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| Title: |
Does God Play Dice? |
Author: |
Stephen W. Hawking |
| Subject: |
Quantum Mechanics, Physics |
Published: |
11/11/2000 |
"Einstein's view was what would now be called, a hidden variable theory. Hidden variable theories might seem to be the most obvious way to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle into physics. They form the basis of the mental picture of the universe, held by many scientists, and almost all philosophers of science."
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| Title: |
Proving a Negative |
Author: |
Richard Carrier |
| Subject: |
Logic, Scientific Method |
Published: |
11/08/2000 |
"Logicians note that it is easier to prove that there are such beings than to prove there aren't simply because we only need to find one of them to accomplish our proof, and thus will not have to look everywhere--unless we are so unlucky that where the one Martian is just happens to be the last place we look."
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| Title: |
It's Time for Science To Take a Stand Again |
Author: |
James Randi |
| Subject: |
Scientific Method |
Published: |
10/18/2000 |
"Acceptance of nonsense as mere harmless aberrations can be dangerous to us. We live in an international society that is enlarging the boundaries of knowledge at an unprecedented rate, and we cannot keep up with much more than a small portion of what is made available to us."
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| Title: |
Units, Events, and Dynamics in Memetic Evolution |
Author: |
Aaron Lynch |
| Subject: |
Memetics |
Published: |
10/18/2000 |
"Defining the "unit of imitation" is as critical to memetic evolution theory as defining the units of heredity was to genetic evolution theory. The gene's definition developed as empirical investigations led away from the hypothesized inheritance of acquired characteristics to the biochemical sequencing of DNA strands. The universal code of these strands constituted a natural "language" upon which scientists based their own more symbolic and abstract language."
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| Title: |
The Prospects For Physical Immortality |
Author: |
Frank R. Zindler |
| Subject: |
Genetics, medicine |
Published: |
10/08/2000 |
"While we wait for science to map clearly the pathway to the fountain of youth, what can we do to keep alive? What can we do to "stall The Reaper"? For readers expecting to be told to sleep in magnetized pyramids facing Stonehenge, most of my suggestions will sound disappointingly like common sense."
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| Title: |
The Case of Mitochondrial 'Eve' |
Author: |
Frank R. Zindler |
| Subject: |
Genetics |
Published: |
10/01/2000 |
"It was perhaps inevitable that the African female who emerged as the progenitor of Cann's computer-reconstructed mitochondrial lineage would be dubbed "Mitochondrial Eve," or just "Eve." Once the name Eve was being batted about, it was absolutely inevitable that people - not just creationists - would mistakenly think that the research showed that all people now living had only one female ancestor, who lived 200,000 years ago, or that there was only one human female on earth 200,000 years ago."
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| Title: |
The "Information Challenge" |
Author: |
Richard Dawkins |
| Subject: |
Genetics |
Published: |
07/08/2000 |
"Supporters of "intelligent design" guiding evolution, by the way, should be deeply committed to the view that information content increases during evolution. Even if the information comes from God, perhaps especially if it does, it should surely increase, and the increase should presumably show itself in the genome. Unless, of course - for anything goes in such addle-brained theorising - God works his evolutionary miracles by nongenetic means."
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| Title: |
Opinion Polls for School Curriculum? |
Author: |
J. E. Hill |
| Subject: |
Science vs. Religion |
Published: |
05/27/2000 |
"'Majority rules', even in a democracy, should not apply to academic studies. I am sure that a vast majority of people believe in astrology. Yet, under no circumstances should this be taught along side astronomy just because a majority of people believe it."
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| Title: |
Maculate Deception: The "Science" of Creationism |
Author: |
Frank R. Zindler |
| Subject: |
Evolution vs. Creationism |
Published: |
05/11/2000 |
"Anyone reading the creationist literature quickly comes to see that deliberate distortion - not just misunderstanding of the facts - is a major characteristic of the genre. Furthermore, unlike real science, which is self-correcting and usually exposes its own hoaxes quickly, creation "science" either corrects its frauds not at all, or only under irresistible pressure from real science."
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| Title: |
The Power of the Meme Meme |
Author: |
Susan Blackmore |
| Subject: |
Memetics |
Published: |
05/04/2000 |
"The heart of Catholicism is its major beliefs; a powerful and forgiving God, Jesus his son who was born of a virgin and rose again from the dead, the holy spirit, and so on. If these aren't implausible enough you can add belief in miracles or the literal transubstantiation of wine into blood. Why should any one believe these things?"
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| Title: |
Religions as memeplexes |
Author: |
Susan Blackmore |
| Subject: |
Memetics |
Published: |
09/20/1999 |
"...Catholics believe that their priests can absolve them from sins after confession, the Pope literally speaks the word of God, and when priests administer the mass, the bread and wine literally change into the flesh and blood of Christ. To anyone uninfected with any Christian memes these ideas must seem bizarre in the extreme."
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| Title: |
Science, delusion and the appetite for wonder |
Author: |
Richard Dawkins |
| Subject: |
Scientific method |
Published: |
09/01/1999 |
"It's often said that people 'need' something more in their lives than just the material world. There is a gap that must be filled. People need to feel a sense of purpose. Well, not a BAD purpose would be to find out what is already here, in the material world, before concluding that you need something more. How much more do you want? Just study what is, and you'll find that it already is far more uplifting than anything you could imagine needing."
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| Title: |
Is science a religion? |
Author: |
Richard Dawkins |
| Subject: |
Science and religion |
Published: |
07/24/1999 |
"Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops."
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| Title: |
Logic & fallacies |
Author: |
Matthew |
| Subject: |
Scientific method |
Published: |
06/20/1999 |
"There's a lot of debate on the net. Unfortunately, much of it is of very low quality. The aim of this document is to explain the basics of logical reasoning, and hopefully improve the overall quality of debate."
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Texts Published: 55