In the mean time, I have been blessed with a topic that’s perfect for a blog post; too big for a rant on Facebook, and too opinionated and irrelevant for a YouTube video. That topic is of course Thunderf00t’s videos about Park51. I will also be focussing on my role as a subscriber and commenter, as I have apparently become central to a debate about miscommunication.

Before getting started, I should note that I see Park51 as a complete non-issue blown up out of all proportion for the sake of sensationalism. Many of my favourite commentators on religious and rights issues have left me disappointed with the use of “they have the right but…” arguments, where what follows the “but” has been universally superfluous or just plain incorrect. False attribution, red herrings and appeals to emotion are popping up all over the place and making a mockery of the actual debate.

But of course, we all think in chorus, this is the Internet!

Naturally most of us are not surprised by this sort of controversy; we’re used to it. What really troubles me, however, is a surge in two particularly ugly types of blemishes peppering (what I hope you’ll excuse me for calling) the “home side”. They are sloppy communication and knee-jerk reactions. I’ll start with the former.

On August 29th, Thunderf00t posted his first video on the subject, ‘Tolerance’ and the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. Shortly after it was posted I found it in my subscriptions feed, and clicked through. The video is under four minutes long and during my first play I was only half listening as I sometimes do. When it was finished I felt somewhat confused as to what point my friend was trying to make. I assumed I’d missed something due to being distracted, and as it’s only a short video, I watched it through again with my full attention. My confusion remained. What was this video saying?

It had the characteristics of another “they have the right but…” argument. But what?, I wondered. What I interpreted was something of a mixed message. It can best be stated as:

The organisers of Park51 have the right to build it but they are hypocrites and shouldn’t go through with it because [insert false analogy]

I don’t want to dwell on the analogy here. Suffice to say that besides planes being flown into things, Thunderf00t’s hypothetical really isn’t a good parallel to the events of 2001 and Park51. In fact, almost every analogy I’ve heard on all sides of this issue has been a lousy one. Can’t we just skip the analogies and discuss the real scenario?

In my state of confusion I felt compelled to comment. I had to know what Thunderf00t’s video was advocating. I assumed it was advocating one thing or another (perhaps foolishly) else I saw no point in him making it. I was not willing to believe that Thunderf00t would really suggest limiting anyone’s rights, or that the promoters of Park51 should be guilted out of their rights by association with Saudi Arabia. With ignorance and incredulity, I posted the most succinct, yes-or-no question I could think of:

Are you advocating sinking to the level of the Saudi government?

In my professional development, I’ve had the truly fulfilling experience of educating children. They really do ask the best questions (Could we use Pluto to plug a black hole? Has a penguin ever been hit by a meteorite? Could aliens already be living on Earth, but be too small to see?) but every now and then some poor youth will be unwilling to pose a question because they’re worried it’s “stupid”.

“There’s no such thing as a stupid question,” I tell them, “only a stupid answer.”

This has become one of my mottos in life. Even as a cold, cynical adult, fully aware of the sort of dishonest, loaded tripe and trickery that comes from people like ShockofGod, I still believe that no honest question should be dismissed as stupid. The whole reason for asking an honest question is to overcome a state of ignorance, so questions are very noble things indeed. It was with honesty that I approached Thunderf00t with my question, confident that I would receive a clear response of the form: “No. What I advocate is…”

I was afforded no such response, though my comment would achieve great infamy thanks to Thunderf00t taking the liberty to feature it under a somewhat baffling sentence. I’ll get to that in time, but I’d like to make a note about knee-jerk reactions first.

I decided to take a night’s sleep before writing this post. One of my rational heroes, Sam Harris, has often demonstrated the value of collecting one’s thoughts for some time before making any kind of response. Actually, I disagree with Harris quite strongly on the subject at hand here, but I applaud his patience. The trouble with knee-jerk reactions is that they often result in misunderstandings. Consider this comment left on my channel:

The irony of this rash criticism is that I have been misinterpreted as having misinterpreted another. Since what could be called my interpretation of the video was a contradiction, I posed a question for clarification, expecting the answer to remove any doubt:-

• “Yes” – Thunderf00t advocates that American Muslims receive a taste of the medicine dished out by Saudi Muslims against non-Muslim ideologies.
• “No” – Thunderf00t advocates entirely fair treatment of American Muslims as citizens of the US, but American Muslims are hypocrites for pleading tolerance with the creation of Park51, because Saudi Muslims are intolerant to non-Muslim ideologies.

I fully expected the answer to be no, but I had to be sure, at which point I would have moved on to my major grievance with the hypocrisy allegation. At no point did I accuse Thunderf00t of anything, or put words in his mouth with my question, and I resent the allegation that I did. Some of the more obscene PMs sent to my inbox are nudging me to amend my motto, “…but if you ask a question on a Thunderf00t comment wall, you are guaranteed to be misinterpreted and probably insulted”. I’ll have to think of something punchier. Since Thunderf00t did not respond in the comments, I never did express my disagreement with him.

Enter DLandonCole. By happenstance, I stumbled upon his video response, Tolerance and the Ground Zero Mosque: a reply to Thunderf00t. As I was still scratching my head over the original video, I hoped another user might clear it up for me. I clicked through, and after a couple of minutes I found myself watching a very well thought-out and mature response by a stranger, raising several objections that hadn’t even entered my mind. Immediately I commented and subscribed, and shortly afterwards I linked Thunderf00t privately to the video, suggesting he take a look at it and make a response. In my opinion, criticisms such as these are the ones which really deserve responses and drive the discussion in a productive direction.

If someone criticised me in this manner, I would be inspired to question my own arguments, especially since maturity and research are uncommon among my typical opponents. Geocentrists such as Malcolm Bowden have completely missed the point, accused me of lying and continued their anti-scientific rant against me. William Lane Craig fanboys have attempted to refute me with, you guessed it, more clips of Craig. On the other side, the atheist user ShredderIsAlive has combined immaturity, lack of research and quote-mining with an unhealthy refusal to retract factually incorrect statements and called it a response. If DLandonCole took issue with one of my videos or opinions the same way he approached Thunderfoot, I’d see it as a breath of fresh air and well worth addressing.

Perhaps then the reader will understand my puzzlement when ‘Tolerance’ and the “Ground Zero Mosque’ -Part 2 surfaced, devoid of any mention of DLandonCole’s challenging video. Instead, Thunderf00t focussed on a few clips of other users apparently misrepresenting him, comparing their words with quotes from his original video. I get the impression I have been lumped in under the same accusation, but I’m not too concerned. Those who do their homework and follow my online ramblings will arrive at this post and learn of the intentions behind my comment; the opinions of those who don’t do their research are of no interest to me. I also don’t have much to say regarding the use of the specific clips for the sake of making a specific point. FSAthe1st has mirrored my feelings on that topic in his video, On the subject of Thunderf00t and Park51.

In his follow-up video, Thunderf00t admitted that poor communication on his part was responsible for the confusion. I agree and I respect that confession. However using my comment and name as a qualifier only confuses me — personally — further. What is so special about “folk like AndromedasWake” that prompts a clarification? What about the thousands of other users who felt short-changed on any coherent point? Would the second video have been made if I hadn’t been confused by- or just hadn’t seen the first? I don’t deserve any special treatment.

I’m left with a new question; one which I won’t be so foolish as to expect a direct answer to. If I had asked a similar question on one of Thunderf00t’s poorly worded Draw Muhammad Day videos, would he have produced a clarification in my honour? If the recent event is a concrete example, then I think being portrayed as an idiot to 100,000 subscribers is a small price to pay for making sure that those same subscribers get a message free of what could potentially be seen as bigotry or contradictory ideals.

For those on YouTube who are unaware of the users mentioned in this post, I highly recommend subscribing to DLandonCole, FSAthe1st and of course, Thunderf00t.

After a few exchanges on message boards, I’ve been directed to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy more than once in the last few days. And, today, glancing through it, I’m left with a rather odd feeling. It’s not entirely one of having found a child with his hand in the cookie jar, but more the feeling that there some of the cookies are missing.

Atheism. Does anyone else find the second sentence odd? It is: “Worldwide there may be as many as a billion atheists, although social stigma, political pressure, and intolerance make accurate polling difficult.”

The New  Atheism. This sentence strikes me as inappropriate for an encyclopedia article: “A standard observation is that New Atheist authors exhibit an unusually high level of confidence in their views.” Also, this article includes David Berlinski on its list of references and further reading. Odd. Very odd. And lastly, here, the author is James E. Taylor. Probably not a name we all know but he is Christian apologist. A philosopher, too, but nevertheless.

Deduction and Induction. A rather breezy article. I would have wanted more. I am truly baffled by this comment: “Some dictionaries define “deduction” as reasoning from the general to specific and “induction” as reasoning from the specific to the general. While this usage is still sometimes found even in philosophical and mathematical contexts, for the most part, it is outdated.” Really? Outdated? That’s weird. The books on logic that I use don’t call it outdated (although, they may be outdated. 1996 was a long time ago.) The majority of the content on this page bears a striking resemblance to William Lane Craig and J.P.Moreland’s chapter on logic in the Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, I note.

Finally, number five, the immediate experience of God. This isn’t really an argument for God’s existence rather it’s the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from argument, simply by immediately experiencing Him.

But this is, I think, frustrating for many observers and, nevertheless, for Craig, there is a significant distinction to be made between showing and knowing; he writes: “It’s important to distinguish between knowing Christianity is true and showing Christianity is true.” Returning to the PM from my subscriber: “I think the problem should be apparent at this point. There is an “epistemic standoff” between the two theists. I don’t see how it is possible for people to communicate meaningfully when the opposing parties both hold that (1) they alone have the absolute truth on their side and (2) that this truth allows them to circumvent any and all opposing evidence.” Thus, despite Craig’s desire to draw a distinction between “knowing” and “showing,” testimony, when it is offered, is not about knowing, but about showing. And more to the point, evidence and argument was about a knowing that comes from showing and yet, Craig also simultaneously asserts a knowing that does not come from showing, a knowing that cannot be shown to not know. This, then, for me, is one of the few places where I can align myself with Craig because what Craig is describing here is essentially or effectively what I would describe as faith: knowledge, and “knowledge” may be the wrong word, that is outside the ordinary rules of truth-finding, the rules of understanding experience, and even the rules of argumentation and evidence.

Craig makes this clear:

First of all I think that I would tell them that they need to understand the proper relationship between faith and reason and my view here is that the way I know that Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit on my heart and that this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing that Christianity is true, whole apart from the evidence. And, therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstance, the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I don’t think that that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simple a result of the contingent circumstances that I’m in and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and time, I would discover that in fact the evidence, if I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me.

“A self-authenticating means of knowing that Christianity is true, wholly apart from the evidence;” it is Craig at his highest but also at his lowest because it precisely disables the value of reason to the apologist who preaches a reason-justified Christianity, which is precisely the guiding assumption of apologetics. C.S.Lewis, the usurped grandfather of fundamentalist apologetics, famously said: “I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it” (Mere Christianity 123) — and here, in stark opposition, is Craig saying that even if his best reasoning told him that the weight of the evidence was against Christianity, he would still be a Christian.

Christopher Hitchens observed something of this as well:

Maybe we better have some evidence to go along with our faith. But look at what Dr. Craig says in his book. He says and I’ll quote directly: ‘Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it’s the form that must take place precedence over the latter.’ [...] I’ll say it again: ‘Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it’s the form that must take place precedence over the latter.’ That’s not evidentialism. It’s just faith.

To be clear, I can’t blame the Christian, even the Christian Fundamentalist, and even the Christian Fundamentalist apologist, who tells me that he has faith, for that smuggles nothing; but I do blame that same person who then tells me that to be otherwise is unscientific and unreasonable, for that smuggles everything.

Books, and their content, can challenge our political, religious, and moral sensibilities. Well written literature can change the ethical zeitgeist, inspire a revolution, and even start a new faith – 26 lead soldiers can indeed conquer the world. Because of this, books are often seen by current authorities as divisive and dangerous. If they cannot dispute or counter the ideas contained within, they will resort to destroying the method of propagation in order to prevent the spread of such thoughts. One of the earliest notable book-burning was carried out by the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who ordered all philosophy and history books from states other than Qin to be burned. Soon, dissenting scholars who refused to carry out the orders to destroy these important works were being buried alive. The main effect of this book-burning was the loss of the Hundred Schools of Thought which influenced Chinese life. After the persecution ended only the School of Scholars (Confucianism) and the School of Law retained a prominent position. Lost were the schools that focussed on empiricism, reason, and logic – potentially a great setback for the development of Chinese culture.

In 1478 the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, also known as the Spanish inquisition, was established. The aim of this inquisition was to hold trials for adherents of other faiths (Jews and Muslims) and attempt to convert them to Christianity. If they would not convert or agreed to conversion but were later caught taking part in religious rituals from their original faith, they were put to death. Eventually, the suspicion that Muslims were secretly practicing religious rituals led to the majority of them to be expelled from Spain. During the persecution, several religious books including the Koran were burned en masse. In this case, it was the competition of religious sensibilities which led to the attempted extermination of Muslim ideas. The German playwright Heinrich Heine wrote about the Spanish inquisition in the tragedy Almansor, in the mouth of a persecuted Muslim he puts the words “Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.” As burning books cannot completely eliminate an idea , authorities will eventually have to burn people to completely purge the threatening idea from society – and so it was during the inquisition of Spain. In a bit of black irony, Heine’s works were including amongst the Jewish, socialist, and dissident books burned by the Nazi’s in 1933. His quote from Almansor above is engraved on the ground at the site of the burning.

In the category of censorship in the name of moral outrage, nothing comes close to the bonfires of vanities which were especially common in Italy during the fifteenth century. In the most famous fire – lit by Savonarola in Florence – mirrors, statues, cosmetics, art, chess pieces, and lewd books were all burned to ashes. One book in particular was the Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) written by the Roman poet Ovid. The book contains advice on how to find women, seduce them, and then keep them from being stolen away. Savonarola, the theocratic ruler of Florence, decided that this work was too lascivious to be available to the public and so had Ovid’s book consigned to the flames. The bodies soon followed as acts of homosexuality, previously tolerated, became a crime punishable by execution. Many others were sent to the flames for their own acts of immorality. Savonarola was eventually burned to death himself after being excommunicated by the Pope. Ovid’s Art of Love must be particularly bad because further censorship occurred when US customs seized an English translation in the 1930s, almost two thousands years after it was originally written.

In modern times the 451°C threat appears less menacing. With the advent of mass printing and the spread of ebooks online eliminating ideas is much more difficult. However, book-burnings are still a powerful symbol in which various groups declare certain ideas are off-limits to society.  Today I learned that a Christian group, the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, is promoting September 11 as International Burn the Koran Day. Led by Fireman Terry Jones, the evangelical church plans to build a pyre of Korans and they hope their example will be copied around the world. Not much offends me, but I find book-burnings to be completely unacceptable no matter what book is being torched. Even more galling is the pastor’s comments that burning the Koran will give Muslims a chance to convert! This church is so bigoted that they see the Koran as a dangerous book that it needs to be destroyed before people have a chance to read it and are willing to use tactics reminiscent of the Spanish inquisition. They are the latest incarnation of a dangerous movement which seeks the destruction of our cultural and intellectual heritage, and as such they must be opposed. So this September 11, rather than burn a Koran I’m going to read one. Rather than attempting to eliminate certain ideas, I’m going to integrate them a little further into our collective society. Anyone interested in joining me?

Rather than invite questions from callers, this time we’re aiming to have a ’roundtable’ discussion, and rather than have to listen to boring old duffers like dprjones and AronRa, you’ll be able to hear a few of my favourite YouTube Atheists.

• DasAmericanAtheist
• antybu86
• Th1sWasATriumph

I’m looking forward to hearing their opinions on subjects I’ve never discussed with anyone before, but when sending out messages to the panel it got me thinking about how we choose our favourites. Who are your favourite atheists on YouTube, and why?

As usual, the show will be at 7pm GMT or THIS TIME! and we welcome you to listen in on BlogTV or THIS PLACE!

Hope to see you there!

Here are the details.

Sunday, 18th July, 7pm GMT/UTC. Click here to get the time where you are.

This week’s panel will consist of the “core” contributors; myself, AronRu, Whunderf00t, RonExodus2, and pprjones as moderator and call-monkey. As usual, highlights will appear on Youtube. I can also tell you that although the next Show is scheduled to be August 1st, next Sunday (July 25th) is also a date to put in your diary. Usual times will apply. You heard it here first!

Hope to see you all spamming the chatroom with thumbs down to pprjones!

Star trek provides many clear examples of morality portrayed through the lens of science fiction. The most prominent ethical instruction which permeates many episodes is the ‘Prime Directive’ which constrains the actions of Starfleet personnel. Simply put, the Prime Directive prevents intervention into pre-warp alien societies so as not to interfere with the natural course of their cultural development.  In principle the Prime Directive is an absolute rule to be obeyed even when the inhabitants of a primitive planet are about to be wiped out. In practice, the crew sometimes engage in exceptions to prevent genocides (e.g., Patterns of Force) or stop devastating asteroid impacts (e.g., For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky). Although these violations are not without consequences for both crew and captain, the interventions are usually portrayed as the right action given the circumstances. The real-world political doctrine of non-intervention can be seen as the contemporary equivalent of the Prime Directive. Based on the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination it says that states cannot and should not interfere in the domestic affairs of others. This doctrine is also supposed to be absolute, frowning upon alliances and wars on foreign soil; it instead opts for the containment of problems within local regions. However, just like the Prime Directive, non-interventionism has been violated in recent history by several prominent countries. One clear example is the UN intervention in Kosovo which was carried out under dubious legal authority. The justification given was the prevention of a humanitarian crisis, similar to the reason in Patterns of Force. States will also rush to provide humanitarian aid in countries, like Haiti, which have been hit with natural disasters. Star Trek managed to give us a discussion of non-interventionism, covering both the reasons for it and the horrid situations that result from pursing it to the limit. All this was done in a neutral setting where the idea could be freely discussed away from any real-world political divides which hamper proper dialogue. Star Trek also gave us the moral reasons for breaking the Prime Directive long before humanitarian concerns motivated us on Earth to get involved in the domestic crises of others.

Although science-fiction regularly deals with broad, societal-scale ethics there is also a deep theme of personal morality promoted through the hero or heroine of each series. They are the ones faced with tough decisions and regularly have to balance competing interests when confronted with moral dilemmas. Because they are our heroes they usually make the decision that result in the best outcome in every situation, but sci-fi asks whether merely doing the right thing is enough. If the hero does the right thing but acts for the wrong reasons they will lose our respect and we will begin to question their ethical status.  Delenn, our heroine of Babylon 5, has to face this additional layer of complexity for her moral decisions.  In Comes the Inquisitor she enters a crucible designed to force out the motivations for her actions. Over and over the inquisitor asks who she is. Is she someone filled with pride, puffed up with her own self-importance, and desperate for the glory that will come should she save the universe from destruction? Or is she someone motivated solely by the desire to preserve life and even willing to pay the ultimate price “For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know, or see”²? According to consequentialist moral theories, what determines the rightness of an act is the outcome alone. No consideration is given to the intentions that the actor was trying to put into practice. Babylon 5 asks whether the outcomes are enough to determine the morally of a given situation and the answers given is a resounding “No!” As is said in the episode, “If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, the work becomes corrupt, impure, and ultimately self-destructive.”² Consider the war in Iraq, there’s no question that Saddam Hussein was a cruel and corrupt dictator and that removing him was a good thing for the Iraqi people. However, it would be hard to maintain that the political leaders at the time were acting with the intension of helping Iraq rather than for the wrong reasons which included political and strategic gain. These intensions corrupted the entire exercise and, quite rightly, leave a foul taste in many a mouth. This example shows that a person who performs a kind deed for another solely because of a selfish benefit is not truly acting in an altruistic manner. Without the right intentions, the moral actor is not really moral at all. Furthermore, good intentions are more likely to lead to good outcomes, while the cases of bad intentions leading to good outcomes are rare.  Promoting good intentions as morally necessary is one way to improve the consequences of our ethical decision making in the real world.

Speaking of wartime conflict, science-fiction offers a way to discuss the morality of war without getting bogged down in the politics of more local events. We Earthers have a saying: in war, all things are permitted. This statement is explored and taken to its logical conclusion in Battlestar Galactica. In this alternate reality, humanity has built an army of advanced robots and employed them as slaves to perform the menial work necessary to keep a civilisation running. But the Cylons became something greater than their original design and have reached the point where they think and feel so much like their human counterparts it is difficult to tell them apart. The Cylons then turn on their former masters, determined to conquer all humankind. As the show progresses and most of the human military is destroyed, the remaining resistance turns to increasingly brutal acts in order to prevent the Cylons from achieving a complete victory. If the Cylons were merely mindless robots, the actions of the humans would not be morally questionable but because the Cylons share many of the same properties as humans the tactics used by the resistance are open to scrutiny. Even in the context of war, some lines should not be crossed. In the episode Flesh and Bone, a Cylon operative convinces the crew that he has planted a nuclear bomb aboard one of their ships. In this clear case of a ‘ticking bomb’ the interrogation turns to torture in order to learn its location. The bomb scenario is brought up ad nausem in the debates on torture and is usually seen as a trump card. However, Battlestar Galactica highlights a big problem with its use because, as it turns out, there is no bomb and the torture was ultimately pointless. The problem with all ticking bomb scenarios is that, in a real-life situation, the interrogator cannot know that there is a bomb, that the bomber will give up its whereabouts, or that the bomb can actually be stopped. It might be said that the Cylon should not have lied about the existence of the bomb in the first place and so the torture was justified, but this literally makes torture the punishment for lying, a completely unacceptable situation. The second wartime issue conveyed to us by Battlestar Galactica is that of suicide bombing civilian targets in the name of resisting occupation. In the episode rightly called Occupation, members of the human resistance start suicide bombing Cylon and, more controversially, Cylon-friendly human targets. Most people would consider any such act to be morally abominable but set in an alternate universe with humanity on the brink of extinction, Battlestar Galatica manages to make us sympathise with the beleaguered resistance and perhaps even elicits some approval for their actions. Although, by itself, the episode is not enough to change our minds on the tactic of suicide bombing, it is enough to give us pause when we hear of similar instances on this planet and ask ourselves whether we would do the same if under occupation by foreign forces.

We have now seen how science fiction can enlighten us on issues as broad ranging as non-interventionism, intention/consequence approaches to ethics, and the morality of war. By removing the cultural and political barriers that exist in everyday life, science fiction allows for an unprejudiced discussion of moral dilemmas. The fantastic tales provide a narrative that lets us approach ethics in an indirect manner but, as I’ve shown, the results are very much applicable in the terrestrial world. Science fiction is a moral thought experiment performed at the cosmic scale. Ultimately, science fiction gives us an external standard and a common frame of reference to draw upon when faced with our own ethical decisions. If you’ve never considered the problematic aspects of the Prime Directive, never understood why the Vorlons require pure intentions, or never felt pity for a robot in agony then you haven’t grasped the full range of ethical lessons that science fiction has to offer. Without an appreciation of scifi, how can you be moral?

1. Gene Roddenberry (paraphrase).
2. Comes the inquisitor,  J. Michael Straczynski

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League of Reason Show episode 3 is taking place with a substitute panelist by the name of ZOMGitsCriss (who is that anyway?) as DonExodus2 will be disgracing himself in public somewhere with the aid of alcohol.

I can’t promise our discussions will be any more sober, as this week’s topic (oh, that’s a new feature recommended by you!) is: Are there any good reasons to believe in a god?

There will be no Atheist Experience this week, so we may run over if people are still keen. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, we’ll be back to full capacity. To those who are able and willing to make it, we very much look forward to seeing you there!

“Woah! Slow the fork down! What does that mean?”

It means that when you try to get someone’s opinion removed, instead of constructing a mature response, said opinion will come back with force. There is no bullet to the head of popular internet content. It appears, it thrives, and if it suspiciously disappears, memefication occurs. Yes. Memefication.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine

Many moons ago, a YouTube user named DannyMendlow posted a comical advertisement parody entitled “Religion!”. You can tell where this is going, can’t you? The video became hugely popular, making Pharyngula and other blogs if I recall correctly. I can’t remember exactly how long ago it was originally posted, but I’m willing to wager that it was quite some time as I’ve seen this video all over the place.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Digg. It’s a website designed to direct people to popular internet content. By Digging something, you increase its ranking on Digg, increasing the likelihood that it will be brought to the attention of the Digg massive.

DannyMendlow’s video was Dugg (Digged?) to the extent that it reached the front page. Let me make this abundantly clear: that means the video in question was well liked by a large number of people, who felt that others should see it. By some magic shortly after its arrival on the front of Digg, the video was pulled by YouTube as being ‘inappropriate’. Stupidity abounds at the YouTube HQ (which I have on good authority is manned by a crack team of ducks) because the only thing inappropriate about the video is that it’s so depressingly true. Yesterday, DannyMendlow reposted the video for the first time, and in my opinion it deserves support. I urge you to head over and favourite/rate/comment the original. Oh, and why not Digg it too? Enjoy…

Since the first instalment of the League of Reason Show on the 6th, we’ve taken on board a lot of criticism and hope that everyone will agree that this week’s is an improvement.

Things are still progressing slowly as we aim to craft something everyone can enjoy without rushing it. With any luck, this time next year we’ll still be going and everything will be almost unrecognisably more awesome. For now though, you’ll have to share our frustration at trying to explain technology to dprjones (who asked him to be involved again?)

There are just a couple of things I’d like to point out, as I did in my video announcement. If you intend to be a guest on the show, please do not call us (we’ll call you), wear headphones throughout and mute your microphone when you aren’t speaking. These simple steps will help things run immeasurably more smoothly.

Today I’ve created a sub-forum for show discussion, as well as an FAQ thread which I hope will answer any current questions, and will be updated as needs be. Analysis, criticism and suggestions would be very welcome in this forum, and I will be checking it on a daily basis.

Here are the time-zone details for today’s show:

US: 3pm E, 2pm C, 1pm M, 12pm P
UK: 8pm BST
Europe: 9pm CEST, 10pm EEST
Australia: 4am West, 5:30am Central, 6am East

I very much hope to see you there, and before I forget, here’s a nice, clickable link!

Legislators in San Francisco are set to introduce new laws requiring all mobile phone retailers to post radiation emission level notices next to all the handsets they sell. Tony Winnicker, spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, claims that this “is a modest commonsense measure to provide greater transparency and information to consumers” and the proposal, which passed with a vote of 10-1, is likely to get its final approval next week despite the fact that there is NO EVIDENCE that mobile phones cause any harm to humans.

The idea that mobile phones can cause brain cancer is a widely held misconception that has long been shown to be false by that pesky spoiler of fun known as “peer reviewed scientific evidence”. For example a study conducted in Denmark, and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, looked at the effect of RF radiation on 420,000 mobile phone users over a 13 year period. They looked for any sign that mobile phone use caused an increase in a wide variety of different cancers and related conditions. The results were pretty conclusive:

Risk for these cancers … did not vary by duration of cellular telephone use, time since first subscription, age at first subscription, or type of cellular telephone (analogue or digital). Analysis of brain and nervous system tumors showed no statistically significant [standardized incidence ratios] for any subtype or anatomic location. The results of this investigation … do not support the hypothesis of an association between use of these telephones and tumors of the brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or other cancers.

In fact the very idea of mobile phones causing cancer makes very little sense. Mobile phones do not use ionizing radiation, nor do they use oscillating frequencies like those found in microwave ovens. As such that pretty much rules out any plausible way by which your mobile could conceivably cook your brain. But not only is there no reason to believe that there is any danger from mobile phones in the first place, there is also disagreement regarding whether the new legislation will accomplish its goal of better informing the public.

“Rather than inform, the ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point-of-sale requirements suggesting that some phones are ‘safer’ than others, based on radio frequency emissions,” said John Walls, vice-president of public affairs for the CTIA.

By hey, why should we listen to those scientists and their “evidence” when it is much easier to put a pointless and confusing law in place to help ease our irrational misgivings regarding things we don’t really understand? The only people I see benefiting from this new law are those people selling products that claim to protect you from the radiation coming from your mobile. So well done San Francisco, you have created a law that helps the purveyors of pseudoscience. Nice one.

The resulting report concluded that people wanted scientists who worked with the bits and pieces of life to do so with humility and respect for the material they were working with.

It also showed that people wanted to have a say in how the research was conducted and how grants were awarded. There should be consideration of social values as well as scientific merit, they said.

Now I don’t know about you but I can’t think of anyone who would be worse than the general public when it comes to evaluating the benefits of various areas of scientific research. I’m also sure that I’m not the only one who can’t help but read the words “humility and respect” and think “must not play God.” The general public as a group stopped getting itself vaccinated due to one ethically vile over reported paper. It now doubts climate change due to the use of the word “trick” in a couple of emails. And it spends millions every year on alternative medicine that, to put it bluntly, doesn’t work. This is hardly the right group of people to be making decisions about a new cutting edge area of scientific research. This is exactly what we have, oh what are they called, ah yes, experts for.

Ok, that is all. Please return to your daily lives.

The initial debate subject was Creation and Evolution. Of course, that’s not actually a debate, it’s just the teams. The debate requires a proposition (for example, “Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?”) for which one party can argue in favour, and one against. Without such a statement, NephilimFree’s proposal was akin to establishing a game called Chelsea and Manchester United, and then refusing to further specify what game they are actually playing. Without establishing that they are playing football (or soccer to my American friends) we have no rules in place to determine how the game can actually be won or lost. Likewise, Creation and Evolution (and the long list of other subjects NephilimFree listed he wanted to discuss) is not a debate; it’s just two nouns.

For a couple of days a debate question was established and agreed upon by both parties, as was the issue with moderators. It was shortly after that NephilimFree insisted on returning to his original proposition (despite being thoroughly educated about why it was not a debate) and began accusing DonExodus2 of backing out. I wish to make my it clear that from my position as a third person, it is NephilimFree who I think is being unreasonable, and rejecting previously accepted terms without giving good reasons.

Due to the conflict of understanding, the debate as originally planned will certainly not be going ahead, but perhaps that’s a good thing after all. On Friday, Thunderf00t posted a video detailing the first ever League of Reason Show. It’s an idea that myself and others have been considering for a long time, and since NephilimFree won’t be showing up to BlogTV (by his own admission) we have a good excuse to kick it off this weekend.

The format is quite simple; we will be using Skype and BlogTV to broadcast a group discussion, and taking questions live from creationists, or those of a theistic position who feel they can back up their claims. In order to do this, we have created a LoR Skype account (LeagueOfReason) which must be added before a question can be submitted, and a new BlogTV channel.

The show will last 2 hours, giving everyone time to pop over to watch The Atheist Experience on ustream. We won’t deny that our show is flagrantly derivative of their own, we just hope there’s room for one more. To further rip them off, we will also be uploading clips to our YouTube channel and they should be available on Monday for most people. We are not yet sure how regularly this show will take place, but dependent on the turnout, we would like to make it a weekly affair.

The show starts at 3pm EST, which is 8pm BST. This is 7pm GMT, but remember to take Summer Time into account. In any case, I recommend turning up early of course, and I hope to see you all there in the chat!

However, you develop an unfair bias of a newspaper when you peruse it mainly to find new nonsense to write about in your blog. You ignore all rational articles about politics\current affairs\crossbows to the face and concentrate only on articles that guarantee a spout of vitriol frothy enough to incur a transparent sense of self-righteousness. And as a result, your perception is that the chosen paper exists only to print stories about religion, druids and the supernatural. Unfair, since the Metro regularly dishes out reasonably informative articles about modern science and astronomy.

My last fodder was about druids fixing roads, and it’s hard to have sympathy for a publication that will indulge itself with such asinine balls. But almost the next day, indeed it could have been the next day, the Metro printed this. Our very own Phil Plait, who I have happily if briefly met (and who disillusioned me slightly by expressing a certain reserve for District 9, damn it Phil when will you see that guys in alien power armour are the next Casablanca) blogged about a photo of a lunar rock that had rolled into a crater. The Metro picked this up and wrote the small piece to which I just linked.

They could have taken Phil’s approach, which was “OMFG space is awesome and beautiful”. And they sort of did. But they also titled the article “Proof that golf-playing God shot a hole-in-one on the Moon?”

Facedesk.

Why, why would you do this? What manner of journalist would take a story about a lunar event of some rarity and make it into terrifyingly inept pun-based  pseudoscience? Am I only this annoyed because I loathe religion? No, I don’t think I am. The image itself deserved a tone of joyous solemnity (and sure, Phil played with a few golfing metaphors himself before getting into the science of it; I imagine the Metro stole the idea.) But that wouldn’t have been enough to make a prominent article; only invoking God could elevate the story into something worthy of News. Not content with printing stories about supernatural druidical assholery, they feel the need to take stories of astronomical wonder and create supernatural assholery. ” . . . this picture suggests that the Almighty could have had a round or two on the grey course – and even scored a hole-in-one.” What? You can almost hear the satisfied smirk as it drips off the journo’s face and congeals in the folds of his Armani tie.

You were so close to redeeming yourself, Metro. Now I hate you hate you hate you.

Print news, fine. Even if that means factually reporting on nonsense, fine. But taking science and jokingly inserting God? I will end you. With sticks.

The commercialisation of research has exploded in the fields of biomedical science and biotechnology, with industry poised to make millions, scientists are all too happy to take a cut of the action. However, money is a powerful motivator and researchers now have an added incentive to find certain result. The result which favours whatever corporation provides the funding. If scientists are being influenced by their source of funding, then it should be apparent in their results. Industry funded projects should find positive results more often than non-profit funding. Indeed, taking the example of pharmaceutical research, that is what we find.

Many scientific journals require the submitting authors to declare any conflicts of interest, for example being funded by the same company who owns the patent on the drug in question. Several statistical analyses have been done on the outcomes of these studies and the results should not be surprising to anyone who understands the effects of bias. In 2001 an analysis of 314 drug trials found that non-profit funded research was 3.5 times more likely to find a negative result than industry sponsored trials¹. A 2002 study of 159 articles in the British Medical Journal, which requires that funding be declared, found that the authors’ conclusions were significantly more positive in trials funded by for profit organisations compared with trials without competing interests (mean difference 0.48, P=0.014)². A 2004 study showed that in 158 drug trials published in five leading medical journals results favoured industry funded studies by an odds ratio of 1.9³. Finally, in 2003 a review selected 37 of the most rigorous studies and pooled their data. They found a statistically significant odds ratio of 3.6 favouring industry funded research⁴. This review also found that industry funding was associated with restriction on publication and data sharing if the results were negative.

One point to make about these analyses is that they are correlative only, causation could not be determined. Although the quality of the studies was controlled for (often poorer quality in industry funded trials) one possible explanation is that industry interests somehow pick pharmaceuticals that are more likely to succeed in trials. I can’t imagine how they would know beforehand which drugs have better prospects, but it is a possibility. More likely, however, is that the scientists performing these studies are influenced by the commercial factors at play in their research. These results are very reminiscent of ‘tobacco science’ where, for example, 94% of industry funded inquiry found no harm from second-hand smoke compared to just 13% of non-profit funded research. If correct, this interpretation is quite troubling. First, it means that consumers are being bombarded by new pharmaceuticals which are of questionable value over the old versions and in some cases, downright dangerous. Second, the reputation of science for impartiality and following evidence is being ruined by commercial interest by both outside companies and the scientists themselves. When the commercial bias of scientists is revealed, say through a drug recall or hidden financial contributions, the public starts becoming suspicious of these intellectual elites. In fact, the commercialisation of research could be contributing to the distrust of science, the growing interest in alternative medicine, and the rejection of genetic engineering.

Believe it or not there was a time when industry and academia where more or less separate. Scientists with relevant expertise might be given an honorarium to help overcome a particular problem or speak on a certain topic, but that was about it. Funding was largely provided by governments and scientists were free to explore myriad lines of inquiry, whether it might lead to a practical application or not. Even when there research could be commercialised, the scientists themselves would rarely have much to do with it. Their results were given away into the public domain. In 1954, Jonas Salk developed his vaccine against polio, when asked whether he would patent it he found the idea ridiculous replying, “Could you patent the sun?” Unfortunately, this attitude is found rarely in the field of biotechnology. Many exotic genes and interesting methods are often patented by the researchers who first discover them either preventing further inquiry or driving the cost of research even higher. This also makes the funding of science less attractive to the public sector that now sees less return for its investment.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any solutions for the problem. I just think the commercialisation of research makes an important contribution to the growth of science denialism and was worth highlighting. Patent law clearly needs a complete overall. I dislike attempts to own parts of nature – “to patent the sun” – but companies do need protection for their intellectual property. Similarly, industry funding research is having a negative impact on the impartiality of science, but there is no denying the benefits that have emerged from such partnerships. Perhaps blinding individual scientists to the source of their funding and preventing patents on natural products could go some way to removing this troubling commercial bias from academic scientists.

1. Yaphe J, Edman R, Knishkowy B, Herman J. The association between funding by commercial interests and study outcome in randomized controlled drug trials. Fam Pract. 2001 Dec;18(6):565-8.
2. Lise L Kjaergard & Bodil Als-Nielsen. Association between competing interests and authors’ conclusions: epidemiological study of randomised clinical trials published in the BMJ. BMJ 2002;325:249 ( 3 August )
3. Bhandari M, Busse JW, Jackowski D, Montori VM, Schünemann H, Sprague S, Mears D, Schemitsch EH, Heels-Ansdell D, Devereaux PJ. Association between industry funding and statistically significant pro-industry findings in medical and surgical randomized trials. CMAJ. 2004 Feb 17;170(4):477-80.
4. Justin E. Bekelman, AB; Yan Li, MPhil; Cary P. Gross, MD Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research: A Systematic Review JAMA. 2003;289:454-465

Perhaps more than anything else in recent years, it is in light of the introduction of The Amaz!ng Meeting in Europe that no one can deny the rising tide of scepticism around the globe.

I wasn’t alone when I arrived so fresh and early. Aside from a trickle of sceptics congregating near the door, I was accompanied by my good friend and fellow League blogger, Th1sWasATriumph. “Christ,” I hear you say, “what an asshole!”

Yes it’s true, but as I said, he’s a good friend, and sometimes you have to look past the myriad flaws in an individual’s character – an individual whose very acronym is ‘TWAT’ – and see him for the beautiful, loveable atheist within. Besides, I wasn’t stuck alone with him. Shortly after our arrival we were greeted by RabbitPirate  (this came as something as a surprise, as RP hadn’t once mentioned that he was attending TAM), League regular Josan and several members of YouTube’s sceptic community.

Once inside, we were treated to entertaining and informative talks, jokes, and even songs from a great variety of presenters. So awesome was the event, that I struggled to find the energy to write a comprehensive review (I will this year, I promise) so instead I’ll refer you to the one posted by the Hampshire Skeptic’s Society. You can also find a gallery of photos on my Facebook page (apparently you need to be signed into Facebook to view them) most of which were shot with a telephoto lens from the second row for close-up goodness. My short review is that somehow, the word ‘amazing’ doesn’t do it justice. For me it was a great opportunity to meet and thank some of the people who have inspired me to become vocal about my scepticism, atheism and love for astronomy (*cough* Phil Plait *cough*), and particularly symbolic as a landmark critical thinking conference held in my own country.

Thanks to the sell-out success of the London debut, this year’s second round has been announced and detailed for  the weekend of October 16th and 17th. The line-up is excellent (though I must confess to not recognising all of the names) and the whole thing is sure to attract more media attention thanks to several high-profile attendees.

This is a fantastic opportunity to raise public awareness of the sceptical cause and the importance of education. It’s also the perfect excuse to get some of the League together and represent our corner of the intertubes. It was, as I said, quite a surprise to bump into anyone aware of the site at last year’s event, but we’ve grown since then; who knows how many attendees could be reading? League of Reason is primarily a UK website – that is, it’s hosted in the UK with British administrators, and TAM London is the premier British event of its kind. Although our user base spans the entire globe, we have a comparatively strong European influence over other rationalist internet forums. What better way to represent than with a meet-up at TAM? I am also working on a League outreach programme, which many have shown interest in, so stay tuned for that!

Tickets for TAM London 2010, which are £220, go on sale on the 29th May (yes, this Saturday!) and I would expect them to sell out quickly. There is even a slim chance I won’t get one, but for the love of Loki I’ll give it my best shot. Th1sWasATriumph will also be attending this year’s event pending availability, as will Josan. Expect a League pub jaunt following the weekend’s festivities (i.e. get Monday off work) and some kind of t-shirt campaign in the run-up to October.

I began writing this post yesterday, and by the time I came back to it today, three new speakers had been added to the bill; among them, Richard Dawkins! Dawkins was unable to make last year’s event, as was James Randi (sadly due to illness) but this year it seems they will be joined by the one and only PZ Myers to form a trio of unstoppable ass-kicking. Do you really need any more convincing? To me, the only drawback is the lack of Phil Plait, who I had the pleasure of meeting at last year’s event. Phil, you will be sorely missed.

Finally, I have a special message for you PZ. Yes, I know you’re reading. I know you’re the one who creates endless, unoriginally named accounts to spam our forums with anti-atheist flame bait. Since you have mentioned me (twice) on your blog, I will be waiting for you in London, stalking in the shadows like a science ninja. I’m going to find you and I’m going to PESTER YOUR FACE OFF.

That said, who’s with me? Full details including accommodation information can be found over at tamlondon.org. TAM London is also on Facebook and Twitter. Lastly, my prediction for the weekend’s events.

[Item] or [practice] nullifies or negates the effects, presence, activity or consequences of [entity], [energy], or [phenomenon]. How can you tell? Because absolutely nothing is happening, and so the [item] or [practice] is a legitimate success. This stone keeps away bears. You can tell because you don’t see any bears around here . . . yes, this stone IS for sale. How expensive? Completely.

 This kind of non-logic is still happening today, and not only is it still happening but it’s actively endorsed by government bodies. Welcome to Austria, where a hitherto fatality-laden length of motorway near Salzburg has been fixed. By magic.

Druid Ilmar Tessman has blamed the high accident rate on a local mobile phone mast, which spreads “negative radiation over 120-200 miles.”

The accident rate has been reduced to zero in two years by the use of standing stones and magnets, apparently. Responding to scientific skeptics who say “Whatever can’t be measured does not exist” (Dr Georg Walach, Leoben University), Tessman says “If you ask me to give you a scientific explanation, I can’t. I just know it works, and even critics can’t argue with our success rate.”

Guess what? They can. I find it bogglingly, numbingly depressing that such nonsense is tolerated, let alone invested in as a valid solution. Instead of subjecting such findings to further research – and think about it, if you genuinely were sure that cheap edifices of stone, plastic and magnets could prevent car accidents surely you’d research the hell out of it, given that it represents a new stage of physics – this coincidental nonsense is simply allowed to continue. Drivers on these dangerous roads, whose risk factor has not been reduced in the slightest by these druidical interventions, will drive thinking they’re safe. I’ll tell you for free what reduced the rate of accidents – coincidence. People happened not to die for two years running, which is hardly surprising on a well known accident black spot. The more notorious the area becomes, the more careful drivers will be on it. Makes sense, I feel. But now? Drivers will think that elemental magic protects them from harm, and will quite possibly drive more dangerously as a result.

Grow up, world. If Tessman has truly stumbled on a new arena of scientific endeavour, don’t you think he should write a few papers on the subject?

You can find on the internet, today, people who genuinely think they have psychic or telekinetic powers. Imagine the new depths of Tessman’s delusion now that he’s been told he can fix road traffic fatalities. It’s cruel, when you think about it.

These facts show there is, at least, a kind of ‘brute compatibility’ between science and religion; a single person can hold both ideas simultaneously. However, the obvious counter to ‘brute compatibility’ is to point out that in certain cases the findings of science conflict with specific religious claims about the nature of the world. For example, if you claim that the world is 6,000 years old, science says you are wrong. According to empirical data, the world is more like 4.5 billion years old and anyone who says the scientific evidence shows otherwise is simply mistaken. Because science can only conflict with specifically defined religious claims, I call this ‘specific incompatibility’. Although this type of incompatibility is important, and probably accounts for a large proportion of science’s moderating impact on religion, it does not completely contradict all types of religious claims. Again, this answer is too superficial; the original question is asking something more fundamental – are religion and science incompatible at the deeper, philosophical level?

Here we must start with a rigorous understanding of the exact nature of science, its epistemological limits, and the assumptions it makes. First science assumes that the universe exists and is, broadly speaking, observer independent. This assumption avoids the problem of solipsism, where I could construct an argument based on the idea that the universe is simply a figment of my (hyperactive) imagination. The second assumption brings in causality, scientists must assume that causes and effects are empirical (observable and measurable) and, more importantly, natural. That these causes must be empirical is fairly self-explanatory. If we cannot observe and measure we cannot draw any inferences, offer any explanations, or say anything at all about them! Basically, we would not be able to do science. Less clear might be why science can only approach natural causes rather than supernatural ones.

Let’s use an example to help highlight the problem of supernatural causes. A nice set of evidence for evolution is that of the fossil record. Without going into too much detail, the arrangement and transitions of different fossil types is empirical evidence for evolution occurring in the real world (the universe out there). However, along comes a supernaturalist, and he to us “yes, I agree with your observations and measurements of the fossil evidence, however God (or other supernatural cause) made it so the fossil record appeared to support evolution but in reality the theory is wrong.” This is a serious and unsolvable problem for science and it can be applied to any other explanation or conclusion derived from methods based on the two assumptions above. If supernatural causes occur, the best of verifiable, empirical science will frequently give the wrong answer. If God (et al) always makes the observed and measured evidence look like it is supporting the wrong conclusion no appeal to empiricism can save a scientific theory – by definition. This is why science must reject supernatural causation and become methodologically naturalist at the outset. Without this assumption we would not be able to do science.

Methodological naturalism, therefore, means that science cannot ever make a judgment on supernatural claims. Science assumes that supernatural causes don’t exist and gets on with its job of figuring out the observable universe. As religion, for the large part, is based on such supernatural claims (God caused the universe, Karma causes ill luck, Boobs cause earthquakes) science has very little to do with the majority of religious assertions. I call this ‘philosophical compatibility’, as an understanding of the philosophy of science shows that science and religion are not in conflict. I accept that in specific cases religious claims may contradict with the findings of science and in those cases religion is wrong, but we can always take the step back to the philosophical level and show that such ‘contradictions’ may not be problematic if we allow for supernatural causes.

There’s one last level I want to discuss and that is ‘metaphysical incompatibility’. Working from science and its assumption of methodological naturalism one might take the eminently reasonable position of philosophical naturalism – supernatural forces positively do not exist in the real world. Note that this is not a scientific position but a metaphysical one, albeit one informed by scientific understanding. Science is insufficient to get us to philosophical naturalism, the move also requires reason and logical arguments (examples would include the argument from suffering of which I am fond). Philosophical naturalism is in clear contradiction with a metaphysic infused with religious supernaturalism. There is also a secondary incompatibility at this level but Feynman said it best so I’m going to turn the last word over to him:

“As a matter of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe – both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion.”

And that is the heart of the science/religion incompatibility in a nutshell.

But that aside I still think that something like this needed to happen and as if to prove the point Pakistan has decided to ban access to facebook and much of youtube and flickr in order to stop its countrymen from being offended by stick figures labelled Mohammed.

“Before shutting down (YouTube), we did try just to block particular URLs or links, and access to 450 links on the internet were stopped,” said PTA spokesman Khurram Ali Mehran.

“But the blasphemous content kept appearing so we ordered a total shut down.”

But why on earth would they need to do this? I mean what is so bad about people being offended? Well though I disagree with their actions I can’t help but think that they had a point, it’s just that their reasoning behind the site blocking just proves the very point the whole event was trying to make.

Government officials say they are acting pre-emptively to prevent a repeat of the 2006 cartoon riots that caused destruction of property and caused five deaths. But it was unclear whether the measures would satisfy the court or prevent disturbances.

Even after Facebook was banned yesterday, Islamist groups took to the streets, mounting minor protests. More are feared following weekly prayers tomorrow.

Yup, they decided to block the sites because they had reason to believe that looking at a few pictures of some bearded guy called Mohammed would result in rioting and possible death. Though I have no doubt that this is just an excuse to limit free speech and freedom of expression it is hard not to wonder what I would have done if I had been in the same situation, knowing that people would probably die because a percentage of the population would react to the cartoons in a completely over the top and out of proportion way. I’m not defending them, far from it, I just wonder what their alternative could have been?

Of course not everyone has such altruistic motivations. Some were more worried about hurt feelings.

“Such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the sentiments of Muslims around the world and cannot be accepted under the garb of freedom of expression,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said about the page.

I’m sorry but this is exactly what freedom of expression is all about and do you not think that when people are threatened with death for drawing cartoons that that constitutes “malicious and insulting attacks” to a much higher degree than this does? So if it is something you feel comfortable with then get out your pen and draw yourself a picture of Mohammed. Yes it will insult people, but maybe it will show them that they are foolish for getting insulted in the first place and that it is their reactions that are ultimately responsible for ours.

Ps. Apologies for this post having no real sense of direction and for not making much sense. I wanted to comment on this issue but it has been a very long day and clearly my brain is not functioning correctly. I can’t even work out what point I was trying to make here.