Bloggingheads with Sblings David Dobbs and Greg Laden

Posted by Greg Laden on September 6, 2009
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The Bloggingheads with David Dobbs and Moi is now up at Blogginheads, and embedded here:


I had just posted a review of Dobb’s book, Reef Madness, which I enjoyed a great deal, and here we discuss the book in more detail. I left out a lot of detail, especially the exciting multi-part ending, in my review. You’ll hear more about what happened to the competing reef theories and to Alexander Agassiz in this hour long bla-bla-blawginghead’s interview.

David Dobbs’ main web site is here.

Added: Note something funny (as in funny strange) happening at about 23 or 24 minutes.

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Comments

  1. #1 The Science Pundit
    September 6, 2009

    There’s a hiccup at the beginning of the diavlog that jumps right to the end. You need to manually push the marker up to the 1 or 2 minute mark and start playing.

  2. #2 NewEnglandBob
    September 6, 2009

    I also felt that the sped up dialog is annoying and distracting and made me leave after several minutes.

  3. #3 Greg Laden
    September 6, 2009

    Those are two glitches that I think are not really there for everyone. This technology seems to act differently in different contexts. What do you mean by sped up dialog?

  4. #4 The Science Pundit
    September 6, 2009

    Added: Note something funny (as in funny strange) happening at about 23 or 24 minutes.

    It can only be the hand of gØd! You should apply for the Templeton prize. :-P

  5. #5 John
    September 6, 2009

    Very interesting, I’ve never heard of this historical debate before and it really does seem like a classic question of “how do we do science?”

  6. #6 cheap supra shoes
    September 7, 2009

    Your article is very interesting, I have introduced a lot of friends look at this article, the content of the articles there will be a lot of attractive people to appreciate, I have to thank you such an article.

  7. #7 AdamK
    September 7, 2009

    I was ready to give up on Bloggingheads after the creationism controversy and the waste of this week’s Science Saturday on Wright’s excuse-making, until I clicked on it one last time and saw that the REAL Science Saturday had been moved to “Percontations,” and there was Laden.

    This was a GREAT conversation. Fascinating topic. I was impressed by the way the two of you stretched the story out and made the conversation suspenseful. Now I have yet another book I have to read, dammit.

    What with Plait leaving Bloggingheads too, you’re going to be lonely if you keep on doing these.

  8. #8 Greg Laden
    September 7, 2009

    Thanks.

    All we did was to go in order of the book, pretty much. It’s a great story with an excellent flow.

  9. #9 Alan Kellogg
    September 7, 2009

    What I get is a greyed out screen and three buttons, two grey and one green. The grey ones say respectively, “Continue this video on Bloggingheads TV” and “Repeat this clip”. The green button says, “link/embed”.

    At Bloggingheads you get the same clip, and a link below the screen that says, “click to play video”. Click that and you get the clip again. Apparently in order to see the full video you have to click one of the three download links, and as I type the MP4 file is still downloading.

    Update: So I’ve said screw it, and I’m going to download the audio (mp3) because I’ve gotten the feeling there’s something screwy with the video download.

    So now the audio is playing, and my first impression is, Greg is not a polished public speaker. :)

    In any case, download the audio file and give it a listen. You’ll get the gist of what Greg and Dave are talking about.

  10. #10 Liz
    September 7, 2009

    Alan #9: Have you ever seen Laden publicly speak? His audiences are usually left enthralled, except for the ones he kills:) I go to a lot of academic type public talks, and I’ve seen Laden twice. There are not many as good as him.

  11. #11 Robert
    September 7, 2009

    Most people will not have to download the audio. Just click on the little “go” arrow that is on most videos and it will play. If not, fix your computer.

    I enjoyed it. It really is better than the average blogginghead.

  12. #12 Greg Laden
    September 7, 2009

    Well, Alan, I don’t like it much either, to be frank, but this is not public speaking. Or, if you think this is public speaking you need to get out more.

    Thank you Liz. Next time, introduce yourself to me, I’ll give you that twenty.

  13. #13 NewEnglandBob
    September 7, 2009

    Sped up dialog for me watching was the appearance that both of you were either talking so fast that you never paused for a breath or to contemplate what you were going to say.

    It seemed like every pause, no matter how small was edited out. The words were jammed together, the sentences were done as if there was no end of one and start to the next.

    I have seen some BH dialogs like this and others at regular speed.

    It was a strain to concentrate on what you two were saying.

  14. #14 Greg Laden
    September 7, 2009

    Bob: Interesting. I’ll have to look into that. I can tell you that the video I sent in was something like 59 minutes 38 seconds long, and we had a technical glitch that took out a minute or two during the process. So if this was speeded up, that should be numerically obvious. (Also, I can compare what i sent with what was posted)

  15. #15 NewEnglandBob
    September 7, 2009

    Aha. I timed it.

    For every 60 seconds on my watch the timer of the video ticked off 85 seconds!

  16. #16 Wyatt
    September 7, 2009

    New Enlgand Bob, are you using the “speed up the video button”? If yo dn’t like the speedup, don’t hit the “Sppedup the video button.”