Tag Archives: AndromedasWake

The Equation of Creation. Really?

creation_equationDavid Cumming, CEO of Intelligent Earth and self-proclaimed “scientist” does not know what numerology is. Or perhaps he does, but is unable to identify it. To the lay person, it’s the occult-driven obsession with trying to find significance in numbers. To the sceptic, it’s a rash that comes and goes, at its peak when watching Deal or No Deal and best treated with a topical dose of statistics. To David Cumming, it’s a trap. A big hole in the ground with very steep walls, which he willingly threw himself into with the publication of his summary of the ‘God Equation’. This rather poorly written and overly drawn-out exegesis of unrelated numbers gets off to a bad start after the above equation is presented, followed by two paragraphs of Mr. Cumming referencing himself in the third person. TK knows this is silly, and despite being a brilliant, charming and terrifically sexy individual (whom in many ways is the central protagonist of the greatest story never told), will not succumb to employing such a conceited writing device. Beyond this, Cumming begins his derivation.

Continue reading The Equation of Creation. Really?

Please don’t label children

Atheist Billboard Last year, comedy writer and contributor to The Guardian’s ‘Comment is free’ Ariane Sherine devised and headed a campaign to display non-religious adverts on the sides of London buses. This was in direct response to adverts run by a Christian group referencing a website informing atheists that they would “…spend all eternity in torment in hell.’ Surely believers wouldn’t mind atheists exercising their free speech by spreading such a gentle and positive message* as “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” would they? Well, they did mind, but that didn’t stop the campaign (funded by donations alone) from growing to become an international success.

Ariane Sherine speaking at TAM London, October 3rd

Now a little over one year later, Ariane and the British Humanist Association are rolling out a new billboard, pictured above. Regarding this new campaign, Ariane told The Guardian, “We thought it would be beneficial to try to change the current public perception that it is acceptable to label children with a religion.”

The idea for the latest ads was born out of supporters’ concern for the growing influence of faith schools, “Many felt strongly that children should be given the freedom to decide which belief system they wanted to belong to, if any, and that they should not have a religion decided for them.”

As someone who often works with children, I am strongly in support of this initiative. Don’t label your child. Let them grow up and gain their own perspective of the world. If your position, ideology or philosophy is best, trust in your adult sons and daughters as freethinking human beings to see that for themselves.

For further info on the Atheist Billboard Campaign, visit the Atheist Bus website. You can also follow PlsDontLabelMe on Twitter for updates.

* Sadly, my own gentle, positive message proposal didn’t make the cut.

With regards to shanedk and MasterGhostKnight

Recently, two videos were posted to Youtube which are generating some controversy about the League of Reason website. I know what you’re thinking: controversy, the coveted fuel that powers our warp engines! In reality, both videos have almost nothing to do with the site, and are only related by the inclusion of the Leauge logo and some words by Youtuber shanedk. For this reason, I have not embedded the videos into this post, but you can watch the first – by MasterGhostKnight – here, and the response – by shanedk – here.

As an administrator and founder of this website, I wish to set the record straight regarding two allegations made by shanedk during his video. I have no intention of throwing fuel on the fire of internet drama, so I’ll keep this brief and to the point. The accusations to which I am referring can be found in a single quote from shanedk’s video:

“Most extreme of all of them was this idiot, MasterGhostKnight, who posted a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal under the auspices of the completely misnamed ‘League of Reason’.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Let me make it abundantly clear that including the League of Reason logo in your Youtube video does not endow you with automatic help, support or protection from this site or its contributing bloggers. As such, MasterGhostKnight did not post his video under the auspices of the League of Reason. In actuality, he posted a video with the logo attached. And that’s it. Anyone is free to include the logo in their video, as it is intended merely to advertise the site to a wider audience. Indeed, a fundamentalist creationist can freely use the logo, as ultimately, visitors will see that the content provided by the contributors satisfies the site’s mission statement, as it stands on the ‘About Us‘ page:

“Together we endeavour to protect and promote the voice of reason, and we welcome you to join us.”

I maintain that the site’s contributors have done just this. We also protect the free speech of their readers with a commenting system and message board with extensive forum categories. MasterGhostKnight is not a contributor. He is not listed as a contributor. Even if he was, videos made by him would not automatically reflect LoR policy. The fact is, the site does not have an official policy. The closest we come to having such a thing is the collective opinion of the contributors, but as many of them specialise in one field or another, I would likely be best suited to speak for them regarding these two videos (the topics being physics, astronomy and the detection of extra-terrestrial life). As such, I’m dismayed that shanedk did not contact me for an ‘official opinion’ (as he knows I administrate the site) before accusing it – and by proxy me – of supporting MasterGhostKnight’s bogus claims.

In his video, shanedk also accuses the site of being completely misnamed. Once again, I maintain that our contributors are strong proponents of reason. Their readers need not be to participate in the forums. By extension, one could suggest that the Richard Dawkins network message board is completely misnamed if any of the posters disagree with his beliefs and opinions, or to take it further if a single user is not called Richard Dawkins. This is clearly ridiculous. Our forum provides a facility for a wide variety of people with a wide variety of opinions to discuss and debate any topic they like. They are not required to do anything other than obey the forum rules, which permit the most zealous of unreasonable folk to make their case, provided it is not copypasta spam.

I suspect many of our regulars will be aware of what I have said above, and If you are a new visitor, having just left shanedk’s channel, I hope you will see the error of his comments about this site, in what is otherwise an informative and well-made video.

On the Origin of Stupidity…

Isn’t it amazing what League of Reason bloggers get up to? Sure, some of us lead very mundane lives, doing absolutely nothing but drinking coffee and and tweeting about it. But others spend their days trying to make good use of speaker’s corner. And every so often (though arguably not often enough), one of our number produces cartoons with a very low frame-rate, that is more than made up for by the punchy writing and suspiciously brilliant voice acting.

Every week there’s some exciting new scandal involving a Leaguer, and I can’t tell you how proud this makes me. After all, scandal makes the world go round*. Perhaps then, you can imagine the smile on my face when our very own Godless-Romanian-Vampire-Gypsy-Witch captured the attention of not only atheist overlord PZ Myers, but also the Huffington Post. There’s no need for me to explain this story, when you can just watch the video after the break. Then read on…

Continue reading On the Origin of Stupidity…

The Loneliest Robots

Spare a thought for Voyager 2.

The spacecraft, which has been in operation for just over 32 years reached a humbling milestone this week; 20 years since the closest approach to Neptune. On August 25th, 1989 it came within 5000 km of the big, blue gas giant, taking spectacularly beautiful ‘close-ups’ that Adams, Galle and Le Verrier could only have dreamt of (see pictures after the jump). Just 5 hours later, it made its closest approach to Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, which is spiraling in slowly to its eventual demise.

Voyager 2 is so far the only probe to have visited Neptune (and Uranus) completing the reconnaissance of our Solar System’s main planets. I was only three years old at the time, but thanks to the achievements of the Voyager programme, I grew up with books containing a complete set of stunning photographs and they inspired me no end. Every time I look through my old books, I remember not to take this for granted. Most of the planets’ discoverers lived long before they were seen up close and it is only through the hard work of many scientists and engineers that in the time I live, we have landed probes on alien worlds (Huygens on Titan, 2005), we’ll soon be exploring dwarf planets (Dawn to Ceres, New Horizons to Pluto) and we’re continuously discovering other Solar Systems of all flavours. I can’t help but wonder how exploration will have improved hundreds of years after I’m gone, and how the distant planets being discovered today might also be seen in close up.

Continue reading The Loneliest Robots

Calling all Astronomers! Perseids meteor watch this week! #Meteorwatch

Things are changing. Really.

Internet technology allows people all over the world to connect and viralise information at speeds that would seemingly defy nature’s limits in the eyes of scientists just a few hundred years ago. For the first time ever, the annual Perseids meteor shower will be mass-tweeted by astronomers and enthusiasts worldwide. It’s an initiative proposed by the Newbury Astronomical Society (that’s here in England) and promoted as part of the International Year of Astronomy, and you can be involved!

Firstly, make sure you have a Twitter account. Then make sure you’re following me and the LoR Blog. Got you! Okay, that bit wasn’t essential, but it’s recommended. Definitely be sure to follow Newbury AS though.

Now, you’ll need to understand how hash-tags work. A hash-tag is a search term that you can attach to a tweet, instantly referencing the tweet with the term in Twitter’s database. During the Perseids meteor watch, we’ll be tweeting with the tag #Meteorwatch. By following that page you’ll be able to see the Tweets in real time as people all over the world report meteor sightings. So if it’s cloudy where you are, you can sit in and watch it all unfold online. Beautiful.

Continue reading Calling all Astronomers! Perseids meteor watch this week! #Meteorwatch

Leaguer fights back against Votebotting, TubeGuardian in development

Well, well, well. What do we have here?

In the war against censorship, one of our forum members and Youtuber joshTheGoods is taking matters into his own hands, and I have to say I feel much safer at night knowing that at least one sensible codemonkey is working on the software weapons we need.

Josh posted the video embedded below on his channel today, demonstrating an early build of TubeGuardian, an innovative background application that monitors your Youtube channel statistics (or anyone else’s, for that matter) and if given access to your account, will sense when videos are targeted by votebots, and automatically react to protect them. This does not involving counterbotting – which would only be stooping to the level of those free speech-hating cowards – but rather the act of defending your videos by disabling ratings. Check out the video for the full lowdown from Josh himself. It’s set to play in HD, so be sure to embiggen it with the fullscreen function for maximum effect.

Since I began writing this post, it appears the above video was itself votebotted! A nice demonstration of the effectiveness of TubeGuardian, which disabled ratings after just five 1-star votes. Note that it is not the number of ratings that triggers TubeGuardian‘s defence programme, but rather a suspiciously high number of ratings when compared to views.

As Josh mentioned in the video, he is open to suggestions as the software is in development, so if you have any, or can offer any help, please send him a PM on Youtube. If anyone can port the software to OS X, I’d certainly appreciate it (and let’s not forget our friends on Linux). Once it reaches a stable release, we will be sure to host the install files officially here at League of Reason.

In the meantime, check out joshTheGoods’ channel and subscribe to him for video updates about TubeGuardian.

Congratulations!

Many congratulations to qdragon1337 (q-dragon on the forums) and IceFire9yt (Icefire9atla) for respectively being our first place winner and runner up in the first League of Reason Community Promo Competition. Both of their trailers are embedded in the video below, and you can download this video in high quality to re-upload to your channel here.

Beware the spinal trap

The following article is being reposted today by bloggers in honour of its author, Simon Singh, who was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for calling them out on their bullshit.

Mr. Singh, if you’re reading, I wish you all the very best and look forward to meeting you at TAM London (which is about 65.5 days away!)

Please feel free to repost this article to your blog, or email it to your friends. It deserves to be read, and the BCA’s abuse of libel laws needs to be made as public as possible.


Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.


You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.


Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.