Series
Category archives for Series
Humanist Service Corps: Missionaries Without God
Posted by Greg Laden on April 8, 2013 This year Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) is sponsoring the Pathfinders Project, a year-long volunteer journey, taking four humanist volunteers across the world to work in education, clean water, human rights and construction projects, and to evaluate programs for inclusion in a future Humanist Service Corps (HSC). The HSC will be a proud moment for all…
“We Live In Little Houses Made of Beans”
Posted by Greg Laden on January 15, 2013 
We were discussing insects. What about eating insects? When it comes up that I’ve lived in the Central African Rain Forest, certain questions often come up, and one of them is: “Did you eat bugs?” Every one has seen those National Geographic specials where some natives somewhere are eating insects, and of course, Westerners who…
Why Do Men Hunt and Women Shop?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 27, 2012 The title of this post is, of course, a parody of the sociobiological, or in modern parlance, the “evolutionary psychology” argument linking behaviors that evolved in our species during the long slog known as The Pleistocene with today’s behavior in the modern predator-free food-rich world. And, it is a very sound argument. If, by “sound”…
Fukushima Update: Radioactive Fish, Conflicts of Interest, and Filtered Vents
Posted by Greg Laden on November 21, 2012 On March 11th, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex suffered damage from an earthquake and ensuing tsunami that caused multiple nuclear reactor core meltdowns and melt-throughs, explosions, and major releases of radioactive material into the air and the sea. In addition to the reactor meltdowns and melt-throughs spent fuel storage tanks were also…
A true ghost story: The Slide Show
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 The McGregor Museum is a complex building with several wings surrounding an inner court yard, a multi-layered roof, balconies everywhere, and numerous trees in the court yard close in to the building. So, a cat can spend the heat of the day in the shaded crown of a tree, and the cool of the evening…
A true ghost story: The Footnotes
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 As promised, the footnotes for A True Ghost Story.
A True Ghost Story Part 7: How I captured the Ghost of the McGregor Museum
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 … Continued … Finally, without any further interruption …
A True Ghost Story, Part 6: But first, since we’re talking geology …
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 … Continued … Since we are talking about geology, I do not want to give up the opportunity to bring up one of the coolest stories of geology ever, given the present day discussion of science and religion. You will be asking for a source for this story. Look it up in Wikipedia, where all…
A True Ghost Story Part 5: The Grave on the Hill
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 … Continued … One of the main reasons we were staying in Kimberley at all was to assist the museum staff with a particular, and rather singular, survey and excavation. The location and circumstances of this field project were quite remarkable.
A True Ghost Story Part 4: I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!
Posted by Greg Laden on October 31, 2012 … Continued … I wrote earlier about the graves that were dug daily to receive the dead. In truth, the details of this procedure are still being worked out by archaeologists at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, but when we were there on this particular trip, part of the grave yard to which I refer…
A True Ghost Story Part 2: The Ghost In the Hall
Posted by Greg Laden on October 30, 2012 … Continued … So there we were in the Haunted Guest Quarters of the Old Infirmary, and I had already heard the ghost once. In the morning, my colleague and BFF Lynne who was staying with us for a couple of days noted that she had heard the mysterious footsteps as well….
A true ghost story. Part I: A City of Death and Misery
Posted by Greg Laden on October 30, 2012 Everything I’m about to tell you in this story is true.1 This is a long story, so it will span more than one blog post. You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.2
That Columbus Day is Evil: A truth and a falsehood
Posted by Greg Laden on October 8, 2012 Columbus Day has become a holiday of disdain, and there are many people who feel it should be taken off the books. It is a little like the Martin Luther King Jr. day maneno in reverse. If you were a progressive thoughtful American you’d have supported having a state-wide Martin Luther King Jr. day, and…
Mythbusters on Head-on Collisions
Posted by Greg Laden on October 1, 2012 I’m sure you all have cable and/or satellite setups and thus see the Mythbusters, which is clearly one of the best things on TV, as they produce them. But I am always a couple of years behind because I watch them on Netflix. Two more seasons were released on Netflix very recently, so I’ve been…
What Does The Bible, and History, Tell Us About Marriage?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 4, 2012 It seems like everybody in the Old Testament is either married, about to get married, or was recently married but something went terribly wrong. This may be becasue the bible is about marriage. The Old Testament is a history, it is a set of laws, and it is an enthnography, and the themes themes that…
Marriage and the Naturalistic Fallacy
Posted by Greg Laden on July 17, 2012 
We’ve been talking about marriage (here, here, and here). We’ve established that marriage has a history, it has variability, and that it is hard to pin down a narrowly defined set of functions for it. However, I also suggested that when we strip away a lot of variants that have special explanations (even if those…
Marriage is a tool society uses to reproduce
Posted by Greg Laden on July 4, 2012 
Most people in a position to read this blog post probably think of marriage as a contract between two people that serves a few different purposes. Initially it may be an extension of the a tacit contract governing sexual access or fidelity that likely preceded marriage. Later on it may be an arrangement that facilitates…
A Maasai Marriage
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2012 
A young woman, “of age” but unmarried, appeared out of the forest near the base of the hill, a few of her relatives and friends staying in the woods while she headed alone up the well worn path. Before she had taken a dozen steps, six or seven women, of her age or a bit…
Marriage
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2012 I am going to write a bunch of blog posts about marriage. You should regard my opinion about marriage to be valuable; I’ve had several of them. And in this way, I may be more like a hunter-gatherer than a “modern” Westerner, as the practice among the former is to treat marriage as very important…
There is no fruit in a BLT
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2012 
First, I want to say that tomatoes are a fruit. Here is a scientific definition of fruit: Fruit noun, plural: fruits (1) (botany) The seed-bearing structure in angiosperms formed from the ovary after flowering. source See? Tomato is a fruit. Having said that, in common English parlance we do not call a tomato a fruit.…
Where is the debris from the Japanse Tsunami?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 6, 2012 Almost exactly one year ago, a very large double strength tsunami struck the Pacific Coast of Japan and washed a huge amount of stuff out into the sea. The oceanic born debris of terrestrial origin looked in places like this: source Subsequently attempts were made to model the movement of the debris in the Pacific.…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 43: why do we feel the need to be alarmist?
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on February 20, 2012 Because the situation is alarming. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about where the melted-down fuel at Fukushima I’s reactors is resting. TEPCO and various NPA’s have insisted all along that they know where it is, and everything is under control. The most recent information from TEPCO is that the fuel is contained…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 42: A River Runs Through It
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on January 4, 2012 In the beginning of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis, in the hours and days after the earthquake and tsunami struck, nuclear power experts assured us that no matter how bad it seemed, nuclear material would stay in the reactors. It was unlikely that the reactors would melt down, and if they did melt down a little,…
How To Use Linux
Posted by Greg Laden on December 24, 2011 This is a rewrite and amalgamation, into one post, of a series of earlier posts written for non-geeks just starting out with Linux. The idea is to provide the gist, a few important facts, and some fun suggestions, slowly and easily. At some level all operating systems are the same, but in some ways that…
LaTeX Tutorial
Posted by Greg Laden on December 10, 2011 This is a very good LaTex Tutorial, marred only by the fact that it is running in some odd operating system that I am not familiar with: The rest of the tutorials are HERE, nicely organized. Hat Tip Got Emacs
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 41: Good News – it’s bad. Bad news – it’s worse than we think
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on December 7, 2011 There is a lot of news in Ana’s Feed about the nuclear power industry world wide, as well as across Japan, and especially disturbing news related to the Fukushima plant in particular. In brief, the main reason that the situation at these reactors seems to be kinda-sorta under control (as in the water in the…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 40: Fukushima Plant Still Producing Energy! (In a bad way)
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on November 17, 2011 The Fukushima nuclear power plant was opened to journalists for the first time; See below for numerous links to related stories. There appears to be very high levels of radiation at Fukushima plant reactor #3, and at either reactors 1 and 3, or both, nuclear fission may have been occurring in the melted down remains.…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 39: Nuclear Explosion at Reactor 3?
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on October 29, 2011 The radiation at the Fukushima plants has gone up, rather than down, since June. This may be because contaminated water has become more concentrated due to evaporation. The release of radiation from the plant into the air continues, although a covering over Reactor 1 is almost completed. The release of radiation from the plant into…
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 38: Decontamination Edition
Posted by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden on October 13, 2011 The latest update on the crisis in Fukushima. The hot spots are everywhere. Be careful where you step! But first, we’d like to introduce the handy-dandy Fukushima Post and Ana’s Feed search engine. This search engine will return results from this series of posts we’ve done. This is a good place to start if you…
, which is now available for the 
