Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/britain-first-world-war-biggest-error-niall-ferguson?CMP=share_btn_fb

What am I reading now:  I am currently rereading ( a textbook) "The History of Western Civilization - The Continuing Experiment" (14th Century to recent times) and, depending on my mood and location, concurrently rereading Barbara Tuchman's "The Distant Mirror", and have just just begun Niall Ferguson's fascinating "Civilization: The West and the Rest ", which I may now concentrate on because it is a library E Book and I only have two weeks to read it.

 After reading Margaret MacMillan's "The War That Ended Peace - The Road To 1914", and my ongoing work-time listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts on WWI , even with my confessedly limited knowledge of history, I came to the same conclusion about Britain's "biggest error in modern history". Ditto for Turkey's entry (caused by fear of Russia's encroachment on Ottoman territory) , which led to the post-colonial mess in the Middle East. Just posting this as a partial, personal antidote to last year's communal chest pounding about how heroically the propaganda driven cannon fodder boys of the British Empire (and more specifically Duncan, BC) marched off to defend King and Country from the scourge of the evil baby killing Huns (such as my grandfather).

 Why study history? A quote from Ferguson's intro to "Civilization ...": :'There is in fact no such thing as the future, singular; only futures, plural. There are multiple interpretations of history, to be sure, none definitive - but there is only one past. And although the past is over, for two reasons it is indispensable to our understanding of what we experience today and what lies ahead of us tomorrow and thereafter.First, the current world population makes up approximately 7 per cent of all the human beings who have ever lived. The dead outnumber the living, in other words, fourteen to one, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril. Second, the past is really our only reliable source of knowledge about the fleeting present ant to the multiple futures that lie before us, only one of which will actually happen. History is not just how we study the past; it is how we study time itself'.

Water, water everywhere ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/science/space/suddenly-it-seems-water-is-everywhere-in-solar-system.html?_r=0

First, I would like to confess that I have in my ancient times read Coleridge's long poem. I wonder if there is a celestial albatross for us to skewer with a thoroughly modern crossbow, so that, in a terminal fit of literary allusion, some hapless future space mariner , while dying of thirst due to a breakdown of the H2O recycling system, cannot help but hoarsely mutter "water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink . . .".

"Luck is probability taken personally"

https://www.facebook.com/theskepticsguide/photos/a.10150497216386605.426482.16599501604/10153129899066605/?type=1&theater

The drunkard's walk interferes with your fantasy of free will. You are the captain of your ship, but you have no control over other ships, icebergs, . . .or falling asteroids. Your "luck" will run out sooner or later, so you shouldn't take it personally, be it good, bad or whatever.

Sexist language?

After reading a German article in which they refer to Mayim Balik as a Schauspielerin (a male actor would be a Schauspieler). I thought I would comment on something that I have wondered about. Is it sexist to employ words with expressly different morphological gender - e.g., actor and actress ? That is, why have actresses become actors? Do you think this might not be a bit too feminist PC? I understand that this supposedly has something to do with gender equality and "actress" is seen by some to be sexist, or does not include transgenders. . "Actor" seems to be the ever-more accepted PC form used by media, but it seems misguided to me. What would be sexist is to consider an actress to be less whatever than an actor. I may be wrong, if we accept a STRONG interpretation of the Whorfian (Sapir-Whorf) Hypothesis - more or less the idea that the structure of language strongly influences our world view. This conundrum is more express in languages that do have grammatical gender, as traditional roles change. In Spanish, the "doctor -Dr."/"Doctora - Dra." distinction is now common usage, but there is resistance to "soldado/soldada" (male / female soldier). Will we go the Swedish route where last July their Språkrådet (Language Council) added gender neutral pronoun "han" to the Swedish word-list/glossary; and, though it has so far not been accepted by mainstream Swedish media and society as a whole, it is being used by some journalists. This would be equivalent to inventing a neutral pronoun to replace the "she/he, him/her, hers/his" distinction. What is your choice for a neutral pronoun? I saw Mary yesterday and it told me that its dog was sick. I spoke to John yesterday and it told me it had lost its job. ????

Foamy holes reply two, to, too

Due to all kinds of personal "issues" I have not posted for some time. This is a response that I actually wrote more than a year ago, but did not post. I am not sure why, but I think I had decided that it was a waste of time arguing with the Holes in the Foam moderator.
Nevertheless, here it is. I have not bothered to post it on the Holes FB, I still believe it would be time wasted to continue the haranguing battle.

Hey Holes in the Foam (Tony?) I have finally found time to answer you. Thanks for your reply and your “that’s how we roll” honesty.  Nevertheless, you could have been a little less honest and saved me the painful blow to my ego caused by your testosterone fuelled verbal riposte.  Before that last sentence fires up a male hormonal urge to attack: I am just kidding, pulling your leg/your chain, tomándote el pelo, i.e. not serious. Moreover, after your initial reply suggesting that my first excessively long post, which was not specifically written for your FB, sounded like an overly-serious condescending lecture, I checked your blog and read your community declaration of intent on FB. I then thought well maybe it was a bit too much for your venue, but I still thought I would try to clarify what I had been trying to say the first time. My attempt to clarify  seemed to muddy the waters of communication even more, as well as driving you to accuse me of positioning myself to be seen as a “pompous, pseudo-intellectual  ass” (obviously, your opinion of me. I will withhold any opinion of you as I do not know you well enough to have an opinion, and I really do appreciate what you are doing with your blog and FB, be it juvenile or serious).  By the way, I was indulging in “self-deprecatory”, albeit perhaps to your mind humourless humour, when I wrote “Yes, of course, you may add …, if I ever deign …to post here again, I will try to be …flippant and shallow”. Yes, I was joking and poking fun at myself, though you took it as another loftily intellectual attack on your forum. I swear it was not. Whenever I have free time I check your FB page and enjoy the posted articles and cartoons.

Pseudo-atheist apologist?  You know not how far from the truth you are. I have been espousing hardcore unwavering atheism for over 50 years.  When I said “a surprising number of highly intelligent scientists believe in some kind of god”, you countered that with “care to point out where you get that information”.  You will note that I did not say “a majority” or even “a significant minority”. It is hard to find clear statistics, but I vaguely remember seeing stats showing that it is a very small minority (less than 5 to 7%) of scientists that believe in any kind of god and most of those might be deists rather than believers in a hands-on sky god. For me “the surprising number” is anything over zero, though having some idea of how cognitive dissonance inducing faith works, I am not really more than mildly surprised that an astro-physicist can also believe in something that seems to be nothing more than a wishful-thinking generated fairy tale promising an eternal happy hunting ground knee deep in  dead parrots.  Thus, my reference to Shermer’s “Why Smart People Believe Weird Things”, given that the belief in the Catholic god seems to come under the heading of kinda super weird, especially from a scientist that understands, actively investigates and teaches the current theories in physics and cosmology. I don’t understand why you thought I was grading Shermer, Dawkins and NdT. I have read pretty well everything Dawkins has written directed at the layman, and I listen to NdTs radio show/podcast and think he is brilliant.

The problem is the Vatican astronomer is also brilliant, as long as we are only judging him by his knowledge of astro-physics.  This type of believer does not eschew science in general, and would agree that science works , but goes through some weird apologetic acrobatics to argue that the scientific method and our scientific quest for knowledge are ways of trying to understand his/her god. What really blows me away is that the “intellectual” upper echelons of the Catholic Church and the scientists in the Jesuit universities do not go through a total brain meltdown due to a does-not-compute cognitive dissonance overload. For example, transubstantiation + Jesus Christ + 13.7 billion year old universe + 4 plus billion year old earth +evolution + throw in the “soul” at conception + life after death +. . . = how the fuck can they add all that together and not start frothing at the mouth.  Faith (whatever that might be), plus some split brain version of Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA????

Thou shalt neither condescend nor be WAY too serious and profound

The previous post was also posted to a couple of anti-theist FB pages including Holes in the Foam. I include here the response from the moderator/"owner" of the page and my response.

Holes In the Foam commented on your Wall post. Holes In the Foam wrote: "Thanks for your thoughts Bill. I too am not sure what your point was, and to be honest, it sounds rather like a condescending lecture, that may I add... is WAY too serious and profound for this page and blog. :P"

Your honesty is appreciated. I apologize if my post came across as a “condescending lecture”. There is no reason for me to consider myself superior to anyone, and when I wrote it I truly thought I was just putting out some ideas to people with whom I share at least a modicum of like-mindedness rather than speaking down to you and your other FB followers. I suppose that I was basically writing to myself to see if I could begin to clarify some ideas generated by:  a recent re-reading of Michael Shermer’s  “Why Smart People Believe Weird Things” ; listening to podcasts in which professed atheists express belief systems at least as weird as having faith in an all-knowing, all-powerful sky god; listening to the interview with the Vatican astronomer;  watching two video clips, in one of which Dawkins says “It (science) works, bitches”, and in the other Dawkins in response to a criticism  from Neil deGrasse Tyson quotes a former editor of the New Scientist as saying “…science is interesting, and if you don’t agree you can fuck off”, and, last but not least, trying to understand how a surprising number of highly intelligent scientists continue to believe in some kind of god, when I, relative ignoramus that I am, find the idea verging on silly.

Yes, of course, you may add anything you like, as after all it is your sandbox. If my musings are “WAY too serious and profound” for this arena, and if I ever deign ;-) to post here again, I will try to be more appropriately flippant and shallow.

Science and/or Religion

Science and/or Religion

In case my following post causes confusion as to my personal stance: I am and as long as I can remember have always been an atheist.  

I know that many of us have to suffer and struggle against the influence of certain sects of Christianity and their ongoing attacks against secularism. However, as important as it may be, fighting such Christians’ encroachment on the separation of Church and State is, to merrily mix metaphors, tilting at the windmills of low hanging (rotting?) fruit. We must not underestimate the intellects, sophistication, discipline, psychological/philosophical knowledge and historical perspective wielded by the original Christian church, i.e. the Holy Roman/Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, against the sophistication of the Jesuits and their complex Christian apologetics, barbs such as “It (science) works, Bitches” or “Science is interesting, and if you don’t agree you can fuck off” are ineffectual attacks against a straw man. The Vatican supports the search for “what it’s all about” via science, including evolution, modern physics and cosmological theories. Here is a quote, mined from Wikipedia, from a Vatican Astronomer and astro-physicist, Brother (Dr.) Guy Consolmagno: "Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism– it's turning God into a nature god. “

To begin to understand how sophisticated the Soldiers of Christ (Jesuits)  and the philosophical apologists of the Catholic Church are, you might want to check out the Vatican Observatory website (http://vaticanobservatory.org/) and google Brother Guy, as well as listening to his interview on  Quirks and Quarks  (a CBC science radio program and  podcast) at http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Quirks+and+Quarks/ID/2363230875/. Brother Guy does not believe in a 6,000 year-old earth, but rather accepts the current understanding that our universe is 13.7 billion years old; understands and accepts modern evolutionary theory (though I suppose he magically inserts the soul at some point); accepts plate tectonics and would scoff at the idea that the Grand Canyon was created by “The Flood”; and he has a much better understanding of Quantum Physics than 99.99999% of the Homo sapiens not so sapiens living on this blue dot.

I am not sure what point, if any, I am trying make here, except that we should not write off theists as being stupid or ignorant. Moreover, I have much more in common with Brother Guy and the deceased theist Martin Gardiner, than I might have with many atheists. I only believe in one fewer god than they. Visceral non-skeptical atheism can be a strange reverse type of faith, though I must admit my atheism is as much visceral as it is based on scientific skepticism.  I do not understand those who do not believe in the existence of god(s) but accept a wide range of bat shit crazy woo woo (sorry, Seth, I know you have difficulty with the second “woo”). Woo woo = e.g., ghosts, auras, acupuncture, anti-vaccination, alien abductions, “there’s a reason for everything”, psychics, speaking to the dead, astrology, reiki … ad infinitum, ad nauseam.