morons

unfortunately i left it too late to go to the shops to get a times today, so when i got there they were all gone and i had to make do with an indo. feck it. i hate the indo it has, in my totally unsupported opinion, a smug, self satisfied, middle class, fianna fail, know it all air about it. the times gives the same feeling (but change fianna fail to left) but the quality if the argument is better. anyway, a good example (1) today of this is in the letters section with a few letter writers patting kevin myers on the back for his rant against climate change and a real humdinger of a letter from one conor o'riordan titled ''Universe could not have created itself''. mr. o'riordan enlightens us....

According to evolutionary theory, starting with the chaos and disorder of the Big Bang and the simplicity of hydrogen and helium gases, the universe created itself.

This is clearly a violation of natural law, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics. According to this law an isolated system can never increase in order and complexity, transforming itself to higher and higher levels of organization.

except this is clearly not a violation of natural law, as first the laws of the universe as the name would imply came into being with the big bang. secondly the second law of thermodynamics states...

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

increasing entropy does not mean increasing simplicity it means increasing disorder. by the time the universe had developed to the point where hydrogen and helium existed as elemental gases the universe was highly ordered. matter existing in the main as only 2 gases, with small variations in density. simple but ordered. it has since gotten more disordered, matter existing as many elements and with wildly varying densities. this simple misunderstanding, that increasing entropy means simpler leads to this....

An isolated system will inevitably, with time, run down, becoming more and more disorderly. There are no exceptions. Contrary to this natural law, evolutionists believe the universe is an isolated system which transformed itself from the chaos and disorder of the Big Bang and simplicity of hydrogen and helium gases into the incredibly complex universe we have today. This is a direct violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If natural laws are natural laws, the universe could not have created itself.

utter rubbish. it hasn't occurred to him that even with the increasing order that results when a living thing turns simple molecules to more complex molecules is far outstripped by the increasing entropy of the universe (i.e the system) as a whole. next follows the standard creationist rubbish

The only alternative is that it is not an isolated system. There must be a Creator that is external to and independent of the natural universe who was responsible for its origin and who created the natural laws that govern its operation.

The design we see in living things is far too complex, too designed, too engineered to be the result of mere undirected, random forces. Even the simplest thing we could call "living" is vastly more complex than a super computer and super computers don't happen by chance. Every cell is composed of many constituent parts, each one marvelously designed and necessary for the whole.

Without any one of its parts, the cell could not live. All of it is organized and energized by the magnificent DNA code, an encyclopedia of information which, even though modern scientists can't read it, it is read and obeyed by the cell. Surely some things need a Designer/Author.

total shit. scientists can't read DNA??? jaysus better call the university departments, biotech and pharmaceutical companies and let them know then. idiot

(1)this smug know it all attitude can usually be seen in anything written by that puffed up bag of ego kevin myers, who incidentally motivated this letter with a spectacularly ignorant rant bemoaning evolution. gobshite

carrying on from the last post...

saw this in the comments

It's good to finally see this debate. The media have allowed the alternative medicine industry to propagate false claims and squeeze money from an uninformed public. The Irish Times has been just as uncritical as every other media outlet. A recent Health supplement printed without challenge the ridiculous claim that reiki is explained by quantum mechanics. Genuine science is unfortunately confined to a single weekly page. Alternative medicine is the greatest health rip-off in this country and yet The Irish Times is not covering it.
David H Ireland

i remember that article too, it had an argument that basically said..

''quantum mechanics tells us all molecules vibrate (presumably means the z.p.e) at a basic level and it's this universal energy that is manipulated in reiki''

..and yes while paraphrasing, no i'm not being unfair it really was that stupid. non sequitur anyone? evidence?

though what do you expect from the IT health supplement, it's full of lifestyle crap and self help mumbo jumbo. and the science page, jaysus, would be a lot better if the good doctor william reveille could spare us his periodic meditations on religion and richard dawkins

like talking to a wall

i just waited to see the final result of the head to head section (1) in the times before i wrote about this. anyway the results are in... 72% of voters on the poll want alternative medicine to be included in the health system (2). if you read the comments section underneath you'll see that a lot of the pro alt. medicine commenter's didn't bother to read the anti side as a lot of the comments are along the lines of ''i tried it and i subsequently felt better so it must work'' testimonials and anecdotes. the anti guy (can't find his name at the mo, sites having a flip out) covered this and cited the placebo effect as the main reason people think alt. medicine works. that's probably true in the case of pain, but obviously one of the other reasons is far more mundane crap thinking and correlative fallacies.

my son had a stomach bug, i gave him some alternative remedy, he got better so the alt. remedy worked. this is a (paraphrased) letter i read in the times months ago. it obviously didn't occur to this woman that stomach bugs aren't exactly a chronic illness and that the things generally clears up by itself.

(1)nice to see the times get something that isn't suffixed by the P (premium, i.e subscription), even the freaking letters page is premium.

(2)the question ''Should alternative medicine be integrated into the health system?" really should read ''why should alternative medicine be integrated into the health system?'' the original question makes it sound that alt. medicine was already proven. really annoying

that's not reassuring at all mr. dog owner

when the postman comes up to your house and your dog starts growling, barking, showing any aggression whatsoever, saying something like ''don't mind him, he won't go near you'' is a sure way to piss off the postman. he won't bite you maybe but that's hardly surprising he is after all your frigging dog, that's not to say he won't decide to bite me though. it's also extremely stupid to dismiss aggression just cause the dog is small and cute, the little fuckers bite can still break skin, and if that happens i feel perfectly entitled to give fucker a kick with a steel capped boot. so dog owners, you've been warned.

very handy

today the times has a pull out section on the northern ireland elections. makes it so much easier to ignore. pull out, throw away.