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The joy of reality

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Author Profile

Name:
Bruce Gorton


Biography

A gamer who writes poetry and tends towards thinking of science as a major social good, Bruce Gorton has dropped the negativity in the face of the world’s overwhelming and persistent awesome. Mind the drool as he gapes at it.


Latest Columns

Aircrash investigations and the Gupta report

One of the shows I really enjoy is aircrash investigation, not for the sake of ghoulish rubber necking but because of the basic ethos it puts forward.

Objectification and how it hurts video games

There is a bit of a problem in gaming with particular regards to female characters – objectification.

Amanda Berry - rescued by a man who saw with his eyes

This week good news came out of Ohio – three women who had been kidnapped and kept as sex slaves for ten years were rescued.

Religion and politics don't mix

Religion mixing with government has never been a terribly good thing, whether it is in Pakistan or Soviet Russia, Malaysia or America.

People need people

A letter last week spoke about how black people need whites – and it got me thinking about colonialism.

Supporting the troops doesn’t mean supporting war

I didn’t have anything much I felt confident saying on South Africa’s mission to the Central African Republic right up until the memorial was held for the 13 soldiers killed there.

We need an inquiry into police brutality

If ever you wanted a demonstration of just how little the ANC regards its base, all you would need to do is look at its response to calls for an inquiry into police brutality.

What I want out of a new party

With Mamphela Ramphele forming a new ‘party platform’, which I think means she is soliciting for party policy ideas, so I am back to thinking about what I want from a government.

Rape shows there are no South African men

One thing we as South Africans should be able to agree on, whatever our political party, our race, our religious or non religious beliefs, no matter our economic interest or social standing, is that we males in South Africa do not get to proclaim ourselves men.

What we should learn from hate.com

What people forget about the bad things people do is that people are ultimately people – and that goes for the bad ones too.

Is the existence of stupid people a comforting myth?

Throughout my working life I have worked with people I disagree with, people who I think are wrong on some issues and people who have stubbornly asserted things which have been corrected before.

More speech, not less needed to face violence

Last week I wrote about how maybe we should not be so comfortable with violence in our media.

Guns, violence and gaming

With the latest mass shooting in America, there is a distinct need to find some new media to blame.

The environment is important to agriculture

Yesterday one of the small  Mangaung stories involved Ebrehim Patel talking about agriculture.

What the matter with us is

Our trouble as a country is that between the elections we are fighting the next election.

Of insults and presidents

Barrack Obama is one of the most powerful men in the world, he isn’t the best president the US has ever had but he isn’t bad.

More important than humanity?

One of the articles I was reading this week included a very, creepy line about how atheists don’t believe in something more important than humanity.

In the end sanity won the US elections

When you get right down to it, this last US election was summarised best by the analysis done by Scientific American.

Violence and South Africa

South Africa couldn’t be more set up for violence if it was actually done on purpose.

Condoms and school – what the studies say

One of the big issues being discussed at the moment is condom provision in schools – with one bunch saying it’s a good idea, and another saying its bad.

A defence of moral subjectivism

In Pakistan fourteen year old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face for wanting to go to school.

Why I support employment equity

In the Journal of Higher Ed. one of the issues raised recently was the measurable impact of sexism on science student assessments.

Islamic fanatics don’t understand freedom

One of the things that struck me following the story of the protests around ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ – was that the protesters didn’t quite understand freedom.

Woolworths vs Solidarity: The one with cheap salmon wins

This weekend I went to Woolworths in part to see what was happening with the whole Solidarity boycott.

Endangered bugs raise the alarm

The Earth’s most severe mass extinction event was about 252 million years ago, and is commonly known as the “great dying”.

Rape, pregnancy and politics

Recently the Republican Party has had a controversy over one of its representatives in Congress,Todd Akin, saying “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy.

The powerlessness of prayer

Recently I had to listen to two albums by Yolanda Adams. One of the songs (Already alright) really struck me.

Is it further to Limpopo than Mars?

A while back Neil de Grasse Tyson spoke about how space opens up the ability to dream.

South African Angie, a song parody and column

Somehow the whole textbook saga has gotten the Rolling Stones playing in my head.

On sanctimony and annoyance

There are relatively few things more annoying, than the "sensible" centrist who seeks to stand above the argument.

Humour is no defence for anything

There is an odd belief amongst worthless people that saying you are joking, immunises you from criticism.

Against censorship by bigot

Recently there has been a huge fight in the atheist community, and one of the features of it was the issue of harassment and free speech.

Of kittens, values and voting

Pardon me for not being terribly happy today, the first story I put up involved a kitten being buried in concrete.

India seeks to arrest man for debunking 'miracle'

Sanal Edamaruku, an Indian rationalist, denied the Vile Parle’s Velankanni church’s dripping cross was a miracle.

The devil made me write this column

The MEC of the North West Province recently said that the reason our levels of violence are so high in our country, is because we are under attack from the devil.

What my game review scores mean

When I first started doing game reviews I came up with a score scale to say what the point allocation meant.

What I want to see in a political party

The IFP has recently said something interesting – it wants to attract minority voters who feel they don’t have a party to vote for.

Time for the SABC to think about science

Why is it that our major original output from the SABC tends to be soap operas?

Reaction to president's picture painful

The Goodman Gallery has a painting at the moment of the president looking action figurish with his penis exposed.

Voltaire, the DA and Cosatu

When we silence those we disagree with, we silence ourselves.

Facebook and the kids are okay

The Times recently ran a few articles about how social networking is negatively impacting children, which have left me feeling dubious.

Moral disgust at Discovery won't be exorcised

Sceptics often face the argument that we should just leave the promotion superstition alone, that it is all just harmless fun.

Top five things I have learned from video games

I was raised on video games – and they have given me valuable insights into the world that somehow still manage to hold true even through they were targeted at 15 year olds.

The internet – changing us

At the moment in Russia there is a guy called Sergey who was arrested for supporting gay rights.

Mass Effect 3 – a long rant about changing endings

Mass Effect 3 is one of the best games out this year, but it is unfortunately marred with one of the worst endings in the last decade.

Refugees, irrelevancies and spin

There is a tactic often used by the dishonest – they will tackle the form something is said in rather than what is actually being said or otherwise shift focus away from themselves.

Communism and capitalism - I choose neither

The US right now kind of echoes the USSR in some ways – and it highlights to me the issue with communism and capitalism.

Econometrix and fracking: why I am not convinced

Econometrix has released a paper stating that fracking could create upwards of 290 thousand jobs.

Sexism and gaming – yes we have to talk about this

I grew up on various video games – beginning with the Atari and moving up through the Nintendo, the Genesis, the Playstation and finally to where I am now with all the current major systems.

Why South Africa will survive Mandela

Every time Nelson Mandela gets sick the office gets tense as people look for news of Mandela’s death, and we have been getting tense about this for years because Mandela is an old man.

The ancestor's fail: Dawkins and the Telegraph

Alleged newspaper the Daily Telegraph put up a story fairly recently that revealed that one of Dawkins ancestors was a slave owner back in the 18th century.

Atheism and tolerance

A recent post on Slacktivist accusing Greta Christina of “purest evil” for arguing in favour of atheist evangelism has highlighted several major issues with the tolerance community.

Scientists are good communicators

One of the clichés of science communication is that scientists are poor communicators – and it is nonsense.

A day to stand up for free expression

This year has already seen some highly disturbing moves by religious people to squash the rights of everyone else.

Top TV – Porn and censorship

Porn is one of those things that it is very hard to defend, mainly because it is so socially frowned upon, and yet it requires defending.

The Anonymous paradigm shift

This weekend one of the things I was listening to was a talk on the Stop Online Piracy Act, and how the copyright wars are only the start of issues arising out of modern computing.

Why I find evolutionary psychology iffy

Evolutionary psychology is one of those branches of cutting edge science that leaves me thinking about how the cutting edge tends to be the thinnest part of a blade.

Happy holidays – and the ideal of Christmas

I was raised to the ideal of Christmas being a general sense of goodwill to all people.

Scientism and bad philosophy

The charge of ‘scientism’ is always a big warning sign that the person making the charge doesn’t really have much of an argument.

Philosophy: Why it matters to science

Philosophy, the study of arguments, is one of those fields that is often under-appreciated in terms of its real value, particularly if you look at the fallacies.

Evolution and business

Evolution is often rendered as “Survival of the fittest” – and often people make the mistake of thinking that means the organism most likely to exterminate its competition.

Sopa, censorship and Wall Street

Bruce Gorton writes about how a bill to regulate the Internet reflects on just where Occupy Wall Street is coming from.

South Africa looking up

A lot of people bemoan the loss of that feeling we had back when Apartheid ended, that exciting and almost exhilarating sense of adventure that embarking on a whole new nation brought.

On adding information to the genome

My last column mentioned how evolution which resulted in a iLIVE letter (Which is kind of cool really). The following paragraph struck me.

Progress, reality and reason

It is often fashionable to paint science as a dogmatic belief system in which we trust blindly to our follow – all the way until finally the scientists create dinosaurs and we all end up hoping a T Rex eats the velocaraptor frog hybrid before it eats us.