Books

[BoneDog]

Just finished, 'God and Stephen Hawking' by the absolutely charming, world famous Oxford Mathematics professor, John Lennox. It's a response to Hawking's 'The Grand Design' and his claim that M-Theory is the 'only viable candidate' for a complete 'theory of everything', and this book highlights the logical incoherence in Hawking's book. Some of the reviews of this book are clearly written, as is so often the case with these kind of books, by people who haven't read it and who can't stand the thought of science never having all the answers.

 

Also finished, 'The Devils Delusion: Atheism and it's Scientific Pretensions', by David Berlinski. A tough read now and then, needed a dictionary, but it's quite outstanding and highly recommended. He shows how many branches of modern science require a far bigger leap of faith than it takes to believe in a first cause; and demonstrates how they are desperately trying to convince eachother of an infinite multiverse (among other things), that we cannot see nor gather evidence for, so as to erase a beginning and first cause. Shows how many famous modern scientists are fooling people and are only really pretending to do science in order to try and promote their own worldview. They've left true science behind. I can't do it justice with my reviewing skill limits but anyone interested in these subjects should snap this book up (and professor Lennox's).

 

Reviews of Berlinski's book from the cover - 

Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University - "A powerful riposte to atheist mockery and cocksure science, and to the sort of philosophy that surrenders to them. Berlinski proceeds reasonably and calmly to challenge recent scientific theorizing and to expose the unreason from which it presumes to criticize religion." 

William F. Buckley Jr. - "Berlinski's book is everything desirable: it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him."

Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, bestselling author of "Darwin's Black Box "and "The Edge of Evolution" - "With high style and light-hearted disdain, Berlinski deflates the intellectual pretensions of the scientific atheist crowd. Maybe they can recite the Periodic Table by heart, but the secular Berlinski shows that this doesn't get them very far in reasoning about much weightier matters."

Chicago Tribune - "David Berlinski plus any topic equals an extraordinary book."

Tom Bethell - "Berlinski knows his science and wields his rapier deftly. He makes great sport with his opponents, and his readers will surely enjoy it."

[ozleicester]

Hmmm, one word to cover this.... DRUGS!

 

 

 

and lots of them... oh and add a splash of incest.

 

Surprised the girl is still alive, hope the worst is over for her.

 

 

This un as well recently...

 

 

Not as good as the first

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

Some of my favourite authors.

 

Edgar Allan Poe

H.P Lovecraft

Jean-Paul Sarte

J.R.R Tolkien

Stephen King

Dean Koontz

Harlen Coben

Thomas Harris

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

H.G Wells

James Herbert

Cormac McCarthy

George Orwell

William Golding

 

 

Enjoy a good autobiography, recently read Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliots, hilarious read.

 

Favourite series of books is The Dark Tower by King, 1-4 and 7 are some of the best books I've ever read, as was Wind Through the Keyhole (4.5).

 

Favourite book, hard to say, between The Hobbit (Tolkien), Silence of the Lambs (Harris), The Road (McCarthy), Wizard and Glass (King).

 

Love the short stories of Poe and Lovecraft, and the poetry of Poe especially, most notably The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, Annabel Lee, The Tell-tale Heart, The Gold-Bug, A Dream Within A Dream by Poe, The Music of Erich Zann, The Rats in the Walls, The Outsider, The Colour Out of Space, Cool Air, The Whisperer in Darkness, From Beyond, The Shadow Over Insmouth, The Shadow Out of Time by Lovecraft. Just love the way Lovecraft books have this very real sense of dread and foreboding.

[Guest]

After reading and thoroughly enjoying the Coben book I mentioned I've just read "Stay close" and "Six years" by him. Stay Close reminded me of a film I watched a while ago - was it made into a film?

 

 

Both good but maybe not as good as the first nor his sport's agent series which I really enjoyed. He writes books that flow with twists and turns that mean you don't need to Watch TV to fill your day.

[Guest]

Next up my favourite Fantasy author at the moment

 

 

Hope it's in the same league as his Malazan Opus.

[Webbo]

After reading and thoroughly enjoying the Coben book I mentioned I've just read "Stay close" and "Six years" by him. Stay Close reminded me of a film I watched a while ago - was it made into a film?

 

 

 

Both good but maybe not as good as the first nor his sport's agent series which I really enjoyed. He writes books that flow with twists and turns that mean you don't need to Watch TV to fill your day.

There was a French film made of one of his books, Tell No One, and he wrote a book later, can't remember the title, that was very similar.

 

I prefer the sports agent, Myron Bolitar , books too.

[The Doctor]

Just finished, 'God and Stephen Hawking' by the absolutely charming, world famous Oxford Mathematics professor, John Lennox. It's a response to Hawking's 'The Grand Design' and his claim that M-Theory is the 'only viable candidate' for a complete 'theory of everything', and this book highlights the logical incoherence in Hawking's book. Some of the reviews of this book are clearly written, as is so often the case with these kind of books, by people who haven't read it and who can't stand the thought of science never having all the answers.

 

Also finished, 'The Devils Delusion: Atheism and it's Scientific Pretensions', by David Berlinski. A tough read now and then, needed a dictionary, but it's quite outstanding and highly recommended. He shows how many branches of modern science require a far bigger leap of faith than it takes to believe in a first cause; and demonstrates how they are desperately trying to convince eachother of an infinite multiverse (among other things), that we cannot see nor gather evidence for, so as to erase a beginning and first cause. Shows how many famous modern scientists are fooling people and are only really pretending to do science in order to try and promote their own worldview. They've left true science behind. I can't do it justice with my reviewing skill limits but anyone interested in these subjects should snap this book up (and professor Lennox's).

 

Reviews of Berlinski's book from the cover - 

Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University - "A powerful riposte to atheist mockery and cocksure science, and to the sort of philosophy that surrenders to them. Berlinski proceeds reasonably and calmly to challenge recent scientific theorizing and to expose the unreason from which it presumes to criticize religion." 

William F. Buckley Jr. - "Berlinski's book is everything desirable: it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him."

Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, bestselling author of "Darwin's Black Box "and "The Edge of Evolution" - "With high style and light-hearted disdain, Berlinski deflates the intellectual pretensions of the scientific atheist crowd. Maybe they can recite the Periodic Table by heart, but the secular Berlinski shows that this doesn't get them very far in reasoning about much weightier matters."

Chicago Tribune - "David Berlinski plus any topic equals an extraordinary book."

Tom Bethell - "Berlinski knows his science and wields his rapier deftly. He makes great sport with his opponents, and his readers will surely enjoy it."

 

 

Codswallop. Science doesn't rely on faith in the slightest, given faith is belief without evidence, and unless you can provide evidence for your claims, scientists will laugh scornfully at you. The "Hurr durr science" atheists annoy me, because 90% of the time they get the science wrong, so I then have to put them right as well as the religious eejits who disregard basic knowledge because it doesn't fit with their worldview, but science is not faith-based in the slightest.

 

 

 

Anyway, reading this at the moment:

 

 

Great read, essentially a reference book on the sagas and eddas.

[BoneDog]

Codswallop. Science doesn't rely on faith in the slightest, given faith is belief without evidence, and unless you can provide evidence for your claims, scientists will laugh scornfully at you. The "Hurr durr science" atheists annoy me, because 90% of the time they get the science wrong, so I then have to put them right as well as the religious eejits who disregard basic knowledge because it doesn't fit with their worldview, but science is not faith-based in the slightest.

 

The part of my post that you highlighted is not codswallop at all, some parts of modern science do require a giant leap of faith, and it is actual scientists who say that, but it wouldn't surprise me if you're ignorant of that fact. I've read Hawking's book aswell as the counter. And Berlinski's book aswell as some of the books he counters. You never read the counter arguments by the sounds of it. You sound like Coyne for crying out loud, and we all know that he spends more time doing activism and posting about cats on his blog, than doing science.

 

Anyway, this is the book thread so not the place for a debate, but feel free to start a thread if you want to (not that it's worth it, we'll probably be going round in circles) - I'll probably be back tomorrow some time.

 

Edit : and there is no basic knowledge being disregarded by Lennox or Berlinski in those books.

[The Doctor]

The part of my post that you highlighted is not codswallop at all, some parts of modern science do require a giant leap of faith, and it is actual scientists who say that, but it wouldn't surprise me if you're ignorant of that fact. I've read Hawking's book aswell as the counter. And Berlinski's book aswell as some of the books he counters. You never read the counter arguments by the sounds of it. You sound like Coyne for crying out loud, and we all know that he spends more time doing activism and posting about cats on his blog, than doing science.

Anyway, this is the book thread so not the place for a debate, but feel free to start a thread if you want to (not that it's worth it, we'll probably be going round in circles) - I'll probably be back tomorrow some time.

Edit : and there is no basic knowledge being disregarded by Lennox or Berlinski in those books.

Science doesn't require faith, that's pretty much the antithesis of science, faith doesn't require evidence, while science operates a strict "evidence or stfu" approach. This is the most basic thing about science - that it's evidence based.

The eejits I talk about are the sort of people who see the likes ken ham as anything other than a moronic charlatan. But, if berlinski argues science requires faith, he knows slightly less than nothing about science and disregards the very basics of it.

Yep, we'll go around in circles because you are far too like deepak chopra for your own good - you don't know the first thing about science but still attempt to talk like you know what's going on.