gregladen | May 24, 2010In the first part of this discussion, I reminded you that we are talking about "falsehoods." "Falsehood" is a term I and others have co-opted and have used for well over a decade in anthropology and biology courses across the land. The idea is to identify a statement that, when uttered in some particular demographic or sociocultural context, invokes a relatively consistent set of meanings in the minds of those present, such that those meanings are at least iffy, probably wrong, and often (but certainly not always) offensive and destructive in some way. Such a construct ... this falsehood…
gregladen | May 24, 2010Or should I say "ice."
The Phoenix Mars Lander seems to be dead in the dust, with its solar panels having suffered severe winter ice damage as shown by photos from the Odyssey Orbiter:
The blue color on the left shows clean, reflective, round solar panels. The blacky-browny image on the right indicates that one of the solar panels is, essentially, gone and the other is yecked up.
More imagery and information about the photos are here.
More information about the Phoenix mission here: Press release by D.C. Agle and Dwayne Brown.
gregladen | May 24, 2010My honored colleague Vanessa Woods, author of Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo (which I am currently reviewing .... stay tuned) will be on Skeptically Speaking this coming Friday, so don't miss that.
Also, yours truly will be on (not live but recorded assuming certain technical difficulties will be worked out) doing something new and unexpected.
You won't want to miss either. Details here. I'll remind you again.
gregladen | May 24, 2010Go pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and watch this PolitiPorn. Take notes. Discuss.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
gregladen | May 23, 2010Oil firm BP may be "pushed out of the way" if it fails to perform in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clean-up, a top US official has warned.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the British company had missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal a blown-out oil well.
source
gregladen | May 23, 2010Skeptically Speaking's Massimo Pigliucci interview is now on line here. He talks about his book: Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk
gregladen | May 23, 2010Kelly McCullough, author of the Raverin series (starting with WebMage of fantasy/science fiction and dealing with artificial intelligence, magical computer technology, and mythology) will be making a local appearance here in the Twin Cities. Those of you who have followed the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair story already know the place: Har Mar Shopping Center. Or, to be more exact, at the Barnes and Noble at Har Mar.
The Har Mar visit will coincide with the release of McCullough's latest book.
Day: May 25th (Tuesday)
Time: 7:00 PM
See you there! (I'm going to try very hard to make…
gregladen | May 23, 2010A "falsehood" is a belief held by a number of people that is in some way incorrect. That incorrectness may be blatant, it may be subtle, it may be conditional, it may be simple, it may be complex. But, the unraveling of the belief, even if much of that belief is in fact true, can be a learning experience in which future thinking about the issue is transformed. If the examination of the falsehood is accomplished in a thoughtful manner and without too much sophistry, this can be a rewarding experience. (If not, it can be rather awaste oftime.)
In order for a falsehood to "work" as a learning…
gregladen | May 23, 2010Harakat Al-Shabab is a militant Islamic youth movement engaged in the Somali war. Yesterdaythey mortared the presidential palace in Omgadishu, setting off a fight killing 14 people.
A landslide caused by heavy rains and a flooding river on the slope of Nyiragongo killed over 50 people in the DR Congo.
A gay couple in Malawi has been sentenced to 14 years (max) at hard labo for "gross indecency and unnatural acts."
The judge said he wanted to protect the public from "people like you".
Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, have been in jail since they were arrested in December…
gregladen | May 22, 2010 ... (and one other guy). And Gardner died on Saturday.
He was born in October 1914. So that made him ...
Do the math.
Here is a sampling of his works. He published dozens of books, IIRC, so this is a very loose sample.
Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games
When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That
Sphere Packing, Lewis Carroll, and Reversi: Martin Gardner's New Mathematical Diversions (The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library)
Entertaining Science Experiments with Everyday Objects
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science)…
gregladen | May 22, 2010
The mother (on the right) was raised in captivity, released, got pregnant, and is now raising her daughter on the Waterberg, South Africa.
gregladen | May 21, 2010
Probably a member of Euphorbia milii, aka, "Crown of Thorns" or "Christ Plant."
gregladen | May 21, 2010OK, before you answer, I'm going to tell you what I think. No. But that is not what is going on here (my snarky title is designed to get the attention of the usual suspects who will decry what is going on at Sandwalk Blog as repression). What is going on is a community of science-oriented people asking the Royal Ontario Museum to be more responsible and thoughtful in their programming.
We at the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) at the Centre for Inquiry (Canada) and its supporters were dismayed to learn that the Royal Ontario Museum will be sponsoring a talk…