gregladen | June 10, 2010Here is some data on the impact of outside individuals as targets or important components of blog posts on the You're Not Helping blog. Sample of the last several blog posts plus all known posts related to Yours Truly.
Clearly, while PZ Myers is not helping, he is not helping at the same order of magnitude of, say The Friendly Atheist. Greg Laden, on the other hand, is Totally Not Helping at All and probably deserves some kind of an award.
Person
Comment "N's"
Greg Laden
34, 22, 4, 29, 3, 52, 7 (X=22)
PZ Myers
13, 28, 1, 0, 5 (X=9)
Everybody Else
13, 1, 5, 5, 2,10, 13, 2…
gregladen | June 10, 2010Remember the Saint Paul RNC 8? Here's the latest news:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Court Affirms Prosecution's Attempt to Criminalize Activism, Proceeds in Case Against RNC 8
June 10, 2010
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Yesterday, the RNC 8 completed the probable cause hearing, begun last month, a key step in determining whether their charges of conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to damage property will go to trial in October. Judge Teresa Warner is expected to issue a ruling on the defendants' motion to dismiss the charges due to a lack of probable cause sometime in August.
The probable cause hearing…
gregladen | June 10, 2010A chapter from a special graphic adaptation of Charles Darwin's Origin, by Rodale Press, is available for free download from the National Center for Science Education. Click here for the PDF.
The whole shebang is about 14 bucks at Amazon: Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation
The NCSE is here.
gregladen | June 10, 2010Who knows, but maybe you can find out on Friday Night when you listen to Skeptically Speaking.
Scott Gavura
Pharmacist and blogger Scott Gavura returns to give us the evidence-based perspective on vitamins and the claims that are made about them. Which ones are beneficial, which ones are bunk, and how is this billion-dollar industry regulated?
amd
Speaking up
Steve Wereley on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
gregladen | June 10, 2010Advancing the Science of Climate Change is a publication of the National Academy of Sciences (National Academies Press) which sports this description:
The compelling case that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities is based on a strong, credible body of evidence, says Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of the new books in the America's Climate Choices series. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never "closed," the book emphasizes that multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of…
gregladen | June 10, 2010The Queen's got a point: (Hat tip, Jennifer Ouellette)
I think this guy needs to notch it down a ways.
gregladen | June 10, 2010It seems that the Republican Candidate running for the Fifth Congressional District seat in Minnesota has one main political objective: To replace the sitting Democratic member of congress, Keith Ellison, explicitly because he, Ellison, is a "Moslem." The purpose of this candidacy is, explicitly, an effort to "take back" America (from the "Moslems") and "bring her to her knees" as a Christian Nation.
Also, and again, explicitly, this candidate has no specific policy positions because he expects God to place those policy positions in his mouth at the appropriate times, as per Matthew 10:…
gregladen | June 10, 2010You can now download a PDF version of Genie Scott's book, Evolution vs. Creationism, 2nd edition, here.
gregladen | June 10, 2010A nostalgic post, reposted. Nostalgically.
Analyzing 30 years of data detailing a large rabies virus outbreak among North American raccoons, researchers at Emory University have revealed how initial demographic, ecological and genetic processes simultaneously shaped the virus?s geographic spread over time. The study appears online in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.
That?s the start of an interesting report on Science Daily.
And it reminds me of living through the Great Rabid Raccoon Outbreak in Massachusetts about 15 years back. (Not to be confused with this rabies…
gregladen | June 9, 2010The Constitution of the United States makes no mention of God and only two references to religion. The first reference is in the body: Article VI "[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The second reference is the first line of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." The state constitutions are far less restrained. While looking for voting rights in the state constitutions, I began to collect some interesting trivia…
gregladen | June 9, 2010Perched heavily on a white stone wall, a cast-iron stegosaurus watched expressionlessly as a backhoe tore up a patch of land that was supposed to have been left green. "We've been doing some more research in the last few months which has already indicated we have to add extra parking," Mark Looy shouted over the rumbling. "The lobby is probably also going to be too small. That outdoor area with the pillars, that's going to be glass-enclosed now. That becomes a portico, a kind of pre-lobby for people to gather, get their tickets. Our projections are for more than two hundred and fifty…
gregladen | June 9, 2010... biodiversity through the ages ...
There's a story that scientists like to tell about the great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Supposedly, Haldane once found himself in the company of a group of theologians. They asked him what one could conclude about the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation. "An inordinate fondness for beetles," Haldane replied.
The National Center for Science Education maintains a library of offprints and book chapters for which that they have been given explicit permission to distribute to the general public at no cost. One of these…
gregladen | June 9, 2010One of the great things about Coturnix is that he brings two context-broadening tools to the table in any discussion: Synchronic and diachronic. In a recent post (Am I a Science Journalist? he adds the diachronic. I had not previously realized or considered (or at lest, not thought it relevant) that early science journalists were not trained in journalism school, as has been the case recently. Recognizing this serves to place the professionalized (read "fetishied") version of journalism in a different light, and weakens models of modern practice that rely on potentially constraining…