Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
I like to debate in various forums with many different folks about many different things. Why? Well it helps me to learn, and also I like to have my assumptions and thoughts rigorously challenged. In such contexts, I often come across some who express a thought that goes like this … Gosh, the universe is a truly … Read more
Karen Armstrong writes in todays Guardian about a new exhibition at the British Museum, and claims that it shows that a respect for other faiths is central to Muslim tradition. <You can insert your stunned disbelief here>. Apparently “western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith“, but she asserts that this … Read more
We might laugh at the idea of a real scientific breakthrough taking place in some shed in a back garden, but it is a real possibility. There now exists a number of scientific improvisers, or bio-hackers, who are part of a growing movement called DIYbio, short for do-it-yourself biology. These folks want to follow in … Read more
How would you feel about government funds being used to propagate creationism? It just so happens that over here in the UK quite a few folks were not exactly thrilled at the concept, and so they lobbied the government to do something about it. The good news is that in these cash strapped times, the … Read more
The Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge has a call for you to submit to them your stories of coincidences. Why are they doing this? By recording your coincidence stories, you can help them build a picture of what kinds of coincidences are … Read more
IBM Research scientists have successfully demonstrated the ability to store one bit of information in as few as 12 magnetic atoms. Now that is truly impressive, because today’s disk drives use about one million atoms to store a single bit of information – so yes, there is indeed a considerable degree of scope to leverage … Read more