An open letter to Jeff Tallon:

After reading this article in the NZ Herald I felt compelled to write to Jeff and ask a few questions, so here it is:


Hello Mr Tallon

Being a fellow scientist and having just read your article on the NZ Herald I felt compelled to write to you.
As you are well aware science is the pursuit of truth and the study of evidence, but I'm having a little trouble understanding how you came to the conclusions you did.

You suggested that the Atheist bus campaign was inconsistent with what we know about our fine-tuned physical and biological world.
In what way exactly? Science is able to explain most of the aspects of our physical and biological world without ever resorting to the supernatural.
Do you perhaps have some greater understanding that the rest of the scientific community is unaware of, if so you should publish this immediate and put it up for peer review.

Secondly you state that there is "just the faintest possibility that we are here by chance". How did you come to this conclusion?
Recent evidence has shown that abiogenesis is certainly possible, and again, it doesn't resort to supernatural, unscientific explanations.
Even if we agree that the odds are slim, how were you able to dismiss them entirely in favor of a creator? And how can you say the conclusion is "clear"?

I noticed you quoted the bible, is that a reputable scientific source that I was not aware of?
You also quoted statistics saying believers were happier and healthier without giving sources.
You then misquoted Habermas.
This is all very disappointing coming from a man of science such as your self.

You state that the primary claim that "there's probably no God" is demonstrably incorrect in the light of what we know about the world.
How has it been demonstrated to be incorrect? In light of the fact that there is no evidence for any gods, doesn't it stand to reason that the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that there really is "Probably no god".

You also state that perhaps the advert campaign could now be withdrawn on the basis of new evidence? Which evidence are you referring to?
Again, if you have any information that the world scientific community is not privy to then I highly suggest you submit it for peer review straight away. Man has been searching for evidence of gods centuries and it would be selfish to keep it locked up any longer.

And lastly I wonder, are you aware of the quote by George Bernard Shaw:
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing your reply, or reading about your startling discoveries for the evidence for the existence of god if every single scientific journal in the world.

Skiing - Part 2

In many ways Skiing is a lot like Blue Cheese.
Firstly, its hard to imagine what its inventor was thinking the first time he tried it.
Secondly, its even harder to imagine how he got his friends to try it.
Thirdly, the first you time you tried it, it was probably horrible, but after time and the occasional trip to the hospital, you discover you have quite a liking to it.

On the whole skiing is absolutely ridiculous. Its prohibitively expensive, spectacularly dangerous and requires a monumental amount of effort.

The cost of the prerequisite equipment quickly climbs into the thousands, added to that are the cost of daily ski passes and the need to consume vast amounts of calories, provided at outlandish prices, just to maintain core body temperature. Thankfully I was exceedingly lucky to inherit most of the required gear from my new family. And while monopolisticly expensive, the mountaintop cuisine is also remarkably tasty. I highly recommend the Gerstensuppe

As stated in my last post skiing can be incredibly painful, not to mention out right deadly. Its estimated up to 1% of all skiers will suffer a suffer injury or death (wiki), which may not sound like much, until you are standing in a cable-train filled with about 200 people and realize that perhaps 2 of these people wont be skiing tomorrow. Every day that we were out we saw at least one person being dragged off the pistes by the alpine equivalent of life guards.

The Ski areas in Switzerland are incredible to behold, in Davos you can ski the whole day without riding the same ski-lift twice. We know this because we tried, twice. The pistes are immense and immaculate manicured on a regular basis. There are 18 different lifts, 35 different pistes, and some runs are up to 12 km long! And thats just one mountain. All of the effort that goes into maintaining this skiing paradise is completely mind blowing. A vast network of pistes, ski-lifts and gondolas, all working in unison to cater to the thousands of skiers of all ages and levels. And like almost everything in Switzerland, it all works and it works well, its hard to find any faults with the service the army of alpine artesians provide.

And my thoughts on the actually skiing part? In a word, exhilarating. I loved it. It took a few days of hard painful work to learn how to actually control where I was going on the skis, and just as importantly, how to stop. But once I got a grasp of the basics I was actually able to start enjoying my down-hill cannoning, rather than just spending all my time working on remaining upright. Near the end I was even managing the occasional jump.

My heartfelt thanks needs to go out to Romea and her family, for patiently teaching me over five days what it usually takes a Swiss 3 year old only 5 hours to learn. And Romea's father especially, we may not have shared a common language, but his patient guiding, gesturing and unique mix of Swiss-German, German, a little English, and even some Spanish, taught me more in an hour then a whole day of stubbornly trying to teach myself.