On Monday, this article in the Guardian, “Atheists arise: Dawkins spreads the A-word among America’s unbelievers,” about what is best described as an evangelical crusade by the celebrated Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, caught my eye.

I confess to being a bit puzzled by the current wave of attacks on religion. I am both a Ph.D. (with lots of science) and a regular church-goer, long under the impression that the alleged incompatibility of the two was a 19th century notion, associated with such organizations as The National Secular Society in England (to which Annie Besant devoted her estimable talents during the years before she helped found Theosophy), and perhaps best exemplified by vigorous period pieces, such as Andrew Dickson White’s massive two volumes, published in 1898, on The Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom. Over the last year or so, however, a powerful new wave of distinctly old-fashioned …

Somewhere on the Internet, a t-shirt being sold that shows a picture of Che and, underneath, “Communism killed 100 million people and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Supporters of space exploration have to accept that the two greatest historic steps towards the stars were made by two of the bloodiest regimes in human history. Why was it that Nazi Germany and the USSR both turned towards rockets? Was it because they wanted to expand humanity’s presence in the solar system? If not, then why did they do it?

In both cases it was partly because they lacked the ability to bomb targets in their enemies’ homeland. Germany’s V-2 program never really got going until after the Luftwaffe had lost the Battle of Britain in 1940. Their inability to dominate the skies over England led Hitler to give von Braun’s rocket team a major funding boost. A …

Now imagine how embryo selection will take place in the near future. By some predictions, within five years the cost of sequencing DNA will be “affordable enough that personal genomics will be integrated into routine clinical care.” Once millions of people have their DNA sequenced researchers may quickly determine which combination of genes gives people the best chance of having a high IQ. Parents using embryo selection could, therefore, screen their embryos and pick the one with the greatest intellectual potential.

A recent advance in gathering eggs from women will make it much easier for choosey moms to give birth to geniuses. Two British fertility clinics have found a way of safely obtaining thousands of eggs from a woman. Fertility clinics, therefore, will soon be able to give a couple thousands of embryos to pick from. So let’s say that a certain couple’s genes mean that normally they …

"There are two reasons behind the problematic nature of European Islam: the fact that there has been no reform in Islam, and the fact that Sunni Islam has not internalized its minority status [in Europe].

“[As to the first reason:] Islam is still a primitive religion that has not been reformed, as has European Christianity. Nor has it been guided in the right direction, as European Judaism has been.

“[As to the second reason:] Sunni Islam, which has, for the past 15 centuries, been accustomed to always being the ruling majority, still has not taken in the fact that it is a minority in Europe - and in Iraq. One of the principle reasons for terrorism in Iraq is that the Sunni minority refuses to recognize the reality of its being a minority, as well as the resulting fact that it does not have a monopoly …

Asteroid 7107 Peiser ist nach mir benannt.
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=7107

Asteroid 11956 Tamarakate ist nach unserer jüngsten Tochter benannt.
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=11956

Mit Asteroid 7307 Takei hat die International Astronomical Union gestern den schwulen Star Trek star geehrt.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5635.html

Die iranische Regierung hat unterdessen Protest eingelegt und bestreitet energisch, daß es schwule Asteroiden gibt. 

The Burmese government’s recent shutdown of the country’s Internet connections amid pro-democracy protests was a new low for what is already one of the most censorious nations in the world. Earlier this year, the OpenNet Initiative--a collaboration among researchers at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Toronto--found that the nation’s rulers blocked 85 percent of e-mail service providers and nearly all political-opposition and pro-democracy sites. (See “Internet Increasingly Censored.") All this in a nation in which less than 1 percent of citizens have Internet access in the first place.

Last week--after images of the beatings of Buddhist monks and the killing of a Japanese photographer leaked out via the Internet--Burma’s military rulers took the ultimate step, apparently physically disconnecting primary telecommunications cables in two major cities, in a drastic effort to stop the flow of information from Burma to the rest of the world. It didn’t completely …

Environmental advocates have finally managed to put the issue of global warming at the top of the world’s agenda. But the scientific, economic, and political realities may mean that their efforts are too little, too late.

As the world’s leaders gather in New York this week to discuss climate change, you’re going to hear a lot of well-intentioned talk about how to stop global warming. From the United Nations, Bill Clinton, and even the Bush administration, you’ll hear about how certain mechanisms—cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gas emissions, carbon taxes, and research and development plans for new energy technologies—can fit into some sort of global emissions reduction agreement to stop climate change. Many of these ideas will be innovative and necessary; some of them will be poorly thought out. But one thing binds them together: They all come much too late.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3980

Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore’s controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.

The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of ‘brainwashing’ children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.

Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ‘sentimental mush’.

He wants the video banned after it was distributed with four other short films to 3,500 schools in February.

Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore’s Oscar-winning film does promote ‘partisan political views’. This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming …