The senator said the Nigerian Child Rights Act of 2003 “must have been enacted in error.”… Read the rest
Joanthan Sacks refutes atheism in a few words
May 22nd, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTheists have more children. … Read the rest
Rude but amusing interview with Hitchens
May 22nd, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe once wrote that women aren’t funny, yet he’s convulsed by infantile word jokes.… Read the rest
There are no new ethical problems here
May 22nd, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHumanity has been ‘playing God’ with animals and plants since the invention of agriculture.… Read the rest
Globalization
May 21st, 2010 5:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonI quite understand, except for one thing – why did they hire a psychic in Bangalore? Are there no psychics in Lincolnshire? That seems most unikely. It’s a mystical sort of place, Lincs – it must be crawling with psychics.
Now I know what you’re going to say – they’re psychics – they don’t have to be on the spot – der. It’s spiritual. It’s not all grubbily of the earth earthy; it’s immaterial, it’s floaty, it’s non-geographical. The psychic could be on Pluto; it wouldn’t matter. Thought travels through space and time, it does not need bodies or proximity. I know. I get all that. But what about the convenience of the people who are stuck in Lincolnshire? Surely … Read the rest
Anonymity for defendants in rape cases proposed
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBan on identifying defendants was lifted in 1988; police claimed it was preventing women from reporting rapes.… Read the rest
Union blames privatization for mine deaths
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMine accidents have risen drastically since change to Mining Law in 2004, with “flexible working conditions” and an inability to unionize.… Read the rest
Turkish mining town in mourning ponders its ‘fate’
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonErdoğan says fatal mine explosions are ‘fate’; unions and sane people say they are caused.… Read the rest
Lincolnshire: psychic joins search for missing cat
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOwner has paid £1,000 to Animal Search UK which has hired a psychic in Bangalore to give helpful advice.… Read the rest
Carl Zimmer: some background on synthetic genome
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonYou could say this is still a nature hybrid, because its DNA is based on the sequence of an existing species of bacteria.… Read the rest
Andrew Brown spies another plot by militant atheism
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Another triumph of the only major scientific programme driven from the beginning by explicit atheism.”… Read the rest
It’s alive
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“The only DNA in the cells is the designed synthetic DNA sequence…”… Read the rest
Jerry Coyne asks: did scientists play god?
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLife is just complex chemicals—nothing more, nothing less. Venter and his team have gone a long way toward showing this.… Read the rest
Mohammed cartoonist regrets any offense caused
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“She has attended a local Muslim group meeting in an effort to learn more.”… Read the rest
EU criticizes Pakistan’s blasphemy laws
May 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNotes the laws are often used to justify censorship, criminalisation, persecution and the murder of members of political, racial and religious minorities.… Read the rest
Rand Paul reverses himself on civil rights law
May 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt was all a misunderstanding. Or something.… Read the rest
Love is a crime in Malawi
May 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA 14-year jail sentence, with hard labour, on two gay men for being that.… Read the rest
The creator of the universe is really clever
May 20th, 2010 12:22 pm | By Ophelia BensonKarl Giberson is a honcho at BioLogos. BioLogos is about “Science and Faith in Dialogue,” about Science & the Sacred. Francis Collins is a scientist, Karl Giberson is a scientist. Karl Giberson explains why he has reservations about Intelligent Design.
BioLogos enthusiastically endorses the idea that the universe is intelligently designed and we certainly believe that the creator of the universe is intelligent. We consider the evidence regarding the fine-tuning of the universe to be provocative and compelling. Our reservations about ID certainly do not derive from any rejection of the rationality of the universe.
The rationality of the universe? What’s rational about the universe? It’s too big, for one thing. It’s too cold for another, too … Read the rest
But what are you going to do about it?
May 20th, 2010 11:32 am | By Ophelia BensonRand Paul, Kentucky’s “Tea Party” nominee for the Senate, is opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo says why that’s not just a principled libertarian view:
… Read the restTo a degree the argument Paul is making is something like saying that I don’t like rape or murder, I just don’t believe in a police force to prevent it or a judiciary to punish the offenders. The reason we, albeit imperfectly, have equality before the law and in the society at large (in terms of public accommodations and so forth) on racial grounds in the whole of the United States is because of federal legislation that forced that to be the case. The reason we don’t
Why Rand Paul isn’t “just a libertarian”
May 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBecause we live in an actual world where political philosophy can’t be separated from history and experience.… Read the rest