Virtual Methodist

Yesterday was Charles Darwin's 200th birthday! So I half expected to be buried under assorted Darwinania and various mailings from the fundamentalist wing of evolutionary biology... But no, instead they stood back and left the floor open for "the other side." And true to form, the first piece of news to come across my RSS reader yesterday referring to Darwin was from the same brains-trust that gave us a NI Enviroment minister who doesn't believe in Man Made Climate Change... with a news story from the Guardian referring to DUP MLA Mervyn Storey who is threatening to mount a legal challenge to the Ulster Museum under equality legislation if they go ahead with a Darwin Exhibition... I despair... But... what if their bluff was called and, under equality legislation, they were given exhibition space proportional to the properly peer-reviewed scientific research in support of either evolution or Young Earth Creationism, or even Old Earth Intelligent Design? I'm sure t...

The recent cold snap has lead to all sorts of jokes about the so called "greenhouse effect". If only climate were as easy to understand as saying more carbon in the atmosphere, leads to higher average temperature, leads to less snow. No... an unstable climate with an atmosphere saturated with carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" will actually lead to less predictable weather patterns... it may make for less ice at the poles during summer, but it could lead to a disruption of the jet stream and gulf stream, making us in Northern Ireland as snowbound as Newfoundland in winter. In the light of that the announcement on Monday that, in contravention of his party's and department's stated commitments, Northern Ireland environment minister Sammy is seeking to enforce a NI-wide ban on Westminster-funded ads and programmes that are aimed at reducing carbon emissions, is not very funny. His actions are apparently based on his personal belief that Man-Made Clima...