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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.

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me-fergus.jpg 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.

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for 9 July 2007

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Other Doubtful Blogs

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.

More blogs about island of doubt.

June 27, 2008

The right to idiocy

Category: politics

So much has come down the political pipe in the past few days I've barely had time to think about science. Plus, I'm just about to head off for a 10-day vacation back on Canadian Shield birthright, so I need...

Read on »

June 24, 2008

Drilling down for doubt: The latest Pew suvery on religion

Category: religiosity

If theists can be confused about their belief, why shouldn't some atheists be confused about their lack of belief?

Read on »

The clean energy technology gap: An urban legend?

Category: climate

It would mean getting everyone on board, introducing a cap-and-trade regulatory regime for all fossil-fuels, reorganizing sales taxes and whatnot, but those are only political hurdles. Technologically, there's no reason why it couldn't be done.

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June 23, 2008

In God Who Trusts?

Category: religiosity

The way I see, it "In God We Trust" is more offensive than "I Believe."

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June 20, 2008

It's like flipping a switch

Category: climate

Sixty years is a blink of the metaphorical eye on geological time scales, and it's still damn fast when you're talking about climate change. While it may be far too long for Wall Street to worry about, six decades is...

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June 17, 2008

Heads stuck in the sands

Category: climate

It's a wasteful process, sort of like turning gold into lead. Or composting caviar.

Read on »

June 13, 2008

Too cheap to meter! Did they really say that?

Category: climate

Among the most common arguments to emerge from attendees of the climate-change slide show we members of Al Gore's Climate Project hear is "what about nuclear energy?" After all, it doesn't produce any greenhouse gas emissions, at least not while...

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June 12, 2008

Amtrak: The 2008 election linchpin

Category: climate

The jobs it would mean, and the impact on urban planning would be staggering, but welcome.

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June 9, 2008

Earth: The Sequel

Category: climate

Even existing alternatives take time to introduce. And we may be running out of the kind of time needed to bring about the necessary transition.

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June 5, 2008

Chipping away at the global warming uncertainty

Category: climate

It's not so much what we know as the trends associated with what we don't that are so convincing.

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June 3, 2008

The nightmare at NASA is over

Category: climate

The report of NASA's Office of the Inspector General on the clumsy attempts to censoring climate science makes for a most enjoyable read. We can laugh now that it's over, I mean. There are lots of gems among the overall...

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June 2, 2008

Wired's single-minded take on global warming

Category: climate

It is no exaggeration to raise the specter of changes so dramatic that much of the planet will not be able to support human life without extraordinary measures.

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June 1, 2008

Troubling drop in whale population

Category: cetacea

It's still far too early to tie what may or may not be going on with the minke to global warming.

Read on »

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