hrynyshyn
Posts by this author
October 25, 2006
Got three minutes? Then watch this vision of what would happen if Stephen Hawking was a super hero, championing science against the evil forces of "The Fundamentalist" and his Dogma-ray.
October 23, 2006
Defending the status quo is not my default position, particularly in my own field of science journalism, but I think someone should stand up for our side, considering the knocks we're taking from various angles. Some of my fellow SciBloggers have stepped to the plate but as I'm one of the few…
October 22, 2006
For a guest post to the meta-blog Daily Canuck, I whipped off a few words on the chasm between what's considered politically feasible when it comes to a national climate change strategy for Canada and what climatology suggests will be necessary. Along the way, I got sidetracked by the bigger…
October 15, 2006
It's only been a few days, but already the Lancet study of excess deaths in Iraq has faded from the headlines. Even NPR seems to have decided that further analysis is not worthy of interrupting this week's pledge drive pleas. Which is a pity, because this is the sort of thing that should decide…
October 9, 2006
Razib's post about The Economist's review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and the resulting comments got me thinking heavily on Dawkin's description of the religious indocrination of children as form of child abuse.
In response to Razib's observations that "only in cases of clear and present…
October 6, 2006
It's Friday. Time for some idle musing.
A former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, one Burton Richter, has written an intriguing little essay on the allegedly sorry state of affairs in particle physics.
Richter's main thesis is that there's too much "theological speculation" going on…
October 4, 2006
Why is it that one of the top critics of religion should be a biologist? Could it be that a deep understanding of biological evolution through natural selection really does lead one inexorably to atheism? If so, creationists might actually have reason to fear the inclusion of evolution in school…
October 2, 2006
In addition to ridding D.C. of a pedophile, the resignation of Republican congressman Mark Foley last week may also be good news for defenders of science. About three years ago, Foley got himself involved with a couple of front organizations for the Church of Scientology. One report, from Cult News…
October 2, 2006
The first question is: how bad are things, really? The second: if things are as bad as the authors of two recent books on climate change say they are, are we capable of doing anything about it?
I've just finished The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity by James…
September 29, 2006
One of the biggest weaknesses with string theory, as an explanation for the way the universe is the way it is, and a possible way to bring together relativity and quantum physics, is the paucity of testable aspects. And if it ain't testable, it ain't science. So say the critics. But maybe string…
September 28, 2006
There aren't too many cabinet positions in a modern parliamentary democracy that don't require a modicum of respect for the scientific method. But in an era of climate change, bioengineering and species depletion, the politicians charged with overseeing environmental policy should surely be at the…
September 27, 2006
My first post after moving the Island to ScienceBlogs was a list of science-themed popular songs. Not too surprisingly, there really wasn't much from which to choose. But it now gives me great pleasure to introduce to you a new tune that belongs at the top of any such list. I give you Chris Smither…
September 23, 2006
Nature offers a publicly accessible summary of a new study that suggests a physiological explanation for, among other things, out-of-body experiences, ghosts, alien surveillance and "the creepy feeling that somebody is close by." This is yet another example of how we're learning that the human…
September 21, 2006
Anyone not already furious with the Bush administration's attempt to legalize torture as a general interrogation practice, rather than a case-specific emergency tactic, should first read this.
Then, if you still think torture works, go back and read it again. And again.
September 21, 2006
As a freelance journalist, I don't have the luxury of turning down too many assignment offers. I was sorely tempted a few months back, though, when the potential client kept suggesting I use Wikipedia as the primary source for a series of articles.
The problem was the client wasn't willing to pay…
September 20, 2006
Anyone tried to watch the new USA Network series Psych? The one in which a sharp-eyed guy pretends to be psychic in order to get paid investigation gigs with the local police department? Well, don't bother. For one thing, the writers aren't having nearly as much fun making fun of psychics as they…
September 19, 2006
Former Boston Globe science columnist and college prof. Chet Raymo has written a stirring ode to the value of ignorance in his latest Science Musings. Pascal, Priestly and Popper -- he covers them all. What he's done is put his finger on a counter-intuitive definition of science, and what a…
September 18, 2006
Something is very wrong at Amazon.com. Maybe whoever programs the software that matches purchase patterns with new releases has a strange sense of humor, but the recommendation that showed up in my email box this morning suggests remedial action is in order.
A couple of years ago, I bought, from…
September 14, 2006
Canada's federal government, under the newly elected Conservative Party of Stephen Harper, seems to have adopted the dishonest propaganda techniques of the Bush administration as part of an attempt to wiggle out of past governments' commitments -- weak as they were -- to address climate change.…
September 14, 2006
Much has been made of a good-journalism award handed by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists to Michael Crichton for his science-fiction novel, State of Fear. I wrote back in pre-Scienceblog days that the AAPG had gone off the deep end by confusing a bad novel with a "notable…
September 13, 2006
At long last: scientific proof for intelligent design. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the banana!
As far as I can tell, this guy is serious. He's the Rev. Ray Comfort. Gotta love him. Thanks to Jody Wheeler for bringing it to my attention
September 13, 2006
And now, a guest post from a regular reader, Pierre in D.C.:
Sci-Fi channel. Its name evokes Star Trek reruns, Battlestar Galactica cliffhangers, a forum for sometimes innovative television but also mediocre low-budget series shot in Vancouver. But for some, it also means something else entirely…
September 11, 2006
Permit me to stray from the realms of science to briefly bring your attention to the results of a Discovery Channel/TIME magazine poll released last night, a poll that every decent American should be embarrassed to acknowledge. I can't find a link to it yet, but the details were discussed Sunday…
September 9, 2006
I've only read the few pages that Amazon offers on its website, but I'm convinced Frederick Crews' "Follies of the Wise" is the science book of the year. Jerry Coynes reviews it in The Times Literary Supplement. How can anyone resist, with a precis like this:
Frederick Crews has made a much more…
September 8, 2006
And now, a little self-promotion. I have a piece up on Seed's online magazine, "The Anthropogenic Trap," in which I examine the warnings of some scientists who say we're taking the whole guilt thing too far. Here's the opening.
This year may be remembered as the year the weight of climate change…
September 6, 2006
I suppose it wouldn't be polite to celebrate the pending extinction of an entire culture, but what the heck? According to the New York Times, Zoroastrianism is about to go the way of Baal-worshipping. With "perhaps as few as 124,000" adherents left on the planet, and a death rate that exceeds the…
September 6, 2006
Today's time-waster while I wait for the first coat of sky blue to dry in what used to be the study is reader-baiting. The targets are citizens of the U.K. The subject is the paranormal.
I ask you, what's with the enduring popularity of belief in ghosts, telepathy, and other such flaky beyond-…
September 5, 2006
I'm a little late to this particular debate, but it's long been one of my favorite subjects, ever since I had a most intriguing encounter with a wild member of the species Tursiops truncatus, in Australia 16 years ago. More about that later. I, too, was taken aback by the recent media coverage of…
September 2, 2006
Trust the gang at deSmogBlog to draw our attention to the latest discoveries in climatology: