Prime Stream
thescian | December 5, 2006A fine rant to keep everyone in line (link posted at the Kitchen by Anand).
Let me tell you a related story. When I was about 16 (1990? I feel so old), I went and joined the Sacred Heart College Library in Tirupattur (a dingy town in Tamilnadu). I was doing +1 at that time in Ramakrishna School (no connection to the Ramakrishna Mission). You are wondering what the hell was I doing in a college library while all my friends were cramming for the exams. I don't know. I needed to get an education and I asked the librarian if it's alright to join. It was alright, apparently. After reading…
thescian | December 1, 2006Getting Started
There are many ways to die in this dirty clayball of ours. Among the myriad possible ways, the most enticing way for a subcontinental is to have sex in a shady bush or a hut on the highway roadside. The highway is a wonderous thing in my beloved country. Births, marriages, deaths and most of all unprotected sex happen on or beside it. The highway is truly the sign of all that India is.
This short guide explains how to die on the highway without having to get hit by a vehicle. The guidance is widely applicable and may be of use in countries other than India. I make no…
thescian | December 1, 2006
A few stats from the UN's AIDS Epidemic Update for 2006.
Total number of people living with AIDS as of 2006 is 39.5 Million. Of this number, 2.3 million are under 15 years of age.
5.7 million people are living with AIDS in India as of 2005. My home town Namakkal is among the places with highest prevalence of AIDS (directly attributable to the number of lorry drivers hailing from the region).
thescian | November 29, 2006Let me put it mildly. Mr Deepak Chopra's post on Dawkins book is an intellectual abomination. [via Pharyngula] The kind of vomit only a cauldron of idiocy can spew out. Chopra calls a muddled rant on color perception as a thought experiment and asks us to give up on scientifically analyzing the workings of our brain. The comments do a good job of showing why his argument is non-sensical so I won't do that here. Instead, let me suggest a thought experiment. Read Chopra's post with a critical and rational eye. I can predict with certainty that you will imagine yourself to be pulling your hair…
thescian | November 29, 2006Although it is hard to resist blogging, I've been taking a sort of reading break to catch up on my reading. Here's the last two books I've read.
How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions by Francis Wheen - A collection of mostly political and economic stories of mumbo jumbo. I was surprised to learn the double talk by Al Gore on the Tobacco question. No holds barred and no holy cows. Good reading.
Quantico by Greg Bear - An engrossing and disturbing novel set in the near future with rogue states going nuclear and terrorists routinely using bio-weapons. The…
thescian | November 26, 2006Ramya has started reading The God Delusion and asked what's the reference to Imagine by Lennon in the first few pages. Here's Lennon performing Imagine at Google Videos. Imagine no religion. It's not that hard.
thescian | November 22, 2006I was watching many of the videos at Beyond Belief yesterday evening. They are well worth your time, particularly if you want to understand the historical narratives of science and religion. When Carolyn Porco was talking (video, last speaker) about wonder and showing some of the stunning astronomical images, I was struck by a thought. It is this: Whenever I see some beautiful astronomical images, I cannot get over the fact that they are real. Consider the image below. Each of these little swirly things are galaxies with millions of stars. How puny our imaginations and preposterous fictional…
thescian | November 21, 2006A very readable article in NY Times on Science and Religion. Here's something that I find inane that touches upon meaning and purpose of life.
"There are six billion people in the world," said Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Roman Catholic priest. "If we think that we are going to persuade them to live a rational life based on scientific knowledge, we are not only dreaming -- it is like believing in the fairy godmother."
"People need to find meaning and purpose in life," he said. "I don't think we want to take that away from…
thescian | November 18, 2006A fundamental difference between religious faith and science pertains to hope. Underlying religious faith is the belief that God knows everything and controls everything. In any religion, human capacity is at best subservient to God's will. This is a sorry state to be in for any human. Religious faith takes away any hope of advancing one's own understanding of the world. It takes away purpose from our lives. God is hopelessness and purposelessness deified.
Science, on the other hand, is squarely aimed at furthering our understanding of the world. It is eternally hopeful of advancing our…
thescian | November 14, 2006The Q&A session by Dawkins after the reading of The God Delusion in Lynchburg, VA . All the standard questions of the believing brigade properly disposed off. Fabulous. The video plays for about an hour.
The Colbert Episode. Dawkins plays the game very well.
thescian | October 3, 2006Religion is like Pornography sez PZ. Indeed, they both leave a nasty aftertaste. No amount of sugar coating can rectify what happens to be a fundamental perversion of the intellect. PZ is taking the offensive one step further. The offensive is necessary when you consider how entrenched religion is in our society and minds.
thescian | October 3, 2006The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006 has been awarded to John C. Mather andGeorge F. Smoot "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation". I read Smoot's Wrinkles in Time when I was doing undergraduation in Physics in Vivekananda college, Chennai. That's when I learnt that the Big Bang had an afterglow and there were people actually trying to measure it. I thought it was the coolest thing to do. I still think it is the coolest thing to do. The afterglow has many Nobel prizes to its credit. Arno Penzias who co-discovered the afterglow with…
thescian | October 2, 2006Then go checkout the Shaastra Festival at IIT where a lot of very smart people would be talking. Via nonoscience.
If you are going, can you take a audio recorder or a camcorder with you and get us the fine moments of science from there?
thescian | October 2, 2006Habeas corpus is the name of a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action. -Wikipedia
A bill recently passed in the…
thescian | October 2, 2006Have assembled at Salto sobrius. Go forth and partake at the Carnival of the Godless 50.
In other news, I bought the new Dawkins book, The God Delusion. It's a captivating book in the usual Dawkins' style. This time, he's out not to educate but to eradicate. Eradicate that delusion called religion. Delusion, incidentally, is a clinical state. A pathology. Dawkins talks about the choice of the title in the preface.
thescian | September 29, 2006Floss and you shall have a healthy heart. There's a whole load of fun stuff at The Register's Odd Body page.
thescian | September 28, 2006"This will be a scientific horoscope which will be prepared on the basis of genes and chromosomes of the animals," said DK Singh, additional Director, BAU. Link
Scientific horoscopes?! IMHO, 'Additional' Director and his esteemed university should stop screwing the cows and get their heads out of their behinds (yes, the cow's behind). [via Amit. Read his post. It's hilarious. ]
thescian | September 27, 2006
Kurinji is a flowering plant found in the southern parts of India. It blooms once every 12 years. You heard it. Every 12 years! And, what are we doing to it? Killing it. That's what. Take a look at this page that shows how the habitat has been destroyed. Save Kurinji Campaign website. [via Independent]
thescian | September 26, 2006An excellent essay on the current state of physics at The New Yorker by Jim Holt.
It is the best of times in physics. Physicists are on the verge of obtaining the long-sought Theory of Everything. In a few elegant equations, perhaps concise enough to be emblazoned on a T-shirt, this theory will reveal how the universe began and how it will end. The key insight is that the smallest constituents of the world are not particles, as had been supposed since ancient times, but "strings"--tiny strands of energy. By vibrating in different ways, these strings produce the essential phenomena of nature,…