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Welcome to Greg Laden's Blog.
December 31, 2008
Category: Anthropology
Naturalism is a potential source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane decisions such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast.1 When it comes to airplanes, you'd better be a servant to the rules of nature...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:40 PM • 131 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
We are now authorized by the blog herders to provide you with the very exciting news that Rebecca Skloot, of Culture Dish, has joined Scienceblogs.com! HERE...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Pertaining to this post: George Bush Makes me Laugh The phrase "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" is an old southern (Southeastern, I think) expression once used by Bill Clinton. It was also used by BB King in one...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:14 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
... So, if you drive the boat downstream past the hippos they watch you go by, the big male feints attack a few times, you get past them, and everybody gets over it. Up ahead, the next pod of hippos has observed this, and...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:59 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
... regarding the Franken-Coleman Recount. Remember Norm Coleman declaring victory over and over again when he was a couple of hundred votes ahead, prior to the recount? Remember Norm Coleman declaring that the only right thing to do was for Franken to simply withdraw from...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:59 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
See? It really exists....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 30, 2008
Have a look at this video: While you are looking at it, pass your mouse cursor over it and notice the appearance of a search box at the top of the video. This search box violates the prime directive: Shit you do not ask for...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:04 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Who? Yes, the Who too! So, I'm watching a bit of the Kennedy Center's annual super duper awards. Morgan Freeman won an award. Did you know he was discovered as the driver in Driving Miss Daisy, though he had a long and undistinguished career before...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:16 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Reptiles
From the BBC: Wildlife officials in Australia are investigating how an alligator native to North America was found wandering around a campsite in New South Wales. Campers at the site in Pambula managed to snare the beast in a volleyball net and held its jaws...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:33 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Illinois Governer Rod Blagojevich has appointed Roland Burris to replace President Elect Barack Obama as Senator from Illinois. It is Blagojevich's legal right and responsibility to make this appointment, and Burris is probably a suitable choice, but the fact that Blagojevich is under suspicion of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:34 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Linnaeus' Legacy, the Blog Carnival, will be hosted here at the end of the first week of January. A monthly carnival celebrating the diversity of life on this planet, and the methods we use to understand it. I'm sure you have something for me. Send...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:13 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Everything Worth Reading, Dec 28th issue, is HERE at EWR Central. The one yearth Berry Go Round, A Year Round the Berry-Go-Round, is at Foothills Fancies. Grand Rounds 5.15: At the interface of evolution and medicine is HERE at moneduloides. Philosophers' Carnival 84 is here....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:38 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
... and other matters. The following list represents widely held beliefs, either first order beliefs (things you hear people say) or second order beliefs (things implied directly by what people say):...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:55 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
Obamadog. Barack Obama's first serious mistake since the election. A true story starring Franklin Delano Roosevelt....
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The next few days will be the most interesting, potentially, in the Franken Coleman recount. Notice that I do not use any words like "Debacle, Fiasco, Circus, Swampmire" and so on when speaking of the recount. This is because this is a democratic (as in...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:10 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
Without distinctions and boundaries, the race concept cannot apply to a given species. Species with observable geographical differences in one or more traits may be better described as having clinal variation. Without correlation among traits, the race concept has none of its usual utility, whereby...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:58 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 29, 2008
Category: Year in Review
... is here. Every year since nearly the beginning of the Blogosphere (since last year, at least) Joh Swift has produced a special compilation of the best of the year among a wide range of bloggers. These are self selected blogs and each comes with...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:17 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
The Bush Anti-Patriot Act and its paper minions across the states is nothing less than the undoing of the fundamentals of American freedom. Ironically, this has been done with the collusion of the poorly educated Libertarian and Rightist supporters of the conservative movement, who really,...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:58 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
...I notice the door man take a quick glance up the street and subtly drop his smoke out of sight next to the stairs. He steps half way onto the sidewalk. Sure enough, Baronelli himself is coming down Hanover, walking his dog ... a tiny...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 28, 2008
Category: Year in Review
Why was this post so popular? Scantily clad athletes? Hair raising death denying stunts? Incredible writing and a fascinating story? People googling the Olympics a lot? We'll never know....
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:00 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
I'm not mentioning any names, and don't ask me any details. In fact, don't repeat this story. Some years ago, when I was a mere graduate student, a fellow student working in an unnamed country in Africa discovered a very very old stone artifact. To...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 27, 2008
Category: Year in Review
To me, the key moment in CrackerGate was the posting by PZ Myers of the key, essential truth of it all: The same church law that mandated the sacredness of the Eucharist also mandated that Jews would always wear a mark indicating their Jewishness. The...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
Many of my posts related to the Webster Cook Affair received a great deal of attention. In fact, the blogospheric activities related to the PZ Myers CrackerGate showed up as a noticeable bump in the internet and blew out a couple of those Middle Easter...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:47 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
Two items of interest for technophiles to read while you take a break from installing and updating and otherwise messing with the new stuff that I know is piled in your living room right now (maybe). Wired top tech breakthroughs of 2008 and a nice...
Posted by Greg Laden at 7:27 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Congo Memoirs
I should tell you right away that a lion did not eat any Earthwatchers as far as I know. At least not on my watch. But the title is appropriate for the absurdity of it all. And there were Earthwatchers and there were lions. An...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:37 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Minnesota Atheists' "Atheists Talk" radio show. Sunday, December 28, 2008, 9-10 a.m. Central Time Exploring Your Inner Zebrafish Listen this Sunday to Geneticist Dr. Perry Hackett and Evo Devo Biologist PZ Myers as they discuss the Top Life Science Stories of 2008. Big genome...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:20 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
We went out to cross country ski this morning. Never got to ski because it got to warm and rainy, so we went instead downtown and eventually to the Walker to appreciate some modern art. People do not go to the Walker museum of modern...
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:02 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 26, 2008
Category: Year in Review
This post arose as a convoluted experiment in internet perception, curious motivations, and blogging ethics. Almost none of the objectives of this post were met, but it does include three photographs of sexy naked ladies, so you probably do not want to go there. Don't....
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Children from low-income families in the US and Britian are disadvantaged in school, according to research just now coming out from the University's Centre for Market and Public Organisation. From a press release:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:32 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
This is one of those cases where our language gets the logic of biology backwards (or otherwise wrong) and at the same time potentially causes inappropriate human responses. Also, this approach to "morning sickness" is dripping with adaptationism. Which is good. Got a problem with...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
According to family legend, my grandmother gave birth to my father three months early. The doctors told her that he was born prematurely, and would soon die. It was suggested that she take him home and call a priest. So she took the infant home...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:49 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
One of my most widely read posts became widely read mainly by being linked to by a very popular blog. I'm not normally including such posts in this retrospective Year in Review, for obvious reasons. However, in this case, because I think this post is...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:25 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 25, 2008
Category: Year in Review
This Year in Review item was not written by me, but rather, Guest Blogger Stephanie Zvan of Almost Diamonds. ...Once again, we discover that there are differences between bloggers. What hasn't been borne out is the idea that writing about things other than science requires...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:05 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
"I don't mind that they work over at the factory, but I don't want one of those lactose intolerant people moving in next door..." or "Some of my best friends are lactose intolerant. But I sure don't want my sister marrying one...." Say what? (this...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:00 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
An out of this world Year in Review item: One day, the Emperor sentenced a man to be beheaded, and the man was executed immediately. However, it was not entirely clear that this was an act of justice or an act of anger. The historian...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Year in Review
Another Year in Review Item: "I don't think creationists are stupid. I wish people would not attribute that to me, because I simply don't believe it. In fact, most of the active creationists are pretty darn smart." Who said that?...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:54 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: War on Christmas
Totally stolen from the blog queen herself....
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:21 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Did you get a gift card for a bookstore from Santa? Consider this new item (Thanks Virgil Samms for the tip!): Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book: Revived and Illustrated A cookbook based on notes by Charles Darwin's wife is to be published. Mrs Charles Darwin's...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:59 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There IS a conspiracy ... If you analyze the language that is bandied about by the creationist children and parents, it is clear that they are all on the same page. They are getting their information from their local creationist group, or their pastor, or...
Posted by Greg Laden at 10:03 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 24, 2008
Wild cats (Felis silvestris) are or were found in a roughly continuous distribution across much of Africa (not restricted only to savannas, as is often stated), the Middle East, and Europe, and possibly disjunct in Southeast Asia (though I suspect that wild populations were continuous...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:02 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
From whence the humble chicken? Gallus gallus is a domesticated chicken-like bird (thus, the name "chicken") that originates in southeast Asia. Ever since Darwin we've known that the chicken originated in southeast Asia, although the exact details of which one or more of several possible...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:02 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It is common knowledge that most Americans are creationists, and prefer creationist stories of human origins and evolution in general over the findings of evolutionary biology. But this is only true if you ask the questions a certain way, and a new study shows very...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:01 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 23, 2008
Category: Cooking
I like to cook, and I am good at it and know something about it. So I therefore am somewhat attracted to certain information streams including, for instance, Lynne Rossetto Kasper's "The Splendid Table" on National Public Radio. (Although this show comes out of the...
Posted by Greg Laden at 6:40 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Energy
When I was a kid, annoyed at the destruction of the environment, I proposed to my elders that instead of building a dam, you could just sink a big turbine into a river and get some electricity that way. The adults explained why this was...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:32 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It has long been known that incest is not as bad as you think. Anti-cousin marriage laws are like prohibition laws and blue laws. They arise from a Christian conservative movement that swept Western Civilization from the late 18th century through the 19th century, up...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:21 PM • 55 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Behavioral Biology
This is from a news report of a paper I've not yet seen: More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:14 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Most of the work related to the ongoing recount in the Minnesota Senate race ended week when the canvassing board went through almost all of the challenged ballots, assigning them to either Franken, Coleman, or "other." Many ballot challenges issued earlier by one campaign or...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:07 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A mean spirited midieval thinking shit of a dope who should be deposed and/or ignored by his sheep like followers. Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. He explained...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:00 AM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 22, 2008
The following is actually a Facebook group, but now I'm turning it into a sort of internet meme. I believe this is an accretitive list: People have added to it. You can tell by some of the redundancies. I myself have edited it slightly. I...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:47 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last night, I had a horrible dream... and no, this isn't the famous "I Had a Dream" speech. Frankly, I think that one could use a rest. No, in my dream it was 12 noon, so naturally I tuned in for my daily dose of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:30 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Ed Yong 07.06.2009
PZ Myers 07.06.2009
PZ Myers 07.06.2009
Ed Brayton 07.06.2009
Tim Lambert 07.01.2009
Latest science stories | More at nytimes.com
10:52 AM, 07.06.2009
12:40 AM, 07.04.2009
2:24 AM, 07.03.2009
6:21 AM, 07.04.2009
2:50 PM, 06.30.2009
