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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. Mostly regarding climate change, though.

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me-fergus.jpg James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist and communications consultant based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.

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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


Add to Technorati Favorites! Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
--- 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.

"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving, and tiny blasts of tinny trumpets, we have met the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us."
--Walt Kelly

January 31, 2008

The upside of the Hollywood writers' strike?

Category: science culture

Now's your chance to spare us all from another piece of dreck like The Core.

Read on »

January 30, 2008

Mitt Romney is right ...

Category: politics

... or, at least, in this one case, he's on the right track. Although the editors at the journal Nature don't think so. In fact, they tear a strip off the guy in last week's editorial, and I'm not really...

Read on »

January 29, 2008

The seven signs of pseudoscience: testing climatology

Category: climate

Speculation is waste of time. Running sophisticated climate models on supercomputers is better use of same.

Read on »

January 28, 2008

Drugs, abortion, and the Ends that justify the means

Category: medicine

In a world in which ends can be measured. some, though not all, means are justified.

Read on »

January 25, 2008

Canadian government axes science adviser

Category: science culture

CBC reports that Canada's "national science adviser Arthur Carty would be retiring on March 31, and that the position and office would be phased out." To which I could only say: "Who would want the job anyway? You'd just be...

Read on »

Shell says 7 years before oil demand outstrips supply

Category: climate

The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell says "after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand." This in an email from Jeroen van der Veer to his staff. Hmmm....

Read on »

January 23, 2008

Few hurricanes for the United States?

Category: climate

Will a warmer world mean fewer hurricanes hitting American soil? Nobody really knows. But a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters is bound to provide fodder for those who enjoy heralding every little morsel of evidence to support their...

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January 22, 2008

Trust, skepticism and the value of blogging

Category: climate

"Trust no one" makes for a fine motto if you're Fox Mulder. But in the real world, it would be suicide.

Read on »

January 21, 2008

Who can save science?

Category: misc

How can we help change this absurd culture of celebrity worship, and replace it with one that values the contributions of science?

Read on »

January 19, 2008

A lump of coal for breakfast

Category: climate

The only way you're going to survive is if you manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the next few years and find a way to cheaply and efficiently capture and store the CO2 you pump out.

Read on »

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