Truth: still scarier than fiction

I suppose I’ve never really written about this before, because it seems like too obvious a point to need addressing. But people do keep making these same tired old arguments, displaying a very tedious lack of imagination or intellectual curiosity. To paraphrase the general theme of the argument: Why do atheists bother arguing against something [...]

Read Full Post »

Radiometric dating

The world’s been around for a while. And although there’s no shortage of cool stuff in it for us to look at, some people aren’t content with being limited to everything that’s around now. They reckon that some of the stuff that happened “before now”, in a period of time experts refer to as “the [...]

Read Full Post »

So many fallacies, so little space…

I started writing a response to Andrew Sandstrom’s comment here to my article about Kent Hovind, and it turned into a bit of a rant. You’ll need to read what he says to get the context, I’m not going to quote him here in full. “The Big Bang doesn’t support evolution… But there’s an interpretation [...]

Read Full Post »

Let’s see what’s in the papers today…

Fred Phelps is a hate-group leader, and a loathsome fucktard. The Westboro Baptist Church, which he founded, regularly pickets military funerals, and seems to take great pleasure in loudly telling pretty much everyone that God hates them, from gays to Catholics (with equally liberal use of the epithet “fags” in either case). He also regularly [...]

Read Full Post »

Raise the bridge!

Wow. Go go, Roger Ebert. Even though he’s gotta be on one of those “Men who look like old lesbians” lists somewhere, the guy can write a pretty awesome smackdown. It’s worrying how many people still apparently watch Bill O’Reilly’s show with absolutely no irony. Does a photo of him exist that doesn’t look identical [...]

Read Full Post »

Bad Science! Sit! Stay!

I think it was the 8 Lessons and Carols for Godless People show in December that finally persuaded me to read Ben Goldacre‘s book Bad Science. You should unequivocally read it yourself too, by the way, whoever and wherever you are. It will teach you many useful ways to watch out for complete bullshit in [...]

Read Full Post »

Yeah… what he said

Dr David Gorski just keeps getting more and more awesome. His latest WIN is a blow-by-blow takedown of the whole Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey interview on Larry King. Man, I can’t even blog a quarter of that much in a whole week, half as intelligently, and I’m not even curing cancer for most of [...]

Read Full Post »

When topless models go bad

I’m not entirely sure what I think about the latest hot talking point in my part of internetland, namely the Jenny McCarthy body count site. Obviously the problem of the recent anti-vaccination craze is a hugely important one to address, and I’m strongly on the side of people like Phil Plait, Steven Novella, and Orac [...]

Read Full Post »

Shun the believer!

Instead of the traditional April Fool’s confession to a sudden religious epiphany, conversion to an unlikely faith, and abandonment of my previous heathen ways including this whole heretical blog, I’ve actually got some stuff to comment on. Anyone remember Anthony Flew? He was the most famous atheist on the planet – at least, so we [...]

Read Full Post »