Amazing Crop Circles

So many mathematical & artistically talented farmers!

clipped from www8.discuss.com.hk

The God Delusion pledge to MPs - SUCCESS!!

The pledge succeeded at 00:52am on 25th March 2007 - the day before Richard Dawkins 66th Birthday.

This is the 'card' I sent to RD.

Thought for the Day - Whose thought?

In response to New Humanists "Urgent - Lobby the BBC"

to: feedback@bbc.co.uk

Re: Thought for the Day - Whose thought?
Columnist and broadcaster Joan Bakewell argues that the Thought for the Day slot on Radio 4's Today programme should be opened up to a wider variety of speakers, some of whom are not signed-up members of a major religion." http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/feedback.shtml

Sir,
I agree with Joan Bakewell when she argues that the Thought for the Day slot on Radio 4's Today programme should be opened up to a wider variety of speakers, some of whom are not signed-up members of a major religion. A November 2006 Ipsos MORI Poll http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2288 has shown that 36% people - equivalent to around 17 million adults - are in fact humanists in their basic outlook. They:

- feel scientific & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe (rather than feeling that religious beliefs are needed for a 'complete understanding')

- believe that 'right and wrong' can be explained by human nature alone, and does not necessarily require religious teachings, and

- base their judgments of right and wrong on 'the effects on people and the consequences for society and the world'.


Chris Street,
Dorset Humanist Association
www.dorsethumanists.co.uk

Affiliated to the British Humanist Association
www.humanism.org.uk

Urgent- Lobby the BBC

23 Mar 07 -- support Joan Bakewell's call for secularists on Thought For The Day
For years the humanist and secular movement have been asking the BBC why only religious speakers are allowed to monopolise this programme. However, our requests have been stubbornly ignored. A fresh opportunity has unexpectedly opened up for us to get this unfair, illogical ban removed. Today (23rd March) Joan Bakewell, on the Radio 4 "Feedback" programme, made a powerful plea for non-religious people to be included, saying that we have thoughtful, important things to say on the ethical issues that the programme addresses. The presenter, Roger Bolton, gave his usual invitation for comments.

You can hear the programme on the "Feedback" page on the main BBC website.

You can also send an e-mail direct from their page. I have, of course, sent mine. Please do the same urgently. This is a real chance to confront the intransigence we have met so far - and to provide a counter-voice to contributors like the unspeakable Ann Atkins who last year used the slot to say that "people who don't believe in the existence of Jesus are as daft as fried eggs"!!

You can also phone "Feedback" on 0870 803 4544 or write to FEEDBACK, PO BOX 2000. London W1A 1QT.

[Thanks to John White]

reposted from: new humanist
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Al Gore makes global warming plea

Al Gore makes global warming plea

Al Gore brought 500,000 letters urging action on climate change

Former US Vice-President Al Gore made an emotional return to the US Congress to testify about global warming.

The winner of an Oscar for his film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, told a large crowd that "our world faces a true planetary emergency".

He said the US should freeze carbon dioxide emissions and push for a strong climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

Mr Gore came under fire for his own high energy use at his Tennessee home.

He called his first appearance in Congress since losing the 2000 presidential race to George W Bush "an emotional occasion".

'Carbon-neutral life'

Mr Gore spoke first to a joint session of two House of Representative committees on energy and environmental issues and then the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"This problem is burning a hole at the top of the world in the ice cover that is one of the principal ways our planet cools itself," he said.

"If it goes, it won't come back on any timescale relevant to the human species."

We live a carbon-neutral life, senator, and both of my businesses are carbon-neutral... we do not contribute to the problem that I am joining with others to solve Al Gore

Mr Gore had with him boxes which he said contained more than 500,000 letters asking Congress to take action to stop global warming.

The measures he suggested included a freeze on carbon dioxide emissions; requiring corporations to disclose emissions in their reports; and a tough international treaty to limit global warming pollutants, to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

But critics questioned the science behind global warming theory and criticised Mr Gore's personal energy use.

Senator James Inhofe challenged Mr Gore to consume no more energy at home than the average American.

Mr Gore wants to freeze, then lower, carbon dioxide emissions

Mr Gore said: "We live a carbon-neutral life, senator, and both of my businesses are carbon-neutral... we do not contribute to the problem that I am joining with others to solve."

Representative Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, challenged global warming science as "uneven and evolving".

"You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong," he said of Mr Gore's conclusions that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming.

Mr Barton said freezing carbon emissions would harm Americans and lead to "no new industry, no new people and no new cars".

Mr Gore's star has been rising lately.

His documentary won two Oscars; he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and several opinion polls in the US show him among the top potential contenders for the presidency, although he says he has no plans to run again.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2007 March 24

Lisbon Moonset
Credit & Copyright: Miguel Claro

Explanation: Brilliant Venus, a slender crescent Moon, and lights along the Ponte 25 de Abril glow against the western twilight in this lovely moonset scene from Lisbon, Portugal, recorded on March 20. In fact, such serene views were enjoyed across planet Earth this week, as the young Moon remained near the setting Sun following a partial solar eclipse, and Venus ruled as the evening star. Because of strong Earthshine - light from the sunlit Earth - even the Moon's night side is clearly visible in the picture. The Ponte 25 de Abril is a 2.3 kilometer long suspension bridge across the Tagus river, often compared to the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, USA.

reposted from: nasa
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Visitor map

The illusion of reality in a quantum world

• From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
• Marcus Chown

17 March 2007

HOW would you like to be quantum? It would certainly have its advantages. Imagine, for a start, if you could be in two places at once. Jet off to the beach and stay in the office at the same time. Do the weekend shopping and mow the front lawn simultaneously. Sure, you say, dream on.

Well then, here's the shocking bit: you really could be quantum. After all, you are made of atoms and molecules that obey the rules of quantum theory. They can be in different states, spinning this way and that, all at the same time. They can be here, there and everywhere in between. The big question is why atoms can experience the full weirdness of quantum mechanics, whereas you and I evidently cannot. "In short, how does the well-behaved, everyday classical world emerge from the schizophrenic quantum realm," asks Johannes Kofler, a specialist in quantum theory from aslav Brukner's group at the University of Vienna, Austria.

We may finally have the answer. For years physicists have tried to pin down the elusive boundary between the quantum and classical worlds. Now Kofler, Brukner and others have shown that this boundary may not exist. That's right, the quantum world never breaks down. If that's true, we're left with a mind-numbing prospect: the world could be quantum, but we are blind to it. This result challenges our very notions of how classical reality arises.

Quantum theory, for its part, is a supremely effective description of the microscopic world of atoms and their constituents. Disturbingly, however, it also reveals a profoundly counter-intuitive reality in which, for instance, a particle can exist in a "superposition" of states where it can do two or more things at once.

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger came up with his famous thought experiment to highlight a consequence of this. He imagined a cat shut in a box together with a vial of poison. The decay of a radioactive atom could prompt a hammer to smash the vial and kill the cat. Crucially, if the atom was in a superposition in which it simultaneously did and did not decay, the cat would be both dead and alive at the same time. The only way to know would be to open the box. This thought experiment catapulted quantum weirdness out of the microscopic realm and into the everyday world, where researchers had no choice but to deal with it.

Physicists call these macro-scale superpositions - ones containing many atoms or other quantum entities - Schrödinger cat states, or simply "cats". In the past decade, these cats have helped researchers probe the transition between the quantum and classical worlds. They have also begun to explain why we don't see everyday objects in two states at once, and whether there's a chance we ever will.

Traditionally, there have been two competing views on this question. A minority of researchers believe there is a threshold size at which quantum reality "collapses" into everyday reality. In other words, when a cat gets big enough, some fundamental property of nature forces it to choose one particular state over the others. Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford thinks this transition may be triggered by the effects of gravity. Physicists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and elsewhere have been preparing intricate experiments to test this idea (New Scientist, 9 March 2002, p 27).

The more mainstream view is that quantum behaviour only manifests itself when two states in a superposition interfere with each other. However, when a quantum object leaves an impression on a large number of atoms - a detector, your eye or even the surrounding environment - the ability of the states in the superposition to interfere with each other is very rapidly lost. According to this phenomenon, known as "decoherence", quantum effects disappear as soon as an object ceases to be isolated from its environment. Take the most familiar example: when you observe a quantum particle, or lift the lid on Schrödinger's cat, it is forced to pick a state. What's more, the bigger an object is, the more likely it will be to run into other particles such as photons and oxygen molecules, and thus decohere.

One way to shine a light on the mysterious quantum-classical transition is to create bigger and bigger cats and see when and how they dissolve. In the late 1990s, a team led by Markus Arndt and Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna did just that by observing a large buckminsterfullerene molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms pass through two slits in an opaque screen simultaneously - a sure sign of its quantum properties since the molecule was in two places at once. They have since repeated the experiment with larger objects such as carbon-70 and biomolecules spanning a few nanometres, and have even proposed using viruses, which are much larger (New Scientist, 15 May 2004, p 30).

Remarkably, however, there is no agreement on something as fundamental as what is the biggest Schrödinger cat created so far. To define this more precisely, Florian Marquardt of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, and his colleagues Benjamin Abel and Jan von Delft have come up with a new measure of a cat's size: just count the number of operations on individual particles required to change one state of a superposition into another. To change a carbon-70 molecule at one slit into carbon-70 at another, for instance, you have to move 70 atoms, so carbon-70 is a bigger cat than carbon-60.

It isn't always that simple, however. Physicists have also created other kinds of cats such as superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs. In this gizmo, an electrical current travels both clockwise and anticlockwise around a superconducting circuit at the same time. The superposition involves billions of electrons, so does that make it a bigger cat than carbon-70?

Not necessarily. Electrons travel around a SQUID in duos known as Cooper pairs. Thanks to Marquardt's model, you don't need to move billions of electrons to change one state into the other; shifting just a few Cooper pairs from the clockwise current will make an anticlockwise current - as long as they have enough energy or are travelling fast enough. "Despite the fact that the SQUID supports a macroscopically measurable current, it may in fact be a small cat," says Marquardt.

The upshot of all this is that just adding more particles to a superposition won't help us build cats that are big enough to show quantum effects in everyday life. So how do we make bigger cats? A team led by Keith Burnett at the University of Oxford has devised a rough guide for experimenters. Burnett and his collaborators developed a model of another type of cat made from a Bose-Einstein condensate - a large number of supercooled atoms, mostly in one quantum state, which behave as a single entity, like a company of soldiers marching in lockstep (see "How to make a fat cat").

Through two doors at once

To be able to construct a superposition, they found that the states - represented by the atoms' different movements - needed to have similar energies and be tightly linked. Otherwise the system would simply settle on one state or the other. That suggests you couldn't be in a superposition of working in the office and napping on the beach, say, but you might be able to walk through two different doors in your office. More practically, Burnett's model suggests ways to prepare a superconducting circuit so it can stay in two states at once. "It's because it is difficult to achieve these conditions that it is so difficult to make fat cats," says David Hallwood, a team member from Oxford.

OK, but in principle, is there any limit to how big a cat can be? Could a person really be in a superposition in which they go through two doors simultaneously? "In theory, yes, if you could keep them perfectly isolated from their surroundings," says Marquardt. Just one problem: the idea that quantum laws apply on human scales has not been proved before.

“Could a person live by the rules of quantum mechanics and so be able to pass through two doors simultaneously? In theory, yes”

That's where Kofler and Brukner come in. They have developed a model made up of a large number of particles such as atoms, each with a "spin" similar to the angular momentum that planets and figure skaters possess when they rotate - except that quantum particles can have angular momentum without actually rotating. The researchers then create a superposition of two states: one in which the particles' spins are aligned in one direction, and one with them aligned in a different direction.

Surprisingly, the researchers worked out that there is nothing to prevent them from creating such a superposition in theory, even if the spins are infinite in magnitude - so an unlimited number of particles could be in superposition. That means there is no definite point at which an object fails to obey the laws of quantum theory, implying that the quantum-classical boundary does not exist. In other words, if you were sufficiently isolated from your environment to ward off decoherence, you and everything around you could be quantum.

But there's a catch, and it has to do with whether you could ever actually see these quantum effects. According to Kofler and Brukner, people have overlooked another factor that complements decoherence.

Their model shows there is a difference between a quantum superposition of spins and a mere classical mixture of spinning atoms in separate boxes, some pointing to the north and some to the east, for example. Think of a sphere with an arrow, or spin vector, pointing from its centre to the North Pole and another spin vector pointing from the centre towards the east. The sphere represents the collection of spin states, not any physical object.

In the classical world, the probability that any given box will contain a north-spinning or east-spinning particle can be represented on the surface of the sphere as peaks at the north and the east, but nothing in between. A quantum superposition can also be represented as a wavy pattern, with peaks at north and east, but it will have ripples over the whole sphere because of interference between the spin states.

Newton meets Schrödinger

Now imagine measuring the spin of this quantum superposition with an increasingly coarse instrument. At some point you will not be able to distinguish some spin directions from others that are close by on the surface. In effect, the wavy pattern on the sphere will appear blurred as you step back from it. Eventually, you see a pattern with peaks in the north and east but not at any of the directions in between - which matches exactly the classical distribution of spins.

"The transition is made smoothly from the quantum case to the classical case," says Kofler. "It's all because we can't distinguish neighbouring quantum states." He stresses that this blurring happens even when the system is completely isolated from its environment so that decoherence does not occur. "In that case, the coarseness of our instruments determines when we can no longer see quantumness," he says.

It all points to an additional mechanism for how classical reality might arise from quantum laws. Until now, the only accepted explanation was that we don't see quantum objects because they decohere. Kofler and Brukner argue that the effect they have identified - the blurred image of the quantum world that our eyes and instruments give us - is what can also translate Schrödinger's equation, which describes the quantum world, into Newton's laws, which describe the everyday, classical world.

Indeed, their model helps show for the first time that what we perceive as classical reality can emerge gradually from quantum laws. "Interesting stuff, and I'd say it's the real thing," says Lawrence Schulman of Clarkson University in New York state. Other researchers agree, though they are cautious about the broader implications. "The real challenge is to explain why classical physics approximately applies over such a wide range of time, epoch and scale in our universe," says Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Nevertheless, it would seem that the quantum-classical transition is now fully understood. Reality is fundamentally quantum but looks classical to us as a result of decoherence or the coarseness of our instruments, whichever effect kicks in first. In practice this depends on your set-up. If you could isolate your system so it didn't decohere, coarse-graining might cut in first; otherwise decoherence rules.

Kofler is not so sure that the problem has been cracked, however. "When we talk about quantum states that are 'close together' being blurred into each other, we use terminology that means nothing in the quantum world," he says. That is, we still have a vestige of our classical world in our description of the quantum.

So what about our chances of ever being in two places at once? It seems you'd need absurdly high resolution and near-total isolation to detect this sort of quantum reality. What is more, even if you could, you probably wouldn't experience a double life. "Superpositions are never actually observed, only the consequences," says Marquardt.

Sadly, this means you will probably never see a person going through two doors simultaneously, or get to enjoy the French Riviera while also working a full day at the office. At best you might get to detect some weird effect that shows you have been in a superposition. Then again, if you have been feeling strangely relaxed at work or inexplicably productive on weekends, you might just chalk it up to your quantum self.

“Feeling strangely relaxed at work or inexplicably productive at weekends? You might just chalk it up to your quantum self”

From issue 2595 of New Scientist magazine, 17 March 2007, page 36-39

How to make a fat cat

Schrödinger cats - macroscopic objects in "superpositions" of different quantum states - are hard to make. If they weren't, chairs and tables and you and I could be in multiple places at once. Now David Hallwood and Keith Burnett of the University of Oxford and Jacob Dunningham of the University of Leeds, UK, have come up with a recipe for researchers.

They imagine a bucket filled with a bunch of supercooled atoms all in the same quantum state, known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. One of the strange properties of this state of matter is that all the atoms remain stationary when you rotate the bucket, rather than move with it. From the bucket's point of view, however, the atoms revolve in the opposite direction. Similarly, if the atoms are in an excited state where they all revolve at the same speed, you can rotate the bucket so that from its view the atoms are not moving. Finally, imagine rotating the bucket at some intermediate speed so that the stationary atoms and the excited atoms have the same speed but are revolving in opposite directions from the bucket's point of view. Those are your states of superposition. "The system doesn't know what state to pick," says Hallwood.

In order to make a fat cat, the energies of the two states need to be similar, and there cannot be others close by in energy. The states must also have a high probability of making the transition from one to the other, but a low probability of going to any other states. This recipe could be useful for building superconducting devices.

reposted from: NS
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Christopher Hitchens: "The Moral Necessity of Atheism."

Will we ever see an MP at Converts' Corner?

Converts' Corner has stories of Christians who have converted to Atheism partly as a result of Richard Dawkins' books and recent "The God Delusion" lecture tour in the USA.

“And I thought and thought and thought. But I just didn’t have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe, and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker, and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”

Douglas Adams The Salmon of Doubt, p 99.

“Douglas, I miss you. You are my cleverest, funniest, most open-minded, wittiest, tallest, and possibly only convert. I hope this book might have made you laugh – though not as much as you made me. . . Douglas’s conversion by my earlier books – which did not set out to convert anyone – inspired me to dedicate to his memory this book – which does!”

Richard Dawkins The God Delusion, p 117

Is Douglas Adams Richard’s only convert? Or is he just the first of many? Please write in to Converts' Corner if you have lost your religion (or have been encouraged to come out of the closet) as a result of reading The God Delusion or other Dawkins books.

Email convertscorner@richarddawkins.net

110)

Dear Professor Dawkins,

I am most grateful for your book, The God Delusion. With your book, lighting the dark room in my mind, I am able to fully grasp ideas like evolution. I was very shaky on evolution, growing up as a Methodist. Though my mother allowed me to freely pursue any science I so wished, I was bewildered on evolution. After all, I thought and, when I asked my religious leaders, told, how else could this world be created if not by God?. So my religious devotion continued until after the eighth grade where its foundations began to weaken as I was turned away from Christianity when I read the atrocities committed by the Crusaders in the name of God. Though I managed to convince myself these were just radicals, I couldn't help thinking why would God allow his servants to participate in such a slaughter. I continued on to waver on the line between religion and atheism. But I began my first steps to atheism when I began to read about secular humanism. I was attracted by its ideologies but was reluctant to fully call myself a secular humanist. I had still wondered if God did really exist. Then I came upon, with good luck, you and your book, The God Delusion. I said to myself that I would read your book the first chance I get. And I did. After reading it and watching your Root of All Evil?, I was ready to call myself a nonbeliever. I know what's true and right. I know, now, thanks to you, that natural selection is not just mere chance but a steady process and I am more armed in a debate with a believer. I know, now, that we humans did not come from monkeys but a common ancestor. I now know why believing in blind faith will result in disaster. With your book and ebonmusing.org, I have fully understood the evil of religion and the joy of atheism I e-mailed you this not only to express my gratitude to you but also a plea of help. While I declared my atheism to my schoolmates, another worry took over me. What about my mother, who remains steadfast with God? I fear the day when I must declare the truth that I'm an atheist to her. I will be needing help when that comes because she has, many times before, threatened to evict me if I come too close to disobey me. Despite that, I am proud to declare that I am an atheist and a secular humanist. So thank you very much for your book and your videos. I only wish that the religious world could view the world through your eyes, just only for one day.

Sincerely,

A fellow atheist

Over 125 other examples on these pages. Will we see our first MPs story listed here in April 2007?

reposted from: richard dawkins
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Creationism - Ignorant but proud

clipped from: atheistrevolution.blogspot.com

I recently found myself stopped in traffic behind a car with this symbol on the back. I had to laugh, wondering whether the owner of this car realized the irony involved with this magnet. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the driver thinks his religion counts as "truth" simply because he believes it. It probably doesn't even strike him as absurd that his primary reason for believing it is almost certainly that he learned it from his parents.

How much arrogance is required to elevate one's personal beliefs into absolute truth? Never mind that there is a consensus in the scientific community supporting Darwin's theory of evolution. "Who are these scientists to tell me that I'm wrong?" I wonder if the driver could even articulate the basics of the theory he mocks here.

---

Reply to: The Great Global Warming Swindle

Update: 19th August 2007 - this video is no longer available on youtube.

Climate Change - Bremner, Bird and Fortune

Climate Feedback Escalator

Fake fights are not helping climate science

• 20 March 2007
• Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues
• Alan Thorpe

Few areas of science have implications as momentous as those of climate change. Much is riding not only on ensuring that the science is as accurate as possible but also on getting the political and social response right. Given the high stakes, it is hardly surprising that scientists' methods and conclusions are coming under considerable scrutiny. This is as it should be. After all, scepticism is fundamental to the scientific method.

Scepticism is one thing; cynicism and conspiracy-theorising are quite another. These are the hallmarks of a recent attempt to discredit the widely accepted theory that human-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. A loose affiliation of scientists and writers is pushing the alternative idea that fluctuations in solar activity provide a better explanation for the rise and fall in the temperature of Earth's atmosphere over the past few centuries.

Their basic argument goes something like this. When the cosmic rays that constantly bombard Earth from outer space hit water vapour rising from the oceans, they cause clouds to form in the atmosphere which shield the planet from solar radiation and cause it to cool. The sun's magnetic field dampens the effect of cosmic rays, so reducing cloud cover and causing Earth to heat up. Thus an active sun makes for a warmer planet - a correlation these scientists claim is borne out by the records.

Readers in the UK may have seen the most recent incarnation of this theory in the Channel 4 television programme The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast last week. The programme questioned not only the mainstream of global warming science but also the integrity of the researchers involved in it. As I am the head of the major funder of climate science in the UK, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), such accusations of bias, lying and prejudice were bound to catch my attention.

First, let's deal with the main thesis: that the presence or absence of cosmic rays in Earth's atmosphere is a better explanation for temperature variation than the concentration of CO₂ and other gases. This is not a new assertion and it is patently wrong: there is no credible evidence that cosmic rays play a significant role. The climate system is complex and it is likely that many factors affect it, cosmic rays among them. But to claim they are a major influence is disingenuous. There is far greater evidence suggesting CO₂ is the major cause of warming.

"To claim that cosmic rays are a major influence is disingenuous"

Another claim made by the sceptics relates to the observation that in the long-term history of Earth's climate, variations in atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ have lagged behind variations in the temperature of the atmosphere. Therefore, they say, the theory that human-produced greenhouse gases are the cause of current warming must be wrong.

Not so. True, the historical rhythm of major ice ages and interglacial periods is set by Earth's orbital variations, known as Milankovitch cycles, not by levels of greenhouse gases. However, these cycles in turn trigger feedback effects - such as increases or decreases in levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere - which amplify the change in temperature.

There is no question that the more CO₂ there is in the atmosphere, the warmer the planet becomes. It is not the only mechanism for warming, but it is a prominent one. We are adding CO₂ and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in a way that has never happened before. The physics of how these gases cause warming by trapping the sun's radiation within the lower atmosphere - the greenhouse effect - is well established and it is no surprise that temperatures have been rising over the past 40 years. What's more, from the comprehensive models that climate scientists have built up, it is clear that only human-made greenhouse gases can explain this warming. Other factors, such as solar variations, have been found to be insignificant in comparison.

This debate is not just about science. Implicit in the sceptics' message is the suggestion that scientists are lying about the role of CO₂ in climate change. The impression given is that this is a conspiracy; that climate scientists are deliberately trying to mislead the public, either to affect policy because of their private political motivations or to be more successful in attracting research funding.

Again, this is not backed up by any evidence. In my experience the climate science community operates at the highest ethical level and sticks to the scientific evidence.

The problem with debating the science of something like climate change is that it is hard for the public to assess the arguments across the whole spectrum of scientific opinion. It is partly in recognition of this that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change periodically publishes its scientific assessments that draw together the full body of knowledge on the subject. That is not a political process. It is a scientific one. Let scepticism reign, but let's not play games with the evidence.

From issue 2595 of New Scientist magazine, 20 March 2007, page 24
reposted from: New Scientist
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

I will give my MP Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion"

"I will arrange for my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs."

— J Christie

I recommend people pledge now here: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state

Deadline to sign up by: 31^st March 2007

At 22nd March 22.54 hours GMT, 528 people have signed up, 117 more needed.

Country: United Kingdom

General pledge information

Creator	J Christie
Date created	23rd January 2007
Date closes	31st March 2007
Status	open for signers; not yet successful
Number of signers	528 / 645 (81.9% of target)
Estimated signers by deadline	582 (90.2% of target) if signup rate continues as in last week
Categories	Democracy and government

reposted from: Pledgebank.com - PLEDGE NOW!

my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Atheist Resource UK

An tonne of information about UK Atheism and Science v Religion debate etc.

http://www.atheistresource.co.uk/aboutfaq.html


reposted from: http://www.atheistresource.co.uk/
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

UK Secularists at Secularism.org

Campaigning to end religious privilege
Welcome to secularism

This site is designed for those who wish to be active in the secular cause - to get religion out of public life.

* We are not opposed to people having a religion. Some people need one, others don't.
* We are opposed to their attempts to impose their religious beliefs, ideas, superstitions, prejudices and laws on others.

Our primary questions to those of religion

Are you for or against the following in education:

* children being encouraged to adopt a spirit of open-minded enquiry into all aspects of life, including religion,
* children being taught fairly about all belief systems, religious and non-religious so that they can make an informed choice,
* children being taught a strong set of personal values and social responsibilities,
* children being instructed in a single religion ignoring all other belief systems?

Why are religious people afraid of teaching about all belief systems in an open-minded and unbiased way?
The danger of linking moral values and social responsibilities with religion

Religious people must always be challenged when they claim that religion is the source of moral values and social responsibilities. Not only is this wrong (such ideas are older than any religion) but it is also deeply insulting to those of us who lead responsible lives without religion.

As well as being wrong and insulting, this idea is also highly dangerous.

If children are taught that religion is the sole source of values and responsibilities, and they later reject religion - as most of them do in Western Europe - there is the danger that they will reject not only the fairy stories of religion but also everything that goes with it - including the values and responsibilities.

It is therefore absolutely essential that children are taught that moral values and responsibilities are products of what we share - our humanity and the society in which we live. They are not the product of what divides so many people - religion.

Basing values and responsibilities on the things that unite us, rather than on the things that divide us, is the best hope for social harmony.

Our current campaign - religion in schools

Summary

We are campaigning for:

• all schools to teach about all belief systems, religious and non-religious, to enable pupils to make an informed choice,
• all belief systems to be given equal status and time - with none assumed to be better than the others,
• a clear statement about religion to be included in the Parents' Prospectus and web site of all schools,
• parents and pupils to be aware of their legal rights to opt out of worship and RE,
• parents to make a positive choice about worship and RE - to opt in or to opt out,
• moral education (values and responsibilities) to be separated from religious education - neither depends on being religious,
• proper lessons to be made available to pupils who are opted out of worship and RE,
• school staff (teachers and others) not to be discriminated against because of their beliefs (see note 1).

Notes

1. By this we mean that it shall not be a condition of employment that a member of staff be a member of any particular religion.

   For some strange reason, religious groups and schools are permitted to discriminate. We do not know if this was an oversight in the current employment legislation or a result of pressure from religious groups to enable them to continue to discriminate as they see fit - against women, against homosexuals, against the non-religious or against those of other religions. No other employer is given the same right to discriminate.

2. We are opposed to the wearing of any religious symbols in institutions funded by taxpayers.

reposted from: secularuk.org
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Radio 4 "Thought For The Day" Complaint

Initial Complaint (13th Jan 2007):

I often listen to The Today Programme whilst travelling to work and often listen to Thought For The Day, and was disgusted to read the following article whereby it appears that the BBC have positively rejected anyone providing a Thought For The Day unless they are religious.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,787108,00.html

I do not have any religious belief, just like many licence paying members of the public, and I am appalled that the BBC has discriminated against all persons who do not follow a particular faith.

Isn't the BBC meant to represent its licence paying public? If "Thought For The Day" was called "Religious Thought For The Day", then fine, but it is not. People that do not follow any particular faith are able to contribute thought provoking, postive statements to Radio 4 listens on equal terms to religious leaders, even though clearly, Radio 4 is happy to allow religious leaders from different faiths to provide such thoughts - I have heard both Christian leaders and Muslim leaders.

I'd like to understand on what grounds this discrimination has been allowed and accepted, and what Radio 4's view is of people who do not follow a particular faith, if they do not consider them worthy to provide a Thought For The Day to Radio 4 listeners?

BBC Response (5th Feb 2007)

The BBC's response has confidential in the footer, so I have not displayed it here, however, I have displayed my response to them below.

Response to the BBC (9th Feb 2007)

Thank you for your reply to my complaint. I have considered your response at some length and have reached the conclusion that your response does not satisfactorily answer my complaint.

Firstly, I agree that Thought For The Day (TFTD) is beneficial to all listeners, religious and non-religious alike. I also agree with you that religious people are not the only ones that have something worthwhile to say about morals and ethics. TFTD is indeed a unique slot that provides ‘spiritual’ guidance for all listeners to consider and reflect upon. However, this is where our agreement departs, and the starting point of that departure is in relation to the term 'spiritual'.

Spirituality is not sourced from a belief in a deity; belief in a deity is sourced from our inherent sense of existence, our capacity for empathy and compassion, and our ability to project a consciousness onto invisible and inanimate objects - have you ever been close to running out of petrol and heard yourself saying to your car "Come on, don't let me down. The garage is not too far away. You can get me there!"? Buddhism is considered a religion and yet no deity plays any part in this belief system. Spirituality is not exclusively obtained through a belief in a deity. Spiritual understanding is not exclusive to religious people; if it was, we would not both agree that non-religious and religious people can benefit from such guidance.

You also argue that “The vast swathe of general programmes makes little reference to religion, but approach the world from an overwhelmingly secular perspective, e.g. news…”. Like TFTD, programmes that make no reference to religion are beneficial to religious and non-religious people alike. It is also true that when a religious person drives their car to the shops they are performing a secular activity – ie. an activity that has no religious relevance; religious people cannot survive without the "vast swathe" of their daily activities being secular activities. To this end, it is also fair to say that the "vast swathe" of programmes make little reference to humanism, atheism or any other name for a lack of religion - ergo, the "vast swathe" of programmes are neutral on religious and non-religious beliefs alike.

Another argument you put forward is a statistical one: “a significant majority of the UK population (around 70 per cent), including increasing numbers from non-Christian faiths, claim a belief in God or describe themselves as ‘spiritual’”. Firstly it seems that you agree that spirituality does not require a belief in God, so maybe this is another point we do actually agree on? Assuming your statistics are correct, it would not be unreasonable to assume that up to 30% of TFTD slots could be available for 'spiritual' contributions from non-religious people. But then you say “Also, the level of attendance in religious activities among the Radio 4 audience is higher than the national average.” This statement is ambiguous, but assuming this means that the majority of listeners to Radio 4 are religious, then there are two points to make here: i) even if only 15% of listeners are non-religious, it is not unreasonable to assume that up to 15% of TFTD slots could include 'spiritual' contributions from non-religious people; ii) this majority of religious listeners must want to listen to the “vast swathe of general programmes“ that make “little reference to religion”, supporting my point made in the previous paragraph.

Other points put forward are: “Broadening the brief would detract from the distinctiveness of the slot.” and “The BBC believes that all licence fee payers have the right to hear their reasonable views and beliefs reflected on its output.”. The distinctiveness of the slot is the ‘spiritual’ content, not the person providing the message; are you saying that a person who has spent their life helping deprived people across the world, who has seen suffering that most of us could not imagine, and who has also seen examples of the human spirit being so strong as to succeed against all odds, would not be welcome on TFTD just because they do not subscribe to a recognised religion? As a licence fee payer, I agree that I have the right to hear this person’s reasonable views reflected on your programme. Clearly the BBC, who has explicitly excluded such a person from contributing, does not actually agree with my licence fee paying right as it claims to believe.

I will close with reference to a point you made in your main opening paragraph: “'Thought for the Day' has been a regular feature on BBC Radio for nearly 40 years”. It is true to say that 40 years ago you could have discriminated against someone for being too young or too old, if you wanted to. Fortunately, our society has moved on and is now a society based on inclusion and equality; I am not suggesting that every week a non-religious person should be appearing on TFTD, but to explicitly exclude people who could provide a unique spiritual contribution from their experience of the human spirit, because they have exercised their right to freely choose what they believe, is nothing more than blatant and unwarranted discrimination.

Further Response from BBC (5th March 2007)

The BBC stated that there is little more they can add to their previous response to my initial complaint, and that I can take it up with the Editorial Complaints Unit (ESC) if I believe there is something editorially wrong with the programme.

I will be writing a formal letter of complaint to the ESC, and will then take it to the board of the BBC Trust if I am not satisfied with their response.

Escalation to the Editorial Complaints Unit (5th March 2007)

Editorial Complaints Unit, BBC,
Media Centre, Media Village,
201 Wood Lane,
London. W12 7TQ.

5th March 2007

Dear Sir / Madam

I have recently complained to the BBC via the Complaint Portal on the BBC Website and received a response that was wholly unsatisfactory. I subsequently responded to explain why I was not satisfied and I have now received a brief email that includes:

“I am afraid, further to the response you have already received from the BBC regarding this matter, there is little more I can add.”

I have attached the 4 communications as listed below and would like my complaint to be answered appropriately, as opposed to simply receiving a standard letter that does not adequately answer my complaint, that can not be added to.

Attachments

• Initial complaint sent on 13th Jan 2007
• Response from the BBC on 5th Feb 2007
• My response back to the BBC on 9th Feb 2007
• Response from the BBC on 5th Mar 2007
  

Yours faithfully

Further Response from BBC (12th March 2007)

I received a letter telling me that I was misinformed about contacting the Editorial Complaints Unit, for which the BBC apologises, and that my correspondence has been passed to the management of BBC Information so that it can receive attention at a more senior level.

reposted from: AAC
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

by Professor Steve Jones

Reposted from:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4400&tip=1

Click here for the Real video version

Click here for the Windows Media version


Audio Only Podcast:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/podcast/audio/stevejones.m4a

Science is about disbelief. It accepts that all knowledge is provisional and that any theory might in principle be disproved. Some theories are better established than others: the earth is probably not flat, babies are almost certainly not brought by storks, and men and dinosaurs are unlikely to have appeared on earth within the past few thousand years. Even so, nothing is sacred in 1905 classical physics collapsed after a seemingly trivial observation about glowing gases and the same is potentially true for all other scientific theories.

Many biologists are worried by a recent and unexpected return of an argument based on belief by the certainty, untestable and unsupported by evidence, that life did not evolve but appeared by supernatural means. Worldwide, more people believe in creationism than in evolution. Why do no biologists agree? Steve Jones will talk about what evolution is, about new evidence that men and chimps are close relatives and about how we are, nevertheless, unique and why creationism does more harm to religion than it does to science.

Steve Jones won the Aventis Prize for Science Books (then known as the Rhone-Poulenc Prize) in 1994 for 'The Language of the Genes'. In 1997 he was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize - the UK's foremost award for communicating science to the public.

reposted from: rd
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments