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.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:48 AM • 3 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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- Chet Raymo
- Ben Goldacre
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- John Fleck
- Kristine Harley
- DeSmogBlog
- Nature Climate Feedback
- Jennifer Oullette
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.
January 31, 2008
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...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:57 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:18 PM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:46 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 1:43 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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....
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:27 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:08 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:18 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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?
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:09 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:48 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 18, 2008
Clouds over Big Sky Country
Category: climate
So, there's this town in Montana, see. Name of Choteau. And seems that science ain't so popular in those parts......
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:09 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 17, 2008
Nuke the whales
Category: cetacea
There still a lot we don't understand about how whales react to the noise equivalent of a jumbo jet landing on the street in front of your house.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:57 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 15, 2008
2008: The Forecast
Category: climate
2008 or possibly 2009 could the last year for a while in which we enjoy a break from rising temperatures.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:04 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 14, 2008
Antarctic meltdown? Don't freak out just yet
Category: climate
First, let's see what other observations and other models have to say, and let's see if we can't look a bit further back in time,
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:07 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 12, 2008
Now that's just WRONG! (Or is it?)
Category: climate
When it comes to climate change, the only way we're going to come to a consensus on what to do about it is to ditch the holier-than-thou attitude and play up the win-win scenarios.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:46 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 10, 2008
Was Bush right? Is switchgrass the solution to climate change?
Category: climate
We may never live it down. The sight of George W. Bush traipsing about his ranch in Texas, extolling the virtues of switchgrass-derived ethanol as a replacement for gasoline generated more than a few chuckles among scientifically literate environmentalists. Yet...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:49 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 9, 2008
Hillary's alleged 3 % advantage
Category: politics
Did Clinton win the New Hampshire Democratic primary Tuesday because her name came before Obama's on the ballot? SciBlogger Matt "Framing Science" Nisbet has a couple of posts referring us to someone who seems convinced she did. I'm not so...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:35 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Whither the ice caps?
Category: climate
"At the end of the day, you can be 90% confident of something, and all people will hear is that you aren't certain about what you are saying."
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:57 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 7, 2008
The ecology of HDTV
Category: technology
Watching Battlestar Galactica is way cooler on a wide-screen, regardless of the resolution.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:42 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 4, 2008
Score one for the whales
Category: cetacea
So nice to start the year off the right note for a change.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:35 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 3, 2008
The military industrial complex vs. the planet
Category: cetacea
Only die-hard deep ecologists would argue that environmental concerns, whether the topic is whales or climate change, should always be given priority over national security.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:33 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 1, 2008
Pick a number between 1 and ...?
Category: climate
Instead of debating what's feasible, we're quibbling over just how low CO2 levels needs to be.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:00 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
