Genesis, but accurate

8 June 2008 · Comments 

/hattip Pharyngula

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A True Christian™ new media explosion

6 June 2008 · Comments 

What do you mean they’re not True Christians™? They really do seem like sincere believers in Jesus to me…

/hattip Humanistdad

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The Telegraph: JW refuses transfusion for injured husband

6 June 2008 · Comments 

The Telegraph: Jehovah’s Witness refuses to let husband have life-saving blood transfusion

I always get quite conflicted when I hear about Jehovah’s witnesses and their literalist attitudes to medical practises. On the one hand, I’m glad that they see fit to remove themselves from the gene pool and not have the world further support them in their idiocy. On the other hand, the humanist is me is both saddened and sickened that people with attitudes like this exist, that they cause harm and suffering not only to themselves but to those that they are responsible for, that real practical and tangible help is available, if only they examined their superstitions and found them as wanting as everyone else who doesn’t hold that particular element of dogma as true. But there doesn’t appear to be helping some people - they crave, nurse and hold on to their beliefs as true no matter what evidence or argument is presented to them.

I guess it’s the equivalent of a DNR for them; if they don’t want their life saved against their will, I can’t and won’t argue against it. That doesn’t mean that I think that a line from an old story is a good reason to refuse medical assistance if they would otherwise accept it.

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Books and updating

5 June 2008 · Comments 

This is a two-in-one post concerning recent book purchases and the time I have to update this blog, so feel free to skip the bit you’re not interested in.

Read more

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The Standard (Model) Pimpernel

5 June 2008 · Comments 

They seek him here, they seek him there…

One of the benefits of working where I do, I have access to some really interesting sources of research. And one of those is physicist Professor Peter Higgs, author of a number of papers on symmetry, gauge fields and massless particles in the 1960s where he first postulated the Higgs field and what became known as the Higgs boson, thought to be the elementary particle responsible for mass and hence gravitational fields, and to complete the Standard Model of particle physics.

However, Higgs is a bit of a recluse and doesn’t crave media attention, but the forthcoming activation of the Large Hadron Collider makes it quite difficult for him to avoid completely, especially when his predicted particle has the (IMO) careless and irresponsible sobriquet of ‘the god particle’ (which Higgs, an atheist, isn’t too keen on either).

So, Higgs recently made a rather low-key (considering the media attention that the facility has otherwise attracted) visit to the LHC facility at CERN, and a number of up-to-date photographs were taken of him posing with the (at the time unfinished) particle accelerator thought to be capable of providing direct evidence of his eponymous predicted particle.

Higgs appears to look much healthier, despite his age, than he did in the most recent photographs previously available. Perhaps leading the shy life is good for you.

The LCH is planned for activation later this month, with the first collisions taking place a couple of months afterwards, although sifting through the mountains of data generated could take a little time. This should still be interesting.

And, of course, I couldn’t close this post off without a few related cartoons…

Apologies to Baroness Orczy for the strained pun in the title of this post. ;-)

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