On Friday night Bronwyn, Tim and I went to the New Zealand premiere of Universe Designed, a new Christian movie that attempts to prove that the universe, earth, life, and humans are not the result of random, undirected processes, but instead are created by a loving God. The subtitle of the movie sums up at least part of the movie's message nicely - “_Creation is an act, not an accident_”.
Our 2026 conference at Tῡranga Library in Christchurch is just over 2 months away, and we have some exciting updates.
This is about my unexpected adventure in skepticism a very long time ago in a galaxy not so far away.
I've been following Astro Katie on twitter for a while, as I enjoy it when she replies to people who seem to display a lack of understanding of astrophysics, which allows me to enjoy how amazing she is at describing astrophysics.
The Mandela Effect is where people have false memories of past events, and decide that there's been a jump to an alternative universe where history is different.
Bernard Beckett (Skeptic 95 , p8) says the ability of Creationism to make the same predictions as evolutionary psychology shows that the latter is not a scientific process. But the same is equally true of evolutionary biology. ("God made cats resemble tigers, and apples resemble pears, because He felt like it.") The fault is with Creationism, not evolution. An omnipotent Creator can be used to explain/predict absolutely anything, not only the universe as it is, but any other universe, possible or im-. You might say that Creationism, like Nostradamus and astrology, is very good for predicting the past. That is their fundamental failing.
Demands for equal time cut both ways.
The last of Hamilton's highly successful Café Scientifique series for 2005 examined the issue of dating the Earth and the universe. The date was chosen to be as close as possible to Bishop Ussher's preferred date of October 22 when, he calculated, the creation of the universe began in the year 4004 BC.
A recent best-seller illustrates the history of the triumph of intellectual theory over ignorant pragmatism or reactionary ideology.