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I won’t be seeing tonight’s lunar eclipse due to the nice blanket of clouds overhead, but those fortunate enough to have clear skies should make an effort to have a look. It’s the first time it has happened in full on the Winter Solstice since 1638.
Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics, News | Tagged: Lunar Eclipse, Times, Winter Solstice | 3 Comments »
The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Arthur C. Clarke, Thought of the day | 10 Comments »
Moral improvements have nearly always come from secular considerations, and drag the churches along in their wake.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Jerry Coyne, Thought of the day | 3 Comments »
A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais.
Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -‐ evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn’t get a shot of penicillin, you’d pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you “believe”, this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, “It works for me”, but so do placebos. My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.
But to get to the point:
Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith”. If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”
There are no great responses to this from theists, but there are half-way decent ones. Those are the ones that seek to offer evidence. Of course, they fail and that’s why they aren’t great. But at least they recognize where the onus lies. The bad ones are the ones that try to argue the above argument is somehow flawed. That’s ignorant, stupid, or disingenuous.
And finally:
You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: atheism, Ricky Gervais | Leave a comment »
I’m reminded by this comment of Timothy Treadwell, a.k.a., Grizzly Man. Discovery will go through Grizzly Man marathons every once in awhile; I always find myself watching them. Treadwell was a nut, but he was a nut to be admired. His intent was good and he sought out what was important to him. That’s something to be liked. Unfortunately, instead of eating a bear (something he would never do), he was killed by a grizzly, which subsequently ate him (and his girlfriend). It was predictable:
(Some of the better videos have had embedding disabled.)
Who is a nut you admire?
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Grizzly Man, Nuts, Timothy Treadwell | 1 Comment »
There is nothing complicated about viewing this celestial spectacle. Unlike an eclipse of the sun, which necessitates special viewing precautions in order to avoid eye damage, an eclipse of the moon is perfectly safe to watch. All you’ll need to watch are your eyes, but binoculars or a telescope will give a much nicer view.
The eclipse will actually begin when the moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth’s shadow a little over an hour before it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbra, however, is all but invisible to the eye until the moon becomes deeply immersed in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra as a faint smudge on the left part of the moon’s disk at or around 6:15 UT (on Dec. 21) which corresponds to 1:15 a.m. Eastern Time or 10:15 p.m. Pacific Time (on Dec. 20).
The most noticeable part of this eclipse will come when the moon begins to enter the Earth’s dark inner shadow (called the umbra). A small scallop of darkness will begin to appear on the moon’s left edge at 6:33 UT (on Dec. 21) corresponding to 1:33 a.m. EST or 10:33 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).
The moon is expected to take 3 hours and 28 minutes to pass completely through the umbra.
The total phase of the eclipse will last 72 minutes beginning at 7:41 UT (on Dec. 21), corresponding to 2:41 a.m. EST or 11:41 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).
At the moment of mid-totality (8:17 UT/3:17 a.m. EST/12:17 a.m. PST), the moon will stand directly overhead from a point in the North Pacific Ocean about 800 miles (1,300 km) west of La Paz, Mexico.
The moon will pass entirely out of the Earth’s umbra at 10:01 UT/5:01 a.m. EST/2:01 a.m. PST and the last evidence of the penumbra should vanish about 15 or 20 minutes later.
Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics, News | Tagged: Lunar Eclipse | 2 Comments »
FTSOS just hit an arbitrary but very round number in hits: 200,000. Thanks. A couple of big posts are really images that show up on Google Image, so here are my top three real posts:
Andreas Moritz is a stupid, dangerous man (I still love that title.)
Topless march in Farmington (This also gave my Photographs tab a lot of views. A lot of very disappointed views.)
Why Natural Selection is Not Random (This was originally written for a local publication; I’ve never been a huge fan of it, but people keep searching for it because creationists keep lying. It includes interviews with Kenneth Miller and a Creationist ‘Museum’ hack.)
Filed under: Administrative | Tagged: Andreas Moritz, Farmington, Kenneth Miller, Natural Selection is not random, Stats, Topless march | 4 Comments »
Hubble has another great capture. This one is being called a celestial bauble. And just in time for Christmas. What a crazy coincidence, I know. (SpaceDaily thought it prudent to dumb down the article title a bit.)
Celestial Bauble
This is called SNR 0509, which means it’s a supernova remnant. It’s located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which looks a little something like this.
Large Magellanic Cloud
(None of this is here for or because of human existence, by the way.)
Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics | Tagged: Celestial Bauble, Christmas, hubble, Hubble images, Hubble Photos, Large Magellanic Cloud, хаббл фото, SNR, SNR 0509, SNR 0509-67.5, SpaceDaily, Supernova remnant | 1 Comment »
For the Sake of Science 