…and this is a 
Plug, plug, plug
Category: Administrative
Posted on: August 24, 2007 3:00 PM, by PZ Myers
You may have noticed (how could you avoid it?) all the information about Seed's new contest: if you're commenting with a valid email address, you're in the drawing. The prize is a 5-day trip to a great science city (there's a poll to determine which one) — this is good, because even if some wacky creationist or HIV denialist or demented Republican wins, their reward will be some intense exposure to real science. I tell you, the brains behind this outfit are cunning and nefarious in their machinations. (If you are one of those deluded individuals who doesn't want their illusions dashed, you can ask to be excused from the drawing. They're cunning, but also nice.)
While I'm alerting you to the largesse of our host, let me mention another good deal: subscribe to Seed magazine, and they'll give you this utterly faboo Sb beaker/coffee mug. I picked one up while I was in NY, and they are great — I'm half-seriously thinking I ought to get 6 subscriptions myself so I can have a whole set in my house, especially since my Trophy Wife™ has been casting covetous glances at my mug. Imagine your mornings, reading Seed, sipping coffee from that lovely mug; you'll be the perfect image of the upscale nerd, just like me.
Comments
Gratuitous comment numero uno. I'd love a 5 day trip to darn near anywhere!
Posted by: ctenotrish, FCD | August 24, 2007 3:11 PM
This comment contains no useful information/opinion. I just want a chance to get out of my town for 5 days.
Please move along.
Posted by: Stephen | August 24, 2007 3:12 PM
Nice! I would love to win that...
Posted by: Josh Charles | August 24, 2007 3:17 PM
Anyone is eligible no matter their countries of origin?
Posted by: Greco | August 24, 2007 3:19 PM
I really like the look of that coffee mug. Snazzy.
Posted by: stogoe | August 24, 2007 3:19 PM
Oh, please don't throw me into that briar patch Farmer PZ!
Posted by: idlemind | August 24, 2007 3:19 PM
The great science cities have been narrowed down to Boston, San Francisco, and Cambridge, UK. No Paris? Drats! Voting is open and Cambridge is in the lead. Looks like some people don't just want to get out of town... some may want to get out of the country.
Posted by: natasha | August 24, 2007 3:22 PM
When I try to post with a real email address, at hotmail, these blogs say "there has been an error." When I post with a fake email address, at mailinator, it works. Feh.
Posted by: Russell | August 24, 2007 3:23 PM
I am absolutely shocked Petersburg, KY is not on the list.
Posted by: Brett McCoy | August 24, 2007 3:24 PM
I can't drink coffee. :(
Posted by: craig | August 24, 2007 3:34 PM
Go Cambridge, or Boston, or wherever. No strike that wherever bit. I'd rather skip the visit to the GW Bush Institute for Advanced Physics and Brush Clearing in Crawford, Texas.
Ken
Posted by: Ken Mareld | August 24, 2007 3:34 PM
Hey, I already live (practicly) in Boston/Cambridge. If I win and thats the city chosen then whats up? They put me in a hotel a couple miles from my apartment and give me a day pass to the Museum of Science? Of course, I would love a pass to the MoS, its a fine fine place.
Posted by: jba | August 24, 2007 3:35 PM
You strange people from exotic lands do not have to move to the US -- you are eligible! Huzzah!
Lest anyone goes nuts and starts posting comments like mad, the way this works is that all you have to do is make one comment (or use the entry submission form) between now and the time the 500,000th comment is made, and you're in. Making one thousand comments will not enhance your likelihood of winning.
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 24, 2007 3:35 PM
Bah! Mugs in the US only! No fair!
Posted by: Adrian W. | August 24, 2007 3:36 PM
heck, I can DRIVE to the other two places for a week... But wondering, on the VERY off chance I won, how long it would take me to get a passport?
anyway, I LOVE the mug. Do they sell them somewhere as well?
Posted by: dorid | August 24, 2007 3:36 PM
Man, it'd be nice to win and go to Boston - I've got family out there I've been wanting to visit for a while, and it's one of my favorite US cities anyway. Not that I'd say no to, say, Paris or Cambridge.
The mug's cool, but I much prefer my Acme Klein Stein:
http://www.kleinbottle.com/drinking_mug_klein_bottle.htm
Also available as a calibrated beaker: http://www.kleinbottle.com/calibrated_klein_bottles.htm
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | August 24, 2007 3:37 PM
Hey, no fair. We drink coffee up here in Canada too you know. Seed's only offering a one-issue freebie to those of us who don't live in the Untied States of Jesusland; I think it would get all soggy if I poured coffee into it don't you?
Posted by: AlanWCan | August 24, 2007 3:37 PM
You know, I've been commenting a little bit more lately.
This is going to keep me from getting more work done.
Genius.
phat
Posted by: phat | August 24, 2007 3:41 PM
That mug looks awesome...now I wish I weren't already subscribed, just so I could subscribe and get that mug. I wonder if renewing my subscription would count?
Also, hi, I'm pathetic. Apparently all it takes is the announcement of a contest to bring me out of longtime lurkerdom.
Posted by: whitney | August 24, 2007 3:45 PM
Those are 3 wonderful cities.
Probably better than a trip to Los Alamos.
Posted by: vox nihili | August 24, 2007 3:47 PM
Well, I've already received my first issue of SEED, but I'm still waiting on the coffee mug...
Posted by: Kurt | August 24, 2007 3:47 PM
#10: It's also a beaker so it has multiple uses, not just for coffee.
Posted by: Kulkuri | August 24, 2007 3:47 PM
Maybe Chicago, to visit Argonne National Laboratory.
Be sure to make your Sb coffee with 18.2 MΩ DI water for the maximum nerdiness.
Luis
Posted by: Luis | August 24, 2007 3:47 PM
...I'm getting mighty thirsty.
Okay, I'm done now.
Posted by: Kurt | August 24, 2007 3:48 PM
Crap, I guess this means I should actually check my email occasionally. :)
Posted by: plunge | August 24, 2007 3:48 PM
I want a graduated coffee mug with the Science Blogs logo silkscreened on it, but I want the mug in the shape of an Erlenmeyer flask. ;-)
Posted by: Jefe | August 24, 2007 3:49 PM
The mug looks great and I after reading all the great blogs here, I think I will subscribe just to do my part. Thank you to all the SciBlogers!
Posted by: BG | August 24, 2007 3:52 PM
Winning would be cool. I'd get a good detailed current explanation of just what God created and the up to date on how it all works. Not a bad deal at all. Cambridge would be excellent. Now if it included a lecture by Hawkings, right on.
If it's Boston, would I have to drive?
Posted by: Salt | August 24, 2007 3:55 PM
I'll second that. Pretty sparse picks there. I guess I would have rather they interpreted that as "cities that had historic roles in the development of the scientific worldview". Not that I'm complaining.
Posted by: syntyche | August 24, 2007 3:57 PM
Will they be providing a bowl of green M&M's in the hotel suite? I have very high standards, you know...
Posted by: Shygetz | August 24, 2007 3:57 PM
I just subscribed. I've been thinking of doing it for a little while, but that mug pushed me over the edge. Can't wait...
Posted by: Tiskel | August 24, 2007 3:59 PM
So if I comment a million times does that make me more eligible?
Posted by: Matt | August 24, 2007 4:02 PM
Living in flyover country, any of the cities would be a good vacation. However, since I have friends in England, Cambridge would be a multi-purpose vacation. So I voted accordingly!
Posted by: Paul | August 24, 2007 4:07 PM
Lest anyone goes nuts and starts posting comments like mad, the way this works is that all you have to do is make one comment (or use the entry submission form) between now and the time the 500,000th comment is made, and you're in. Making one thousand comments will not enhance your likelihood of winning.
Really? Because if someone were to make 40,000 comments, it would quickly end the contest since 500,000 would be reached, and the pool of eligible entries would be very small. Or maybe I'm not getting how this works....
Posted by: AL | August 24, 2007 4:11 PM
thanks for the entry
Posted by: Joe | August 24, 2007 4:11 PM
does anyone know if its Cambridge, Mass or Cambridge, UK?
Posted by: Texas Reader | August 24, 2007 4:14 PM
UK! Boston and SF are nice, but that's the one I think I'd want to visit.
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 24, 2007 4:20 PM
boooooooo!
Posted by: Matt the heathen | August 24, 2007 4:21 PM
Five days in Cambridge, UK? I'm so up for that.
Oh? Content? Umm:
(Clears throat)
Ahem:
The prominence in this era of efforts by believers in certain traditional religions to assert that they may validly reject the findings of many of the natural sciences is a complex phenomenon, into which many minor and major tributaries may feed. Social and economic disparities, the urban/hinterland divide, in particular, are probably key in the United States, where creationism's association with rural and agrarian movements have long been noted. In parts of the Moslem world, the self-styled 'puritanical' extremist branches of the religion regularly trade in nationalist or quasi-nationalist pride.
A common and critical feature, however, is the reality that religions, while they have always evolved to suit themselves to their peculiar cultural circumstances, to survive in the contemporary world, must either accomodate or directly reject a growing body of knowledge about the age and size of our universe and the manner in which we came into it--and in this era, this is a body of knowledge which is increasingly detailed, and for which evidence is arriving at what is in historical terms a breakneck pace. And while religions have heretofore been plastic enough to adapt their claims to avoid conflicts in this space they cannot win, the malleability required in the face of contemporary science's body of cosmological knowledge is greater than it has ever been before.
Religions have retreated to two general positions in the face of this challenge: a categorical rejection of evidence that conflicts with their own cosmological traditions, and a slightly more subtle relativism, sometimes borrowing in opportunistic, ad hoc fashion from postmodern ideas they use rhetorically to justify something which, in a sense, is even more deeply nihilistic: the complete rejection of the notion of a knowable and shared universal reality. In some sects, both strategies are intermixed, often uncomfortably.
Most importantly: in many of the cultural contexts in which these religions are attempting to survive, the cognitive tools people require to negotiate their complex cultures, to educate themselves, to better themselves, are themselves being held to a higher and more rigourous standard than they have in the past. In short: we need our mental faculties to work, and work well, and work freely, to survive and prosper in the 21st century. This mixes poorly with many traditional religions, in which obvious contradictions in dogma were once airily explained away as precious, spiritual mysteries.
Thus the culture war in inevitable. What we are seeing is several religions, all in paroxysms of rapid and desperate adaptation, pushed up against walls that close from every direction, seeking any direction of escape. For many, a sort of pan-relativism has been their last resort: it is all metaphor, tools for living, none of it with any bearing on larger cosmology. For others, it is simple denial: where the evidence we ourselves can easily see contradicts what we were once told to believe, we will reject the evidence.
Thanks, all.
Posted by: AJ Milne | August 24, 2007 4:23 PM
This is not a real comment. This is just a comment made with intent to go to (hopefully) a city very near to the Smithsonian. Please ignore.
Posted by: Jeffery Keown | August 24, 2007 4:35 PM
Not a real comment either. Give me trip to Cambridge!
Posted by: Steve Reuland | August 24, 2007 4:37 PM
What is the readership of ScienceBlogs like, geographically? I would figure it must be pretty American-dominated since it's based here, and most of the bloggers are from here and you have that big population disparity to begin with. So now it would seem that the contest is going to be awfully skewed towards Cambridge as all the American voters now know they have a personal stake in it and would take the higher-value trip. Not too wise on Seed's part, as they're going to have to spend all that extra money now.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 24, 2007 4:40 PM
Woo! A chance to win a trip to the city I already live in! Woo!
And anyway, your mug sucks! This is the mug of a TRUE nerd!
http://www.kleinbottle.com/drinking_mug_klein_bottle.htm
!
Posted by: Donalbain | August 24, 2007 4:41 PM
I voted UK!
And I work part time in a coffee shop and am a coffee fanatic... too bad the mugs are for US only :(
Posted by: kristen in monteal | August 24, 2007 4:43 PM
PZ,
You have a trophy wife?
Steve Wright tells the story about his friend who had a trophy wife. But apparently it wasn't first place.
Posted by: Richard, FCD | August 24, 2007 4:45 PM
Boston or Cambridge would be awesome!
Sadly, SF isn't *that* great as a science city. Either that or I just haven't explored enough. I was kind of dissapointed with the California Academy of Sciences, I have to admit.
On the other hand ... DINOSAURS!!
Yes, I'm still a four-year-old on the inside.
Posted by: Tigerhawkvok | August 24, 2007 4:46 PM
Must resist urge to comment.....
DAMN!
Posted by: MikeG | August 24, 2007 4:46 PM
I'm hoping for Cambridge. I don't have to say anything extremely interesting in this thread, I can see.
Posted by: Rien | August 24, 2007 4:48 PM
Please enter me as well! *Insert filler here* I just hope the city isn't Austin, as I desperately need to get out of Texas for a bit : ) Here's to hoping it's NYC... MMmmm MoNH here I come!
Posted by: TheBowerbird | August 24, 2007 4:49 PM
Comment. I like Paris.
Posted by: Karl | August 24, 2007 4:59 PM
Throwing my hat in the ring for 5 days of sciency goodness.
Posted by: GeorgeBurnsGod | August 24, 2007 5:03 PM
Chicagoland area has Fermilab (40 min out from downtown by car) as well as Argonne. Fermilab is a more open campus as well, so if you're visiting the area drop in. And downtown there's the Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium, and the Field Museum. The Darwin exhibition is at the Field -- haven't seen it, but I did see the Evolution exhibit.
Having visited quite a few science museums in my life (Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Portland, Ontario, London, and various smaller ones) I think I prefer those in SF/SJ -- think of it as a two-fer. On the other hand I spent many summer days of my youth in the Boston Museum of Science. I'm sad to have missed the Electricity show last time I visited there. Nothing says "Mad Scientist" like huge sparks.
Posted by: Don't Panic | August 24, 2007 5:03 PM
Wish I had one of those infinite improbability drives to increase my chances. Plus, then I could have dinner at Milliways.
Posted by: Ford | August 24, 2007 5:05 PM
won't this just lead to comments like this?
Posted by: Jim Lemire | August 24, 2007 5:09 PM
Commence vacuous commenting..
Posted by: Henrik Jonsson | August 24, 2007 5:12 PM
Is it moral to post just for a chance to win?
Ah, whaddo I care. I'm an athiest.
Posted by: Boko999 | August 24, 2007 5:13 PM
A better question might be, is it ethical? The contest itself certainly seems to be; there's no outright consumer data harvesting like you get with most contests.
Posted by: Phy | August 24, 2007 5:16 PM
Do the markings on the mug mean that it is illegal chemistry equipment in the state of Texas?
Posted by: silence | August 24, 2007 5:17 PM
Lest anyone goes nuts and starts posting comments like mad, the way this works is that all you have to do is make one comment (or use the entry submission form) between now and the time the 500,000th comment is made, and you're in. Making one thousand comments will not enhance your likelihood of winning.
What? You mean all my other comments in the past don't count?
Why, I'll just have to, . . ., um, . . ., er, . . . Never mind.
Posted by: Ahcuah | August 24, 2007 5:20 PM
*insert witty remark here*
Yup, nothin' to say, just entering the contest. Back to lurking for me now.
Posted by: Sunbeam | August 24, 2007 5:21 PM
Woo! Kegger!
I have to say, that mug looks pretty awesome. Although I'd prefer a mug that said Po on it.
Posted by: Djur | August 24, 2007 5:23 PM
Is it too late to get Hawaii added as a science location?
Posted by: Cain | August 24, 2007 5:34 PM
18.2 MΩ DI water will make you feel so clean and pure.... *shudder*
Posted by: SoE | August 24, 2007 5:40 PM
Cool mug. I'll think about subscribing but I really just want the trip. I grew up in Mass. and now live near SF, so Cambridge is my choice. I'll send you a postcard PZ.
Posted by: Peter | August 24, 2007 5:41 PM
I'll settle for one of those oh-so-sexy mugs. Here endeth the comment.
Posted by: Brian Gyss | August 24, 2007 5:46 PM
No kidding. How many posts do scienceblogs get per day? How close are they? How long before someone hits the magic number?
Posted by: Carlie | August 24, 2007 5:48 PM
Did you hear the latest about Mother Terrible oops Mother Teresa? Yes, the same one on whom Christopher Hitchens has wrote about in "The Missionary Position". Turns out from her letters that in the latter half of her life, she did not believe in the existence of Jesus. Maybe she really was a realized soul after all!
This week in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html
Posted by: Soniya | August 24, 2007 5:50 PM
Just another comment that says nothing. A trip to just about anywhere would be nice!
Posted by: Jewel | August 24, 2007 6:00 PM
18.2 megaohm Discovery Institute water???
Posted by: David Marjanović | August 24, 2007 6:07 PM
Looks like Cambridge is taking it.
If I won, I would get to go back down south, may as well stay with my parents for five days. No like I don't often pop into Cambridge for shopping or anything.
Why couldn't they sponsor people to the BA Festival of Science, held this year in York on my campus (so free passes all round!) and which will feature one US Supreme Court Justice, a half dozen religion/science debates/discussions, and most of the more interesting subjects you can think of from the world of science.
Posted by: Paul Schofield | August 24, 2007 6:11 PM
3.141592653589793238462693383279- Gotta do something to fill the space while entering the contest. . .or go back to pouring kill jars for the introductory entomology class.
Posted by: mothra | August 24, 2007 6:16 PM
I cannot resist posting a nearly content-free statement for the chance to win. Shameless.
Posted by: Johnny Logic | August 24, 2007 6:27 PM
I want to win. I hope they send me to Chicago to the Field Museum, or to Huston to see Lucy!
Posted by: Siamang | August 24, 2007 6:39 PM
As long as no one of consequence wins, I'll be happy.
Posted by: No One Of Consequence | August 24, 2007 6:50 PM
...and I suppose adding a thousand email addresses to my mail server and posting comments using each one would be dishonest and not in the spirit of the game.
Posted by: No One Of Consequence | August 24, 2007 6:53 PM
Will the notification that I am a winner get through Yahoo mail's spam filter?
Posted by: Mark | August 24, 2007 6:56 PM
I, for one, hope it's in Kentucky.
Posted by: Bjorn Watland | August 24, 2007 7:05 PM
Plugging works. My subscription (and mug) are on their way.
Posted by: Cameron | August 24, 2007 7:13 PM
500,000 comments, eh? Looks like Cambridge UK is well at the front, so I'd better not win. Not much of a prize to be awarded a trip to the city where I already study...
Posted by: Token | August 24, 2007 7:16 PM
I am just commenting to enter the drawing! Cheers!
Posted by: Alric | August 24, 2007 7:26 PM
I am thinking of commenting over at the blogs that don't get many comments now, but are very interesting; like at evolvingthoughts. But, this will do for now, as we are prolly sitting at 466,000 with this one.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | August 24, 2007 7:37 PM
Oooh! I'd go anywhere where there is science.
Posted by: DrBadger | August 24, 2007 7:38 PM
I drink my morning coffee out of a Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area (HAGSA) mug. They gave it to me for doing a talk for them. Still, a ScienceBlogs mug might be a nice fallback for when we forget to wash dishes...
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | August 24, 2007 7:38 PM
Oh, and I already drink out of beakers.
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | August 24, 2007 7:45 PM
Why yes, this comment is entirely gratuitous. Although that mug is rather alluring... (also, the iPhone doesn't seem to like the comment box much. This was my third try.)
Posted by: MyaR | August 24, 2007 7:55 PM
That's it, the mug is the deal maker; I'm buying a periodical.
Posted by: Martha | August 24, 2007 8:04 PM
Another lurker coming out of the woodwork for a chance to travel. Also looking on enviously at those who can get the nifty mug. Guess I'll wait and see if Seed offers us Canucks something for a subscription.
Posted by: Treekick | August 24, 2007 8:20 PM
Free trip to Cambridge, well, count me in.
Fortunately it doesn't look like a destination in the USA will win, since they'd probably wouldn't let me enter it anyway...
Posted by: student_b | August 24, 2007 8:23 PM
California has science...
and sun and attractive people
Because I want to study how much of a premium individuals place on attractiveness.
yeah. that's right.
Posted by: Pareto | August 24, 2007 8:25 PM
Another gratuitous comment. I want a trip! WooHoo!
Cheers,
Ray
Posted by: Ray | August 24, 2007 8:34 PM
Drat, already a subscriber, wonder if I could get the mug by renewing.
Posted by: OctaneZ | August 24, 2007 8:39 PM
Does the trip also come with an adjunct to teach my classes for the week I'm gone?
.... sometimes it's hard to be a one-man chemistry department. :)
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | August 24, 2007 8:46 PM
Cambridge is my favourite UK city, I got my degree from there. Which means if I won, I'd probably forfeit it in favour of someone to whom the location is actually remotely exotic.
Posted by: Maugrim | August 24, 2007 8:47 PM
I am in for sure. I love Seed and I love Science Blogs.
Did I win yet?
Posted by: Peter | August 24, 2007 9:27 PM
I'd like to go to Tokyo or Sydney or Auckland or...OOOH!!! Send me to Darwin, NZ PZ. Please.
Thanks.
Posted by: Peter | August 24, 2007 9:29 PM
What if we already live in a great science city?
Well, I wouldn't mind a trip to Boston.
Posted by: Glenn Peters | August 24, 2007 9:36 PM
Emphasis mine.
I ROTFLed out loud. Whoever wrote that line: Kudos, sir or madam, kudos.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 24, 2007 9:40 PM
I think a coffee mug that looks like a beaker is a really bad idea (unless perhaps it looks like Beaker from the Muppet Show). Personally I'm a firm believer in Gould's nonoverlapping magisteria as it applies to coffee mugs and things that may contain toxic fluids. Of course if your beakers only ever contain 10% alcohol solution and zebra fish embryos then letting your magisteria overlap may not be fatal.
Posted by: Ronald Brak | August 24, 2007 9:48 PM
Hey, if I get two subscriptions can I get the PZ Signature Edition mug?
Posted by: Timothy | August 24, 2007 10:01 PM
I sure hope you get a little kickback for all the Seed subscriptions you just sold. Thanks for the word!
Posted by: Kate Smith | August 24, 2007 10:24 PM
Can I pick some more nits? The association of Rosalind Franklin with Cambridge seems pretty tenuous. She was based at Kings and then Birkbeck College both of which are in London, although didn't she do her undergrad in Cambridge? It's a wonderful little city...if you can avoid the CHAVs. People always get excited by a sighting of Steven Hawking or John Sulston there.
Posted by: AlanWCan | August 24, 2007 11:03 PM
You've convinced me. Not only did I subscribe, I posted a comment. Your handlers should be proud.
Posted by: Toby J | August 24, 2007 11:23 PM
That is a real nice looking mug.
Posted by: Doug | August 24, 2007 11:50 PM
Bites that the mugs can't make it to Canada. I'm getting revenge by posting this gripe in order to get in on the contest.
Posted by: Mike | August 25, 2007 12:14 AM
must have coffee........
fuck the right ringers....
Posted by: John Mruzik | August 25, 2007 12:22 AM
Hey, a free trip somewhere for 5 days'd be just dandy - count me in :-)
Posted by: mapinact | August 25, 2007 12:33 AM