Well done Manchester City and Manchester United
May 14th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I’m not a football fan but, as someone brought up in the city of Manchester, I have to take pride in today’s achievements by the two Manchester football teams. Manchester City has won the FA Cup and Manchester United has secured the Premier League.
More information here.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
The need for evidence-based policy-making
May 14th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I’m a political person but, I hope, I am also a rational individual. So I have my values and principles, but I like to make decisions based on evidence and some of the best evidence comes from trials.
Therefore I was pleased to read this article today which puts the case for evidence-based policy-making in these terms:
“Randomised trials are our best way to find out if something works: by randomly assigning participants to one intervention or another, and measuring the outcome we’re interested in, we exclude all alternative explanations for any difference between the two groups. If you don’t know which of two reasonable interventions is best, and you want to find out, a trial will tell you.”
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Amnesty International’s annual human rights report
May 13th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Growing demands for freedom and justice across the Middle East and North Africa and the rise of social media offer an unprecedented opportunity for human rights change – but this change stands on a knife-edge, said Amnesty International as it launched its global human rights report on the eve of its 50th anniversary.
The report reveals restrictions on free speech in at least 89 countries; torture and other ill-treatment in at least 98 countries; cases of prisoners of conscience in at least 48 countries; and documents unfair trials in at least 54 countries.
More information here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The world’s highest bungee jump
May 11th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The highest bungee jump in the world is in South Africa at a place called Bloukrans River Bridge. It is 216 metres (708 feet). This week someone set a world record by doing the jump 105 times as reported here.
Now that’s impressive; but just as impressive in my book is the fact that, on a trip to Southern Africa in 2004, my wife Vee did this jump. I’ve written about the experience here.
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A review of “13 Assassins”
May 11th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
If you want some escapist violence on the big screen, currently you can’t do better than catch the Japanese film “13 Assassins” which I’ve reviewed here.
In fact, unless you live in a big city, I suspect that you’ll have to catch it on DVD.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Does science support belief in God?
May 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This evening, I attended a fascinating meeting at the South Place Ethical Society in central London organised by the Centre For Inquiry UK. The title of the event was “Does science support belief in God?”.
The meeting was addressed by two of the world’s most powerful and respected thinkers from either side of the theism/atheism divide.
Richard Swinburne is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years, Swinburne has established himself as one of world’s foremost philosophers of religion. He is an influential proponent of natural theology, that is, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Swinburne’s “Is There A God?” has been translated into 14 languages.
Herman Philipse is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and one of the world’s leading atheist thinkers. Philipse’s 1995 “Atheist Manifesto” was republished in an expanded edition in 2004 with a foreword by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who partly credits the book for her shift from Islam to atheism. Philipse’s forthcoming book “God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason” will be published by OUP in early 2012.
Swinburne argued that the entire universe is governed by simple laws and that such laws are arranged so that humankind was created. He believes that this is evidence for the existence of God. Philipse argued that the existence of such laws does not require a God and that, if the universe was constructed as it is in order to produce us, then it is an amazingly wasteful exercise since humankind constitutes so little of the matter and the energy in the universe.
I must say that I do not regard the rules governing the universe as simple as will be appreciated by any effort to understand quantum physics. But, so far as we know, the laws governing the universe are consistent throughout the universe. For me though, this does not suggest a God. If the laws of the universe were not consistent, I don’t see how a universe in which we evolved could exist.
I have written more fully about my problem with religion here.
Posted in Miscellaneous, Science & technology | Comments (0)
How to learn more about using the Net
May 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I am a member of the Nominet Policy Stakeholder Committee and recently learned that Nominet – which manages the .uk domain name system – has a special web site to educate Net users. You can check it out here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
Enjoying the art of Miro
May 9th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
When Vee and I spent a week in Barcelona some years ago, we enjoyed a visit to the art gallery featuring the work of the Catalan artist Joan Miro. Today we visited Tate Modern art gallery in London to see a special Miro exhibition.
It is an excellent exhibition, featuring a very large number of works covering all stages of Miro’s life and displayed in large rooms which enable good visibility of the art. One of the pieces I particularly loved was an early work called “The Ladder Of Escape”. We both admired the pieces from his Constellation series such as this one.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The 600th Thought For The Week
May 8th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
For some 12 years now, each and every week I have sent out a motivational thought to an e-mail list which has grown and grown, so that it is now around 1,700 friends and contacts all around the world.
My Thought For The Week goes out each Sunday and today I’ve sent out the 600th. You can see all of these thoughts here. If you would like to receive these thoughts e-mail me.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A review of “Thor”
May 7th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Kenneth Branagh directing a super-hero movie? Yes – it’s “Thor” which I’ve reviewed here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)