Has global warming stopped? I'm glad you asked...
Category: climate
It's is a dangerous and perhaps even disingenous question.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:27 AM • 5 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
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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.
December 24, 2007
December 21, 2007
Cross-border climate change concern gap
Category: climate
Matt Nisbet once again points out that nobody in America cares about climate change. With all due respect to the Pew survey gang, I doubt things are really that bad. Consider a recent poll of Canadians that puts the environment...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:17 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
RV reproduction
Category: humor
From the master of doom and gloom, James Howard Kunstler, comes this attempt to simultaneous amuse and depress:...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:45 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 20, 2007
Where the whales came from .. maybe
Category: evolution
It's pretty much exactly what's been missing in the search to fill in the gap between whatever entirely terrestrial whale ancestor and the first aquatic whales of 50 million years ago.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:03 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 18, 2007
A Canadian lesson for Science Debate '08: Integrity trumps science literacy
Category: politics
Sure, it would be nice if the next president of the United States could explain the difference between radiative forcings and feedbacks when it comes to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:10 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 16, 2007
Adapt! The cry of the coward
Category: climate
To abandon any thought of mitigating climate change, to quit now while we can, at least in theory, head off the worst of what's to come, strikes me as a lazy and cowardly approach
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:47 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 14, 2007
But what do the laws of thermodynamics say?
Category: climate
Roger Pielke Jr. asks why almost every media outlet ignored a new paper in Nature that says "global warming may have a minimal effect on hurricanes" when comparably respectable papers arguing the opposite get oodles of attention. Good question. I'll...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:23 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 13, 2007
Facebook Atheism: An entirely wrong approach
Category: religiosity
You don't win friends and influence people by announcing that you're better than them.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:13 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 12, 2007
White House science adviser on the climate change challenge
Category: climate
Just how out of touch with science is Bush's science adviser? Ray Pierrehumbert, a University of Chicago climatologist, bring us a report on a speech by John Marburger at the current meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Unfortunately there are...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:18 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Dueling temperature records
Category: climate
Get ready for the climate change pseudoskeptics to exploit to their own disingenuous ends the inevitable disagreement among climatologists over just where the latest 12 months falls in the list of warmest years on record. See? they'll argue, the science...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:24 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 11, 2007
Tell us something we didn't know
Category: climate
I don't know how many hours and dollars were spent by this hot-off-the-presses official government duplication of what Chris Mooney laid out two years ago in The Republican War on Science, but I suppose it's always good to have confirmation...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:02 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 10, 2007
Science Debate 2008
Category: politics
Most of those who have the ears of the contenders will be arguing forcefully against taking part in a debate where you actually have to understand more than rhetorical technique
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:00 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
US Navy study: seven years of north pole summer ice left?
Category: climate
Today we hear about a new study suggesting the north pole's summer ice will be gone within seven years. Not, 40, not 30, not even 13, but seven. I can't find any information from the actual study. All that we...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:11 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 8, 2007
The strange tale of the creationist who was also an evolutionary biologist
Category: evolution
So there was this guy, right? He worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research was specifically targeted at evolutionary processes. But he was a creationist, so he refused to address evolution in his research. So he was fired....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:34 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 7, 2007
Monkey Planet!
Category: humor
Enjoy your Friday by paying an objective and science-based visit to the Monkey Planet....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:35 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
80 percent by 2050 is not enough
Category: climate
"In order to stay below 2 °C, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose." -- Bali Climate Declaration
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:44 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 4, 2007
Charles Krauthammer's embryonic brain
Category: medicine
A little press-commentary comparison shopping is in order following the recent news of a breakthrough in the effort to produce stem cells without using embryonic cells. I promise this won't take long. First, the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer, who announced...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:26 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why Bali will be another missed opportunity
Category: climate
Any scheme that doesn't try to apportion emission rights fairly is doomed to failure because the developing world -- i.e., China -- will ignore it.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:44 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 3, 2007
Passing the Nicole Kidman's Grandmother Test
Category: religiosity
His Dark Materials is a wonderful series of stories, regardless of the philosophical message between the lines. That the message is one that disparages superstitious dogma is just icing on the cake.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:36 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
