January 18, 2010
After a lengthy trip that involved not just planes and trains, but automobiles as well, I made it back from San Francisco in one piece. Yay! The conference was a big success, both mathematically and socially. Saw lots of old friends, which is, after all, the point of the conference, and also…
January 12, 2010
Winter term classes started on Monday here at JMU, so I figure this is a good time to get out of dodge! I will be participating in the 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco. Yay! And while I'm there I expect to take a quick train ride over to Oakland to visit the National Center for…
January 12, 2010
A well-deserved honor:
The National Academy of Sciences Council has selected Eugenie C. Scott to receive its most prestigious award, the Public Welfare Medal. Established in 1914, the medal is presented annually to honor extraordinary use of science for the public good. The Council chose Scott for…
January 6, 2010
The Huffington Post is not usually the go-to place for intelligent commentary on scientific issues, but sometimes they come through. Go have a look at this essay by Steven Newton, Project Director for the National Center for Science Education.
Science requires conclusions about how nature works…
January 5, 2010
Of course, the focus of that last post was a development in New York City, which is considerably more civilized than most of the country. In rural Mississippi things do not seem quite so cozy. This is from a reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog:
If you travel down any road, you will see churches…
January 5, 2010
Here's an encouraging story:
Ken Bronstein was excited to notify us of a great coup: six members of his organization, the New York City Atheists, attended Mayor Bloomberg's annual Interfaith Breakfast this weekend. It's believed to be the first time nonbelievers have been invited, as nonbelievers…
December 30, 2009
My post about science/religion disputes has prompted responses from my SciBlings Bora Zivkovic and Mike Dunford (here and here respectively. Since they are among my favorite bloggers, it pains me to have to disagree with them. Alas, disagree I must.
I will begin with Bora, since I fear he has…
December 29, 2009
Saw Avatar earlier tonight.
Short review: Wow! What a great movie!
Slightly longer review: OMG! What a freaking awesome movie!!
Longer review, with no spoliers (!!) below the fold.
James Cameron's movies tend to be visually spectacular but short on plot. Titanic coms to mind. The part…
December 28, 2009
I saw the new movie Sherlock Holmes over the weekend. Short review: I liked it far more than I expected to, though it is a bit silly in places. Longer review, with a few spoilers, below the fold.
A number of years ago there was an atrocity of a movie called Young Sherlock Holmes. Though it made…
December 28, 2009
Does anything strike you as odd about the following sentence:
Historians have shown that the Galileo affair, remembered by some as a clash between science and religion, was primarily about the enduring political question of who was authorized to produce and disseminate knowledge.
It comes from…
December 21, 2009
Democratic (!!) representative Bart Stupak, apparently concerned that the Senate health care bill is insufficiently misogynistic, might be willing to try to kill health care reform unless the anti-abortion language is strengthened:
Stupak's continued opposition to the Senate plan, despite those…
December 20, 2009
For an eloquent statement of what I have been trying to say for the last few days, have a look at this essay by Yale University Political Science Professor Jacob Hacker. Hacker is generally considered the father of the public option. In his view, the Senate health care bill still does more good…
December 19, 2009
Gosh, there sure is a lot of snow out there!
Update (1:00 am): Whoo hoo! My street just got plowed. God bless taxes!
December 18, 2009
As I think I have made clear in my last two posts, I am as annoyed as anyone about the way the health care debate has played out in Congress. But there is one line of complaint that I do not understand. That is the idea that somehow Obama is to blame for the compromises in the bill. He did not “…
December 17, 2009
I'm talking about the health care bill, of course.
The people I tend to trust on these sorts of questions, such as Robert Reich and Paul Krugman (here and here respectively) say the bill does more good than harm, and sets us down a path towards further improvements later. They also point out,…
December 15, 2009
I have always scoffed at people who say there is only the Republicrat party in this country, but after reading this depressing piece by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone I'm not so sure.
What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic…
December 10, 2009
Science Magazine has now published a letter to the editor in response to the review, published in early October, of the big Monty Hall book. The letter writer is Simon Levay, of West Hollywood, California. Here it is in full:
In his Book Review “Two doors and a goat” (9 October, p. 231), the…
December 8, 2009
Sorry for the lack of blogging. It is final exams week around here, which means busy, busy, busy. It certainly has not been for lack of blog fodder. For example, have a look at this post from P.Z. Myers. Essential reading.
So how about another Bertrand Russell quote? Like the last one, this…
December 2, 2009
I have long been a fan of Bertrand Russell, and I am endlessly fascinated by issues in science and religion, so perhaps it is surprising that I have not read Russell's book Religion and Science. Until now, that is. I have now read the first three chapters and anticipate finishing the book later…
November 30, 2009
Here's an interesting blog post written by a biochemistry professor at Seattle Pacific University. I call attention to it for two reasons. First, it is a harshly negative, but also highly substantive, review of Stephen Meyer's ID manifesto Signature in the Cell, written from a Christian…
November 30, 2009
Via Jerry Coyne I came across this brief essay from Michael Shermer on the subject of science and religion. Here's the part that jumped out at me:
If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe -- 10,000 years ago or 10 billion years ago. The difference of six zeros is…
November 18, 2009
My calculus students had a test yesterday. Having now graded them I understand, like never before, the meaning of the word “futility.” Their logic is not like our Earth logic.
My future elementary school teachers had their test today. About forty minutes in to a fifty minute period, as I was…
November 18, 2009
Sarah Palin's new book does not contain an index. So Christopher Beam, writing at Slate made one for her! Not that you were planning to read the book anyway, but this will save you the trouble.
If for some reason you want to know more about the book, have a look at the review in The New York…
November 12, 2009
Here's a delightful article from the Washington Post:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of…
November 11, 2009
Remember that trip to the Creation Museum during the big paleontology conference this summer? Linda Vaccariello has a lengthy, and pretty good, article about it in the current issue of Cincinnati Magazine. Here's a nugget I liked:
Looking over the exhibits in the Dinosaur Den, we learn that the…
November 10, 2009
I already made my trip out to Barnes and Noble today to pick up Stephen King's new novel Under the Dome. I have not been this excited about the release of a novel in quite some time. No doubt I am setting myself up for a disappointment, but I think this will be a long-awaited return to form for…
November 10, 2009
John Lynch has an important essay in the current issue of the Newsletter of the History of Science Society. I'm sure we are all familiar with creationist abuses of science and philosophy (not to mention their abuses of common decency and basic integrity), but their comparable abuses of history…
November 6, 2009
Seriously! Go have a look.
It seems my book The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's Most Contentious Brainteaser made the list! And to think I wasn't planning to do a blog post today.
Browsing through the other entries, it looks like my reading list just got a bit longer. (Of…
November 5, 2009
Update, 7:32 PM I have revised portions of the second vignette in response to the first comment below.
Via Josh Rosenau I came across this post from Todd Wood. Wood is an unabashed young-Earth creationist. What makes him considerably more interesting than most YEC's is that he sometimes writes…
November 3, 2009
For anyone who has access to a print edition of The New York Times, today's crossword was constructed by my cousin Barry Boone! I believe this is his fourth puzzle for the TImes. It has an election day theme, so go have a look.
