Some people are planning to make a sequel, another 13 part series, to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. This may be a greater heresy than giving Star Trek a reboot with a time-travel movie, or turning Star Wars into Jar Jar Binks land, but there is one glimmer of sunshine: it’s going to star Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s our only hope.
(Also on FtB)
Some people are planning to make a sequel, another 13 part series, to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. This may be a greater heresy than giving Star Trek a reboot with a time-travel movie, or turning Star Wars into Jar Jar Binks land, but there is one glimmer of sunshine: it’s going to star Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s our only hope.
(Also on Sb)
This married couple are good brave human beings.
Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen have rightly become national heroes in Norway after they rescued 40 fleeing teens from the massacre on Utoya Island. Using their boat, they made multiple trips into the waters around Utoya where Anders Breivik was murdering 69 people and ferried as many as they could to safety. Bullet holes later discovered in their boat indicate Breivik fired upon them.
This married couple are good brave human beings.
Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen have rightly become national heroes in Norway after they rescued 40 fleeing teens from the massacre on Utoya Island. Using their boat, they made multiple trips into the waters around Utoya where Anders Breivik was murdering 69 people and ferried as many as they could to safety. Bullet holes later discovered in their boat indicate Breivik fired upon them.
I don’t care what his next movie is about. I’ll pay to go see it.
I notice who’s doing the interview: Libertarians. Screw ’em.
I shall have to turn on my television Sunday evening (7 or 8pm, depending on where in the US you are). Stephen Hawking will be on the Discovery Channel to answer the question, “Is There a Creator?” — I’m pretty sure he’s going to answer “no.”
He also tersely answers a few questions online.
Q: First, we wonder if you could comment on why you are tackling the existence of God question?
A: I think Science can explain the Universe without the need for God.
Q. What problems you are working on now, and what do you see as the big questions in theoretical physics?
A: I’m working on the question, why is there something rather than nothing, why are the laws of physics what they are.
If that last bit has you curious, here’s a teaser:
Essentially on “Is There A Creator?,” Hawking notes that on the sub-atomic scale, particles are seen in experiments to appear from nowhere. And since the Big Bang started out smaller than an atom, similarly the universe likely “popped into existence without violating the known laws of Nature,” he says. Nothing created the universe, so in his view there was no need for a creator. That is his explanation for “why there is something rather than nothing.”
I shall have to turn on my television Sunday evening (7 or 8pm, depending on where in the US you are). Stephen Hawking will be on the Discovery Channel to answer the question, “Is There a Creator?” — I’m pretty sure he’s going to answer “no.”
He also tersely answers a few questions online.
Q: First, we wonder if you could comment on why you are tackling the existence of God question?
A: I think Science can explain the Universe without the need for God.
Q. What problems you are working on now, and what do you see as the big questions in theoretical physics?
A: I’m working on the question, why is there something rather than nothing, why are the laws of physics what they are.
If that last bit has you curious, here’s a teaser:
Essentially on “Is There A Creator?,” Hawking notes that on the sub-atomic scale, particles are seen in experiments to appear from nowhere. And since the Big Bang started out smaller than an atom, similarly the universe likely “popped into existence without violating the known laws of Nature,” he says. Nothing created the universe, so in his view there was no need for a creator. That is his explanation for “why there is something rather than nothing.”
A member of the Australian parliament, Fred Nile, has been pushing an interesting cost-saving measure. You know how Australian schools are saddled with chaplains and religious instruction? Well, he wants to keep that nonsense and kill the ethics classes that students can take as a secular alternative.Seems backwards to me, but then he is presumably a Christian, and so is perverse and backward by nature.
So Charlie Fine wrote an op-ed defending the ethics courses. Fine is 11 years old, and smarter than a member of parliament.
The facts show that only 33 per cent of the world is Christian, and in NSW a quarter of children choose not to attend lessons on theological scripture. I think it is possible to be non-religious and a good person.
By all means, Mr Nile, you go out and be as Christian as you want; I respect that entirely. But that does not give you and your supporters the right to attempt to shape a future generation of adults in your mould – that is a religious conservative.
Your views are out of step with modern society, so I would ask you to reconsider your actions and continue to allow parents and children a choice in their classrooms.
There’s a poll with the opinion piece. I guess Charlie Fine is very persuasive.
Where do you stand on ethics classes in schools?
For them
92%
Against them
8%
Oh, sure, you can go vote on the poll too, but I think Charlie has it all well in hand.
I told you all the batty creationists were crawling out of the woodwork to crow over Xiaotingia‘s redefinition of Archaeopteryx‘s status as a victory for their ideology, when it really isn’t. Now another has joined the fray: Vox Day, creationist and right-wing lunatic. He makes a lot of crazy, ignorant claims in this short passage that I’ll answer one by one.
Oh, this is beautiful. Bill Nye (the Science Guy!) is being interviewed by a Fox News talking head who asks a surprisingly dumb question: Nye is talking about a volcano found on the moon, so he asks, “Does it go anywhere close to the climate change debate on earth?…we haven’t been up there burning fossil fuels.”. Bill Nye’s eyebrows shoot up, he pauses very briefly, and you can see him recalibrating his brain so he can answer as he would to a perky little 5 year old. It’s wonderfully amusing, and he does give a very good answer.
