at various hosts by people with an axe to grind. This seems to be the nature of YouTube comment sections, in our experience.
We do moderate the blog, the same way that we moderate chat during the show, as well as comments on our Facebook group. For comment sections that are “officially” associated with our show (and, to a much lesser extent, channels that may give the unintended appearance of being official), we prefer not to play host to straight up ad hominem attacks and bigotry. As a general policy we do not block commenters simply on the basis of disagreement with our point of view. However, we do prefer discussion environments that don’t actively chase off more reasonable contributors.
——-
The most up to date Atheist Experience videos can be found by visiting http://atheist-experience.com/archive/
You can read more about this show on the Atheist Experience blog:
► http://freethoughtblogs.com/axp/
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism.
VISIT THE ACA’S OFFICIAL WEB SITES
► http://www.atheist-community.org (The Atheist Community of Austin)
► http://www.atheist-experience.com (The Atheist Experience TV Show)
More shows and video clips can be found in the archive:
► http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive
DVDs of the Atheist Experience can be purchased via:
► http://www.atheist-community.org/products
MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: “Listen to Reason,” written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
► http://www.youtube.com/bryansteeksma
► http://www.myspace.com/bryansteeksma
NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is the official channel of The Atheist Experience. “The Atheist Experience” is a trademark of the ACA.
Copyright © 2014 Atheist Community of Austin. All rights reserved.
January 27, 2015
Lars Anderson Rediscovers and Masters Amazing Archery Techniques (Video)
Why Mosquitoes Seem To Bite Some People More
Photo credit:
There are up to 400 chemical compounds on human skin that could play a role in attracting mosquitoes. sookie/Flickr, CC BY-SA
There’s always one in a crowd, a sort of harbinger of the oncoming mosquito onslaught: a person mosquitoes seem to target more than others. What is it about these unlucky chosen few that makes them mosquito magnets?
There are hundreds of mosquito species and they all have slightly different preferences when it comes to what or who they bite. But only females bite; they need a nutritional hit to develop eggs.
Finding Someone To Bite
If Earth Falls, Will Interstellar Space Travel Be Our Salvation?
Photo credit:
Is this how space travel will look some day? ‘Sulu, punch it!’ Shutterstock
Some climatologists argue it may be too late to reverse climate change, and it’s just a matter of time before the Earth becomes uninhabitable – if hundreds of years from now. The recent movie Interstellar raised the notion that we may one day have to escape a dying planet. As astrophysicists and avid science fiction fans, we naturally find the prospect of interstellar colonization intriguing and exciting. But is it practical, or even possible? Or is there a better solution?
Another Australian Animal Slips Away To Extinction
Photo credit:
The Bramble Cay melomys - the latest in a long line of extinct Australian mammals. Queensland Government
Last July, the federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, announced the appointment of Gregory Andrews as Australia’s first Threatened Species Commissioner. His mission: to help avert the extinction of a growing number of native plant and animal species.
Is Glass A Solid Or A Liquid?
Photo credit:
Make up your mind, glass. jurra8
Before Pilkingtons invented plate glass in the mid-19th century, flat panes could not be made. Old windows are uneven.
Some once thought this was because glass is a liquid that flows down slowly over the centuries. That’s wrong. But although glass does not move on timescales as “short” as centuries, the true nature of glass, whether it is truly solid or a very viscous liquid is something we do not know.
January 25, 2015
Planets outside our solar system may be more hospitable to life than thought, research suggests
Credit: © marcel / Fotolia
By Science Daily
A study by astrophysicists at the University of Toronto suggests that exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — are more likely to have liquid water and be more habitable than we thought.
“Planets with potential oceans could have a climate that is much more similar to Earth’s than previously expected,” said Jérémy Leconte, a postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) at the University of Toronto, and lead author of a study published today in Science Express.
Scientists have thought that exoplanets behave in a manner contrary to that of Earth — that is they always show their same side to their star. If so, exoplanets would rotate in sync with their star so that there is always one hemisphere facing it while the other hemisphere is in perpetual cold darkness.
Leconte’s study suggests, however, that as exoplanets rotate around their stars, they spin at such a speed as to exhibit a day-night cycle similar to Earth.
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
If peace on earth is our goal, atheism might be the means to that end
Photograph: Jayel Aheram / Flickr
By Adam Lee
The quiet truth behind the inescapable headlines about man’s inhumanity to man is that the world is actually becoming a more peaceful place. Deaths from war and conflict have been declining for decades – and, if current trends continue, we can make them rarer still.
What mysterious force is sowing peace among humankind? One possible reason is that there are more atheists and nonbelievers than ever before.
In America, millennials are the largest and least religious generation in the country’s history. The trend toward secularization in the US mirrors the movement in Europe and throughout the developed world. And poll after poll have shown that the nonreligious also lean more progressive and more pacifist on a wide variety of issues relating to violence: torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, military adventurism and more.
A Pew poll from 2009, well before the Senate released its devastating torture report last month, asked whether torturing suspected terrorists could be justified found that the non-religious were most opposed to torture, with a combined 55% saying that it could rarely or never be justified. Gallup has also found that people with no religious preference are less supportive of the death penalty than any group of Christians. The non-religious are also among the most likely to say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The religiously unaffiliated are also less likely than Christians to believe that the US is superior to all other countries in the world, a hyper-patriotic attitude that’s hardly conducive to careful reflection about the use of American military power.
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
Poll Shows 41% of American Adults Believe Antibiotics Treat Viruses
Despite producing more Nobel laureates than any other country, the United States has a bad reputation for incompetence in science, particularly when it comes to evolution, medicine, and climate change. A new poll from YouGov does nothing to help that image, as it recently revealed that 41% of American adults believe antibiotics can effectively treat viral infections. More specifically, 35% claimed antibiotics could treat the flu, while 24% believe it is a good treatment for the common cold. Beyond just being wrong, this misconception is dangerous.
Here is the problem: Bacteria and viruses are not even almost the same thing. Sure, they are both too small to be seen without a microscope, they can cause infections, and can even cause similar symptoms, but they are biologically very different from one another. This means that what is effective against bacteria will not work on a virus. Rather than treating the actual infection at hand, taking unneeded medication does little more than contribute to the growing threat of global antibiotic resistance.
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