Sam Harris rocks

Great article from Sam Harris on Sarah Palin and elitism.  I just wonder whether this isn’t just preaching to the converted while alienating everybody else.  Anyway it’s good to know that there are the odd commentators out there who can focus on the serious issues of the election and dismiss the insignificant.

On that subject, this was amusing.

Stuff

So there’s a lot to comment today!

 

First this letter to Richard Dawkins is hilarious.  Horray for Christians 🙂

 

I just bought a new camera 😀  The Canon EOS 50D.  It doesn’t come out for a week or two, but I will have one delivered when it does!!  It was very expensive.

 

Look forward to seeing me post lots of photography here in the future :).

 

 

Incase you’re unaware, Sarah Palin had her email hacked from people from 4chan.  Nothing much came of it, but there is some interesting discussion with some other hackers here.  

 

There was a good little over view of octopus here.  Something inadvertent, but pretty obvious to come out of it, that stupid statement that we need bones to move is obviously wrong (I remember being told that in primary school as well.  Why do teachers tell lies like that?  How do we move our tongues?).

 

There is also a good set of photos from the Artic in the 1800s here.  I’ll post a couple of my favourites.

 

 

I also liked these photos of the aftermath of Hurrican Ike.

Stuff

So the Church of England is apologising to Charles Darwin for criticising his theory of evolution.  The apology is pretty terrible though, at least according to the leaked text.  It includes this line, clearly aimed at the people who view evolutionary theory as evidence of the non-existence of God;

“But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.”

It’s a clever piece of framing perhaps, because the use of the word “interests” make it sound like atheism is a cause people believe in.  Atheism is just the rational conclusion everybody should make with the evidence on hand.  It’s like a maths equation.  The answer remains the same regardless of what people think it is.

 

One of the rarest animals in the world has been photographed in the wild for the first time in years.  Here is the photo;

Woo!  There are some better pictures here though.

The animal is question is an Okapi, which is closely related to giraffes but looks a bit like a zebra.  It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that they’re one of the rarest animals in the world, but they’re still fairly endangered.   I read all my information about animals (and plants) on EOL these days too.  It’s awesome that there is so much info there these days.

 

It turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that the claim that the nautilus shell follows Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio is false.  I think it’s probably likely that the exact golden ratio spiral has never actually been seen in nature, but it’s amazing how easy it is for authoritative sounding myths to perpetuate through society.

 

Finally, an interesting article on America’s potential first female president, Sarah Palin.