20.08.07
Oliver Cromwell?
Dawkins’ latest was on tonight. How odd.
The whole thing was as expected and standard. But one thing struck me as a little strange.
He was talking about homeopathy and saying that the crap about the memory of water was ludicrous. He argues that if water can “remember” the active homeopathic ingredient (as the adherents have it) then would it not remember pollutants as well? There are so many atoms in a glass of water then he says that every time you drink water at least 1 atom of it has passed through Oliver Cromwell’s bladder at some point (assumedly when he was alive).
There are so many questions in that but mainly why the hell did he pick Oliver Cromwell? Usually these things are Julius Caesar or Napoleon. Nice to see a British bod but still. Why not Boudicca? Sexism prolly.
Out of the whole show that’s the bit that stuck out most. It just seems so odd.
Have fun.
[edit] There’s been another faith talking bollocks story on the news tonight. There was a plane which landed at Okinawa yesterday with an engine on fire. People got out sharpish and as the last ones got across the tarmac the engine exploded. So why was the headline “Miracle escape”? It wasn’t a bloody miracle; it was good design, scientific testing and good planning. But crediting god seems to be easier than thanking the hard working technicians, engineers, designers and scientists. How depressing. If the passengers had all died the commentators would be quick enough to blame the designers etc though. Wouldn’t they just?
josephmcg said,
August 21, 2007 at 10:52 am
There’s a good reason he chose Cromwell: the blighter was host to a colourful variety of nasty diseases & infections – including (most relevantly) a bad case of the stone, which lingered and festered and eventually killed him.
josephmcg said,
August 21, 2007 at 11:00 am
On the point of the homeopathic water remembering previous pollutants, surely they must have some way to make it forget (boil or distill it perhaps? or sit around in a circle and hold hands with it?).
PS related to Dawkins – check out this wonderful ‘memetic evolution’ study of chain letters…
http://www.silcom.com/~barnowl/chain-letter/evolution.html
they found that the optimal replication rate for survival of a letter was about 1.05 – any higher and it would burn itself out quickly after making its way through the entire population.
sweavo said,
August 22, 2007 at 2:19 pm
“It wasn’t a bloody miracle; it was good design, scientific testing and good planning. ”
It was a miracle because there were human beings in the loop between the good planning and the execution.
Alby said,
August 22, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Ooh! Some might call you a cynic.