archaeology New Camel Domestication Research Challenges Biblical Historicity A Tel Aviv University Press Release has built on work hinted at in Israel Finkelstein's The Bible Unearthed which claimed that camels were not domesticated in the Ancient Near East to long after they are claimed to be existent and members of a goodly number of biblical stories. In other words, these
Cosmology William Lane Craig is either lying, or getting things very wrong. William Lane Craig is ubiquitous in conversations about theistic and Christian apologetics. Being the foremost modern philosopher/theologian still operating, he is often called upon or used as a source for theistic and Christian arguments, winning many debates in the process (on technique and rhetor
climate change Global Documentary Project - a Force for Change This is something that has been a long time in the making from local friends of mine whom I met through Transition Fareham, part of the Transition Network, which seeks to tackle the peak oil problem on a local level. Kate and Paul are visionaries who have gone out there and done things make the worl
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Cosmology Before the Big Bang - Conformal Cyclic Cosmology explained Another fascinating video from skydivephil, the pair whom I interviewed here (well worth checking out). This time, the 'before the Big Bang' idea is investigated in interviewing Sir Roger Penrose with regard to the cyclical universe.
Creationism Nye vs Ham - who won? Well, without having yet finished, it seems open and closed. Don't get me wrong, both were assured and neither will shift the other's position, obviously. But you simply can't argue against such robust and predictive science.
Aaron Adair Carrier plugs The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View Richard Carrier plugs a book I have just edited and published, a book by Aaron Adair, contributor here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-bvqLUZjUQ&feature=share&t=2m18s The video should start at the relevant time. Nice! I am now going to try and watch the video
Conservatives Are Suffolk Conservative Party Members Idiots? (Er, yes) As The BBC reports: Senior Conservative MP Tim Yeo has lost his fight against being deselected by party activists. The former environment minister demanded the secret ballot by Tory members in South Suffolk after the association's committee voted not to re-adopt him as a candidate.
Featured ATP Your Weekly SIN Paper.li is a cool way of disseminating information, blogs, articles and what have you. I have signed the Skeptic Ink Network up to a newspaper which comes out weekly, aggregating our posts, individual titter feeds and whatnot. Check it out, it's cool! http://paper.li/f-1389344131 Please
Arts Always good to know... that my efforts are not wasted. Received a nice email the other day from a Canadian: I've recently bought and read all three of your books. They are fantastic. They are simple and easy to follow, yet rigorous. Being a mathematician, I have always had an interest in
compatibilism Dennett, Harris and Free Will Daniel Dennett has finally responded (it has been long-awaited) to Sam Harris's short treatise Free Will. The review can be found at the Center for Naturalism, here. I am going to look at what Dennett says, and what Harris's idea of free will is compared to Dennett. Essentially, whilst there is lots
Featured ATP Decision Time for the Sunday Assembly - Guest post by Simon Clare This blog post is very much a timely piece as there is much newsworthiness concerning the Atheist Assembly and secular gatherings in general. It needs to be read so share away! Simon Clare is organiser of Horsham and Brighton Skeptics in the Pubs and one-time atheist street-preacher. Check out his w
conceptualism On Beauty We had a Tippling Philosophers night the other night on beauty, and these are the quick notes I sent to someone who was unable to be there. Let me know what you think: My belief is that: Beauty is a word which all too often means "I like that".
Epistemology Philosophy 101 (philpapers induced) #6: External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? So having posted the Philpapers survey results, the biggest ever survey of philosophers conducted in 2009, several readers were not aware of it (the reason for re-communicating it) and were unsure as to what some of the questions were. I offered to do a series on them, so here it is – Philosophy 101
COVID crisis Susanne Atanus, GOP Candidate: Autism, Dementia Are God's Punishments For Gays, Abortions Ack, the Republicans are at it again. Maybe she saw my post on autism meaning that God is unfair. As HuffPo reports: "I am not in favor of abortions, I am not in favor of gay rights," Atanus, who has staged two previous unsuccessful runs for Congress, said during a videotaped portion of the in
atheism God is not fair; thus not omnibenevolent Some time back I posted an argument on mentalizing deficits with regard to God being unfair. This broadly stated that certain autistic type people who have an inability to empathise are less likely to believe in God, presumably because the intersubjectivity of empathy allows an agent to see the,selv
counter-apologetics Free Will, the Problem of Evil and Heaven and Christian commenters I don't know why, but Christians seem to be posting a few comments just now on some old videos of mine. The comments irritate me because they are not so well thought out. This 'sombodysdad' in particular... People seem to think they are all that and
infinity RDFRS Review of 'Dot Dot Dot : Infinity Plus God Equals Folly' Great news: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has just published a review of Dot, Dot, Dot. Can you find God in numbers? Christian apologists like William Lane Craig say yes. Since God is infinite, we can study him through the mathematics of infinity
Creationism "There is no association between evolution, science, academics, or the intellect. It does not exist." OK, it might take you a while to stop laughing. Now, these days, I don't really get involved in evolution arguments with people who flatly deny evolution on such blatantly anti-intellectual terms. I see it as self-delusion, and having written before that such people are impervious to reason and evid
Featured ATP UKIP councillor blames storms and floods on gay marriage OK, so this sort of thing is what you would usually expect from rabid Republican senators. Anyway, looks like that sort of behaviour has traversed the Atlantic. Let me just get this out of the way first - AAAAARRRGGGGHHHH! Fuckwit! Anyway, the BBC:
God's characteristics Quote of the Day - jozhek OK, so it's not here on my site, but on James A. Lindsay's (whose book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly I have just edited) site, God Doesn't; We Do, in a debate with apologist Tom Gilson.
atheism Me and Koresh vs the Gospel Writers and Jesus Christian: Why is it more probable that your god exists than man made him up? We have an exceptionally high prior probability that your god is false given that we both believe that every other god claimed to be true (before and after) is false. Thus, on prior probability, the JC God is HIGHLY
evolution Discovery of New Tiktaalik Roseae Fossils Reveals Key Link in Evolution of Hind Limbs The discovery of well-preserved pelves and a partial pelvic fin from Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old transitional species between fish and the first legged animals, reveals that the evolution of hind legs actually began as enhanced hind fins. This challenges existing theory that large, mobi
Andreas Schueler Quote of the Day - Andreas Schueler (I love this one) Good ole Andy. Always says sensible stuff. Well, this one pops up fairly often in conversations with IDers. Andy uses it to good effect. I thought I would repeat it here as a foil to anybody who asserts that Intelligent Design is any sort of proper theory, with any sort
