Excellent documentary on Afghanistan

Now that the US has pulled out of Afghanistan, one already sees a drastic decline in media coverage of that country. The PBS investigative program Frontline has just released an excellent documentary Taliban Takeover on the twenty-year old war that the US waged in Afghanistan.

What makes this program particularly notable is that the journalist Najibullah Quraishi is himself an Aghan who was born and raised in that country and has covered the war all this time, providing him with a breadth of knowledge of the country’s languages, history, and peoples that enables him to provide an in-depth perspective that is lacking in most western sources. He has contacts with key members of the Taliban, al Qaeda , and ISIS and was embedded with these groups at various times and thus has access to them and was able to interview them. He also interviewed many courageous women who are wondering what the future is for them.

His reporting shows that the departure of the US and installing of the Taliban in power has brought some stability to the country but at the cost of freedoms as the government seeks to rule according to Islamic law and that now there are power struggles within factions of the Taliban and with al Qaeda and ISIS.

For those seeking to better understand what is going on there and why the US mission was pretty much doomed from the start, I can highly recommend this 53-minute program.

The sermon in Christianity

As long time readers know, I used to be a lay preacher in the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka. What is meant by ‘lay’ is that I was not a fully ordained minister for which one has to go to divinity school and get a degree. Instead I took some courses and exams while continuing my secular life. I did this between the ages of 20 and 25 until I left for the US to start graduate school in physics.

My duties as a lay preacher was that about once a month, I was assigned by the circuit superintendent to go to a church in the region and conduct Sunday services in place of their regular minister. I had to do the full service but not the communion part which could only be done by a fully ordained minister. In the Methodist Church, unlike the Catholic or Anglican churches, full communion services were held only once a month so that restriction was not a problem.
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Death and the final exit in The Good Place (spoilers)

I recently re-watched the TV series The Good Life which I have praised highly in the past but did not discuss the way it ended because I did not want to spoil it for others. But since almost two years have passed since it ended, I feel that it is safe to do so.

Those who watched the entire series know that it begins with four people who have died being fooled into thinking that they have entered the ‘Good Place’, which is a euphemism for a heaven but without a deity, because they have lived exceptional lives on Earth. But in reality they are in the ‘Bad Place’ (a euphemism for hell) as part of an elaborate hoax by demons who are experimenting with a new form of torture in which they get people to torture each other by making each others’ lives miserable by squabbling over all manner of things. You know, just like people do on Earth. Most of the series involves the four, after they discover the hoax, trying to figure out how to get into the real Good Place and avoid eternal torment.
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Death and the universe

John Horgan writes that he thinks physicists are drawn to the multiverse idea (which he dislikes) because they cannot bear to think that our universe will end at some point. He postulates an explanation for why multiverse theories are so popular among physicists despite the lack of any supporting evidence for them.

Here is my guess: physicists are freaked out by the mortality of our little universe. What was born must die, and according to the big bang theory, our cosmos was born 14 billion years ago, and it will die at some unspecified time in the far future. The multiverse, like God, is eternal. It had no beginning; it will have no end.

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The origins of the lizard people theory

I must admit that hearing that some people believe in the existence of ‘lizard people’ took me by surprise, even though you would think that by now I would have become accustomed to hearing that people believe in all manner of fantastical ideas. So what is this theory and how did it originate? Cultural historian Lynn Stuart Parramore walks us through this strange world that has anti-Semitic roots. She says that while the theory is undoubtedly bonkers, it is definitely not harmless.

The world-ruled-by-lizard-people fantasy shot to prominence in recent years in part through the ramblings of David Icke, a popular British sports reporter-turned-conspiracy theorist known for his eccentric ideas.

Icke would have you believe that a race of reptilian beings not only invaded Earth, but that it also created a genetically modified lizard-human hybrid race called the “Babylonian Brotherhood,” which, he maintains, is busy plotting a worldwide fascist state. This sinister cabal of global reptilian elites boasts a membership list including former President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Mick Jagger.

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My Scientific American article on Kelvin and Darwin

In lieu of a post, I will refer you to an article of mine that was just published in Scientific American magazine titled When Lord Kelvin Nearly Killed Darwin’s Theory. It deals with an an interesting historical period in the second half of the 19th century that pitted two scientific giants against each other in which the age of the Earth was the key factor in determining the final outcome.

Enjoy! And let me know in the comments what you think.

Evolution has won the war over creationism

We seem to be awash in various culture wars that seem to never end. So it is good to consider one that was major war less than two decades ago that seems to have ended quietly. A new survey suggests that the war between evolution and various forms of creationism has resulted in science winning a resounding victory. A paper based on survey results gives the reasons for this shift. Its abstract says:

The public acceptance of evolution in the United States is a long-standing problem. Using data from a series of national surveys collected over the last 35 years, we find that the level of public acceptance of evolution has increased in the last decade after at least two decades in which the public was nearly evenly divided on the issue. A structural equation model indicates that increasing enrollment in baccalaureate-level programs, exposure to college-level science courses, a declining level of religious fundamentalism, and a rising level of civic scientific literacy are responsible for the increased level of public acceptance.

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When bonkers beliefs lead to murders

The internet is awash with examples of people in the US who believe in the craziest things. Even without seeking them out, my casual websurfing throws up so many that I have become somewhat numb to the examples that I find that demonstrate deep stupidity. But once in a while, I come across things that really boggle the mind, the more so when the perfectly normal way that people start out talking give you no warning that they are about to say things that are completely bonkers.

Take this woman who rose to speak at a school board meeting in Kansas where they were debating whether to require students to wear masks.

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