Science

The third of our stories since the new year to end with a question mark - over at Edge, some of our leading thinkers and scientists were asked the question what will change everything?. Answers range from the discovery of intelligent life from somewhere else through our ability to conquer death to superintelligence, universal translation, climate change and human-chimpanzee hybrids.

If you go to the Think Humanism site, there’s a quiz to test your knowledge of Darwin and his work. We’ll be celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth on 12th February this year. Anyone who’s interested in marking the event in Suffolk, please get in touch.

The seasons are determined by the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun – just over 365 days – and the way the Earth tilts on its axis. The Summer Solstice is the longest day (Midsummer Day in June), and the two equinoxes (Spring and Autumn) are when night and day are the same length. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day (tomorrow, 21^st December 2008), when the North Pole is furthest from the Sun because of the Earth’s orbit and its tilt.

The Spring Solstice has been celebrated through the ages as a festival of new life. The Church introduced a religious festival called Easter (a name derived from an Anglo-Saxon goddess’s name) at about the time of the Spring Equinox; the date isn’t fixed in the ecclesiastical calendar, as Christmas is. The date that Christmas Day falls on has changed because the calendar has been changed. The most commonly used calendar today is the Gregorian Calendar, decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in February 1582. It replaced Julius Caesar’s Julian Calendar, which was introduced in 46 BC, and that replaced a series of Roman calendars that were essentially lunar. The Greeks had other calendars.

Consequently, the year began and ended at different times in different eras, and the midwinter festival that had previously been based on the solstice was claimed as a Christian festival and fixed at 25^th December in 237 AD. That’s 25^th December in the Gregorian Calendar. In the Julian Calendar it falls on 7^th January; Christmas is still celebrated in January by some Orthodox Christians.

On 25 December a very special person was born, says New Humanist, offering thanks and praise to ... Isaac Newton, born on 25th December 1642, and to many other scientists and thinkers in the NH daily series of Advent Podcasts. For a “daily blast of reason”, sign up for their email alerts.

(Before anyone emails to complain, the date of Newton’s birth is disputed – some say he was born on 4^th January. To heck with that – buy a Newton birthday card).

Tomorrow (4 November 2008), the voters of the United States of America will help to steer the direction of their country for the next four, probably eight years. It’s their choice but it is a choice that will affect us all.

In the rest of the world, polls have shown quite clearly that Barack Obama is the overwhelming choice to be the next US President.

Most Humanists would agree, especially as the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and now John McCain and Sarah Palin, represents what we would describe as an entirely illogical philosophy of religious fundamentalism. It rejects scientific evidence on the nature of our physical and living earth in favour of a literal belief in the Old Testament of the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis.

The worrying thing is that polls show that at least half of Americans believe that God created the world and populated it with us and all living creatures as described in Genesis, that the world is less than 10,000 years old and that evolution is a myth.

In Slate Magazine, Christopher Hitchens (author of ‘God is Not Great’) attacks the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, for her ignorance, which she regards as a virtue, and her religious fanaticism.

Note: GOP means ‘Grand Old Party’, or the Republican Party.

If you order ‘God is Not Great’ via the Amazon link on this website, we get commission.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) today published its interim advice to Government on what the long-term target should be to tackle climate change. The CCC recommended that emissions from harmful Greenhouse Gases be reduced by at least 80% by 2050. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, the CCC said that the 80% target should apply on average across all sectors of the UK economy and is achievable at affordable cost of between 1-2% of GDP in 2050