Forty-two
Category: humor
42...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:32 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Island of Doubt
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.
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Profile
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.
Recent Posts
- Gambling on the climate
- Why should we care about the polar bear?
- Polar bears to be listed
- Who are these "neural buddhists" of which you speak?
- McCain's McClimate plan
- Yet more Republicans in denial
- A little game for Monday morning
- Carnival of the Blue 12
- Clinton and the politics of fear
- Why climate change is so tricky to cover
Recent Comments
- dave X on Gambling on the climate
- Hank Roberts on Gambling on the climate
- blugger on Why should we care about the polar bear?
- James Hrynyshyn on Why should we care about the polar bear?
- pough on Why should we care about the polar bear?
- Ian on McCain's McClimate plan
- DaPrez on Polar bears to be listed
- khefera on Polar bears to be listed
- DaPrez on A little game for Monday morning
- scicurious on Who are these "neural buddhists" of which you speak?
for 9 July 2007
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Other Doubtful Blogs
- Panda's Thumb
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Inspiration
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
Author's site: cyamid.net
--- H. L. Mencken
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.
October 31, 2006
October 26, 2006
Iceland's whaling obsession
Category: cetacea
So Iceland is back at it, joining Norway and Japan in the atavistic habit of killing whales. I find it interesting that this subject is so often framed as a scientific one, evidenced by the number of posts on the...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:34 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 25, 2006
Stephen Hawking as super hero
Category: humor
Got three minutes? Then watch this vision of what would happen if Stephen Hawking was a super hero, championing science against the evil forces of "The Fundamentalist" and his Dogma-ray....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 6:48 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2006
In defence of science journalists
Category: science culture
Defending the status quo is not my default position, particularly in my own field of science journalism, but I think someone should stand up for our side, considering the knocks we're taking from various angles. Some of my fellow SciBloggers...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 6:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 22, 2006
The Tragedy of the Tao
Category: philosophy
For a guest post to the meta-blog Daily Canuck, I whipped off a few words on the chasm between what's considered politically feasible when it comes to a national climate change strategy for Canada and what climatology suggests will be...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 18, 2006
Dawkins on Colbert
Category: punditry
Richard Dawkins on Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:12 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 16, 2006
Credbility gap
Category: politics
It's only been a few days, but already the Lancet study of excess deaths in Iraq has faded from the headlines. Even NPR seems to have decided that further analysis is not worthy of interrupting this week's pledge drive pleas....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 5:02 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 9, 2006
Religious indoctrination
Category: religiosity
Razib's post about The Economist's review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and the resulting comments got me thinking heavily on Dawkin's description of the religious indocrination of children as form of child abuse....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:26 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 6, 2006
Why are we here?
Category: Sci-culture
It's Friday. Time for some idle musing. A former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, one Burton Richter, has written an intriguing little essay on the allegedly sorry state of affairs in particle physics. Richter's main thesis is that...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:14 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 4, 2006
Dawkins: Need I say more?
Category: science culture
Why is it that one of the top critics of religion should be a biologist? Could it be that a deep understanding of biological evolution through natural selection really does lead one inexorably to atheism? If so, creationists might actually...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 2, 2006
Foley resignation good for science?
Category: science culture
In addition to ridding D.C. of a pedophile, the resignation of Republican congressman Mark Foley last week may also be good news for defenders of science. About three years ago, Foley got himself involved with a couple of front organizations...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:04 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Global heating: 2 questions; 2 answers
Category: climate
The first question is: how bad are things, really? The second: if things are as bad as the authors of two recent books on climate change say they are, are we capable of doing anything about it? I've just finished...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:21 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
