An irregular exploration of the struggle between the power of rational discourse and the scientific method on one hand, and the forces of superstition and dogma on the other.
James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle
in the Dark,
by Carl Sagan
(A
review)
The Doubter's Companion:
by John Ralston Saul (Excerpts)
Skeptic Magazine: www.skeptic.com
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal: www.csicop.org
A poem by Yehuda Amichai:
The
Place
Where We Are Right
The Meaning of the
Island of Doubt
By doubting we come to inquiry; and through inquiry we perceive truth.
--- Peter Abelard
Undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance.
-- Richard Dawkins
As for evolution, it happened. Deal with it.
-- Michael Shermer.
July 31, 2006
Category: evolution
While online polls are generally worthless when it comes to generating representative statistics - see this post and ensuing dicussion (sorry for being cranky, girlscientist) -- they can at time produce quite curious results. This self-described unscientific poll from the...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:08 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: philosophy
On the one hand, it's kind of sad that early 21st-century society is in need of frequent reminders of just how important reason is. Israelis and Lebanese are slaughtering each other. Iraq is in the midst of what can best...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:43 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 28, 2006
Category: climate
A newly unearthed memo from a rural utility in Colorado has shed some light on the thinking behind the coal industry's support for climate change contrarians. You can read the memo, which lays out a strategy for a propaganda campaign...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:16 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 27, 2006
Category: politics
It's like every rationalist's worst media nightmare. Pat Robertson interviews Sen. Jim Inhofe on the 700 Club. I know I shouldn't be surprised by what transpired. After all, Inhofe is the guy who keeps calling global warming the greatest hoax...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:41 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 25, 2006
Category: politics
Fill in the blank in this excerpt from a statement by 10 leading climate experts: These ________ trends are setting us up for rapidly increasing human and economic losses from hurricane disasters, especially in this era of heightened activity. Scores...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:04 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 24, 2006
Category: pseudo-science
Time was when I wouldn't have cared much if my alma mater had invited a New Age quack to give a lecture on the university's dime. That was then. This is now. Under the very clever headline of "Pitching Woo-woo,"...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: humor
I see no reason why frivilous posts should be restricted to Fridays, especially when the item in question is as funny as the original Trek gang performing Monty Python's sendup of "Knights of the Round Table."...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:48 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 22, 2006
Category: climate
From today's New York Times comes a story that should worry everyone: From 2002 until this year, NASA's mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: "To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:32 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 21, 2006
Category: pseudo-science
This week's Science includes an interesting "forum" on the value of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), that wing of the U.S. National Institutes of Health charged with checking out whether or not herbal remedies and other...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:26 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 20, 2006
Category: politics
The fact that yesterday's veto was Bush's first, after more than five years in office, does't interest me all that much. Thomas Jefferson's veto record is a big fat zero and I see nothing wrong with that. What I found...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 1:46 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 19, 2006
Category: religiosity
You've heard of Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state? How about a wall of separation between church and store? According to the Globe and Mail, there is one now, between a new Wal-Mart outlet and a next-door religious...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:19 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: punditry
Could it be a coincidence that this column summarizing the political right's infatuation with bad science in England appeared only a couple of days after Chris "Republican War on Science" Mooney arrived in London? Polly Toynbee of the Guardian writes...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:54 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: politics
For anyone needing a good primer on the stem cell situation when it comes to the state of the science, Rick Weiss has a good recap in today's Washington Post....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:49 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 17, 2006
Category: climate
Chris Mooney is sick of the stick. The hockey stick, that is. I don't blame him. How often should we have to revisit the tired argument over whether today's climate is warmer than any time in the last 400 years...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:30 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 14, 2006
Category: evolution
Anyone want to take a run at anticipating the reaction from creationists to the news that "Finches on Galapagos Islands [are] Evolving" (Associated Press, July 14)? I'm thinking they will latch onto the story's first paragraph, which ever so slightly...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:15 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 13, 2006
Category: philosophy
Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection? I don't think you're going to find too much sympathy for such an extreme position. For one thing, you can't give rights to dinner. I can foresee...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:01 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: ecology
A study just published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management concludes that the Prince William Sound ecosystem has fully recovered 17 years after the Exxon Valdez struck a reef and lost 11 million gallons of crude to the...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:21 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 12, 2006
Category: religiosity
No sign yet that the science-and-religion debate is heating (or, as the Brits say, hotting) up in the public sphere, but a continuing and expanding dialog on the subject in EOS has been brought to my attention. What started as...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:40 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 11, 2006
Category: philosophy
This might be premature, but it's beginning to look like the debate between believers and scientists is getting some traction in the public sphere again. And that would be a good thing, if for no other reason that it gives...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:25 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 8, 2006
Category: climate
Climate change has been blamed for a lot of things, sometimes not entirely based on the scientific evidence. But this is a first, at least to me: From today's Guardian: A vast chunk of Europe's most ill-famed mountain threatens to...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:18 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 7, 2006
Category: religiosity
Former science columnist turned blogger and all-round wise old guy Chet Raymo writes on his blog today that his Irish neighbors don't understand what's going on in America when it comes to the ascendancy of religiosity. I don't have an...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:02 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 6, 2006
Category: politics
Last weekend's Los Angeles Times included a curious essay by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert titled "If only gay sex caused global warming." How can you resist?...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:51 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 5, 2006
Category: philosophy
I'm sure Robert Samuelson isn't the only pundit who doesn't buy Al Gore's argument that climate change is a moral issue. The Newsweek editor and Washington Post columnist weighs in on "An Inconvient Truth" today by rejecting Gore's characterization of...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:12 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 4, 2006
Category: Sci-culture
On the eve of America's 230th, the New York Times steps to the plate with a short, sweet editorial calling for more and better science education: Some universities have already realized the need for better ways of teaching. But this...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:23 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 3, 2006
Category: politics
Would-be 2008 presidential candidate John McCain has had every opportunity to distance himself from the retrogressive anti-Enlightenment policies of the current administration, but he just can't seem to bring himself to do it, even when polls that put Bush's approval...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:40 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
