Young Australian Skeptics

Seven dollar jäger downstairs bombs not conducive to one’s blogging but lets not let one’s poor post convention high choices mar determined intent to produce thoughtful prose on global atheist opening night convention

Typal throat clearing complete now turn to at hand day commencing first with recount of free historical thinkers culminating in lategreat Christopher Hitchens narrated by David Nichols who next to speak and rouse he did

Kylie and Lawrence MC and then to Mikey Robins (drunk!) Ben Elton ranted and then to Stella Young disability jokes finally Jim Jefferies hilarious set of God the party guest

Tomorrow singer cannold barker long exciting day

Slumber after Sunday

Arriving now at the hostel where I’ll spend the quiet hours of weekend. Kick back and look out from the top bunk, disastrous view of the street seen through busybody branches, and, out the corner of the window, one lone barista goes about his day.

I wonder if he knows that nearby, the largest ever gathering of confirmed non-​​believers will shortly commence its opening ceremony. I wonder if he’s cognisant of how totally awesome that is. I for one, am ecstatic, and if I can temper my tapdancing fanboy glee with some serious scholarly reserve, I will surely make the most of the experience.

I hope that barista over there with his silly beard, and everyone else he works with, and those people down the road, even those crazy people on the train earlier, pay some serious, superimportant attention.

This is going to be awesome.

I will be diarising my experiences at the convention in subsequent posts. I hope it proves insightful.

The inspiration for today’s post comes from a book I have started reading entitled ‘god actually’ by Roy Williams, an Australian author who claims to be able to show that god probably exists. It provides some interesting points (I said interesting, not valid) on why god should be taken seriously. I will be basing blogs on this book for the next few weeks while I read through it. I will use one quote from this book (this quote was taken from Paul Davies for use in this book.) to start my investigations.

“Invoking an infinite number of other universes just to explain the apparent contrivances  of the one we see is pretty drastic, and in stark conflict with Occam’s razor (according to which science should prefer explanations with the least number of assumptions). I think it’s much more satisfactory from a scientific point of view to try to understand why things are the way they are in this universe and not to invent imaginary universes to do the job.”

There a few things I have to say about this quote, and I may have to spread it over a few posts.
This book also states that there is no proof of a possible multiverse. This is true in the strictest sense, we have no definitive proof that multiverses exist, (we have no definitive proof that atoms are the way we think they are either) but we can make inferences from other observations.

I will also say that we cannot ever know what actually caused our universe to be created, because it is before time was created, and science cannot deal directly with that.

Lets look at this with quantum chance. I have blogged before that there are infinite ways that something can exist, and one way that nothing exists, and this means that something must occur. scale this up, not only to one universe, but to more than one universe, (if it is certain that one universe must exist, then in this instance, it is also certain that infinite universes must exist) it means that this first spawned universe must also invoke other universes, and an infinite amount of universes must exist.

I will do a little flow chart to show the possible outcomes.

Multiverses will always result in some form of intelligent life, and instead of these multiverses being made-​​up figments of our imagination in a desperate attempt to show that humans can come to be about without a god, they are, theoretically, an essential part of theology and science.

That is all for me today, I will continue this topic tomorrow. I will leave you with a quote from  Douglas Adams, “Yes, I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one … etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously.” Douglas Adams, English Author and atheist of some note. Make sure to check out my blog, The Skeptical Teenager.

Hello to everybody out there with access to a computer,

After telling a fellow free-​​thinker that god was essentially a “Hey! What’s that? I guess god did it” fill in for what we don’t know he replied to me with what is a very good question, “Then aren’t dark energy and dark matter just the gods of astrophysics?” and I had to think about this one, but I did find one key difference between the two.

First of all, what is dark matter? Well, nobody knows for sure, but we do know about its properties, and it has been observed. It is a type of matter which only interacts with other matter through the fundamental force which is gravity, it does not interact through any of the other three forces.  It was first hypothesized in 1932 to account for the large difference between the spin of galaxies predicted by physics and what was actually being observed. At the speed that galaxies where spinning, stars should be flung from the galaxy willy-​​nilly, but they weren’t, so it was theorized that there was more matter in these galaxies than what we could see. The other line for the theory of dark matter is that the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) shows that there should just be more stuff that what we could see. Dark matter is that extra stuff.

Dark energy is the same. It is an explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe, and is thought to be the opposite energy to gravity, it makes up about 73% of the stuff in the universe. A lot less is known about dark energy than about dark matter but it explains a heap of the observations we have made about the universe.

Now, to the difference between god and dark matter and dark energy. The main difference, I think, is the intent of the label. When a christian or philosopher says something to the effect of ‘goddidit.’ (its one word now) then that is the end of their investigations, they look no more into the matter, because it is rude to intrude upon god’s mind and creation.
When the scientific community decided upon the two labels of dark matter and dark energy, they had already looked as deeply as the could have at the time into the subject, and after genuinely not being able to come to any other conclusion they decided that there was more stuff there, but that wasn’t the end of their endeavors. Labeling what they found was not the end for them, the label ‘we don’t know what this is’ was not the end of the road, when new technology or ideas come along they investigated the dark matter and dark energy with those new ideas, and we are starting to get a better understanding of these two things now. If when scientists were baffled by how galaxies stayed together they just said “Well, I guess god is holding them all together then, isn’t he?” Then we would know nothing about it.

That’s it for today’s post, I will leave you with a quote from Linus Pauling, “Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.” Linus Pauling, Chemist, Biochemist, peace activist, author and educator of some note. Remember to also check out my blog, The Skeptical Teenager.

Hello, fellow skeptics.

I’m sure you have all heard the analogy comparing science to somebody trying to find their keys, and it demonstrates well how people use the process of science quite often in their everyday lives. For those who haven’t heard it though, it goes that when somebody loses their keys, they develop a hypothesis (my keys are under the couch) and then they proceed to test it (look under the couch). If their hypothesis was deemed incorrect (the keys weren’t under the couch), then they formulate a new one (the keys are locked in the car). This process is repeated until a suitable hypothesis which holds up to observation (I found the keys) is found.

Now this is all well and good, but I recently heard this analogy abused by an ESP research proponent. He stated that when you lose your keys, you will keep checking the same place over and over again, ‘just to be sure’. This is his justification for why ESP research should continue to be done.

This is not true, for a couple of reasons. When somebody loses their keys, they first assess the prior probability of the likelihood that they lost their keys there. One does not check at great Aunt Sherle’s house if the last time one went there was when they were 11 for Easter one year. Nor does one check under the couch, if one has already looked 40 times, because every second time they checked they thought they saw something under there. I feel this is the point at which ESP research is at.

Prior probability says it’s unlikely, but we had a little look, just to make sure. We looked, we found nothing, the general scientific community left it, but a few cranks, nuts and loons stayed behind, convinced that 0.5000002 is worth investing millions of dollars in research. I think it’s well past time to move on, and the sooner ESP research is brought to a stop, the sooner the money can go to worthy science with real, interesting outcomes.

I will leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not to sure about the former.” Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, master mind behind general relativity, special relativity, and mass-​​energy equivalence, Nobel prize winner, and patent-​​office clerk of some note.

Don’t forget to check out my blog, The Skeptical Teenager.

The Pseudo Scientists — Episode 42

Richard, James, Belinda and Jack honour Douglas Adams by discussing some big questions about Life, the Universe and Everything. What is making up the majority of our universe, and why can’t we see it? How can we more effectively manage Australian wildlife conversation? What is the mass gap problem, and why is it important? What is life, exactly? The answers, unfortunately, probably aren’t all “42”.

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This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is a clip from the 2005 film adaptation of Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.

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The Pseudo Scientists — Episode 41

Jack, Belinda, Elliot and Richard discuss a watery “Super-​​Earth”, the implications of vat-​​grown meat, and leaked documents from an anti-​​climate change institute. Plus, Jack interviews Rhys Morgan, a 17 year-​​old skeptic from Wales who has made a name for himself fighting alternative medicine and quackery.

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You can follow Rhys Morgan on Twitter at @rhysmorgan and on his blog.

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is self-​​proclaimed psychic John Edward talking about his abilities.

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The Pseudo Scientists — Episode 40

Elliot, Belinda, Jack and Richard discuss super-​​ancient seaweed, shrill/​cute tarsiers and genomics revealing how our ancestors got it on with other human subspecies. Plus, Jack interviews Eugenie Scott, of the National Center for Science Education, about climate change denial and evolution education (recorded at The Amazing Meeting 9 in Las Vegas, in July 2011).

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Find out more about the National Center for Science Education at its website.

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is Jack Scanlan’s evil counterpart from some sort of Internet cult.

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