James Thorniley
Lucas Wilkins
Joshaniel Cooper
Nathaniel Virgo
Sally Frampton
That’s all I have to say on the matter.
September 20, 2011
The Sun is not made of gas
Dawkins is expanding his shelf in Waterstones this month with a book aimed at young teenagers. I haven’t read it yet, but what made me giggle for just a second was how Dawkins sums up the chapter on the Sun (see video here, 2:30):
What really is the Sun? Well the Sun is a huge ball of gas…
Except it’s not, it’s a huge ball of plasma. Plasma is not gas. This confusion is of course entirely the fault of that They Might Be Giants song. Fortunately they corrected themselves, so this post is just an excuse to link to this video:
June 24, 2011
I think you may have confused the word “humanities” with “humanism”
A famous liberal British thinker who specializes in secular morality has founded a university in Bloomsbury, central London, and it’s all over the news. Weirdly, this has happened before, sort of.
University College London was founded in 1826 just down the road from AC Grayling’s “New College of the Humanities“. It was the first university in Britain to accept students regardless of faith. Jeremy Bentham, though not technically its founder, was a major influence. He says (ta, Wikipedia):
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
Yeah screw you, God!
