New Humanist publishes its religious trump cards, illustrated by Martin Rowson. I'm closest to the secularist/atheist/humanist figure, but I don't have that wimpy beard in real life. I agree with my mother who once opined that she could never trust a man with a beard - he's sure to have something to hide... ...

The Miniature Earth. Watch it. ...

Johann Hari has another powerful piece of writing - this time about a series of documentaries - that does nothing to dispel my pessimism. Kasim Abid's Life After the Fall in particular makes it easy to despair. ...

God, after the last few blog entries I needed a laugh, and Presidential Origami did it for me. But perhaps it's just gallows humour after all...     ...

I’ve always found Natural History a fascinating subject. And I used to look forward to natural history programmes on the Beeb. The zenith of such programmes was of course anything that had the magic name of David Attenborough associated with it. Alas, the BBC seems now to be determined to plunge to the nadir with programmes such as Ocean, which started last night amid much trumpeting. Sample: “[the series] seeks to provide a better understanding of the state of our oceans today, their role in the past, present and future and their significance in global terms”. Dear lord, but ...

Keith Olbermann with his reaction to the passing of Proposition 8. Bravo.     ...

Another book for the reading list: "The Big Necessity" by Rose George. Johann Hari explains why its author should feel flushed with success. Hopefully her consciousness-raising is not just a flash in the pan... ...

Richard Swinburne is the Emeritus Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. He apparently sees the Anthropic Principle as a convincing argument from design for the existence of God.   Fortunately, Tom Rees is on hand to point out the flaw in the good professor's argument. Far from being "an enormously powerful argument for the existence of God" as Professor Swinburne asserts, it seems to be on the level of there being turtles all the way down...  ...

An interesting article in today's Guardian about Daniel Everett's encounters with the Pirahã, an Amazonian tribe with a unique language. Sent as a missionary to convert the tribe to Christianity, he ended up not only rejecting his faith, losing his marriage, but also calling into question the Chomskyan orthodoxy of a universal grammar being the cornerstone of all language. Fascinating.  ...