gregladen | October 19, 2009I've been checking in on people's happiness quotients, and I have many things to report. Mostly good, so if you are looking for trouble or just feeling misanthropic, don't go below the fold.
Let me start with my friend elle (that is her secret code name). She has been living on the South Pole since the "beginning" of "winter" last year, almost a year ago. That has been quite an adventure and I'm sure over the long term she will be very happy to have done it. But at the moment I think she really really really wants to fly north. As soon as possible. Well, as best as I can reconstruct…
gregladen | October 18, 2009Yesterday, I posted a comment on my facebook account that resulted in more response and discussion than any comment I had previously made. The issues at hand pertain to privacy, how public high schools are run, how colleges are marketed. This also may pertain to the ongoing discussion of civility.
Below I describe two scenarios which are anonomized versions of real events that happened a few days apart in two different schools. Please tell me what you think of them.
Scenario I
Ninth grade. An elective class. A faculty member from a local vocational college comes to class to give a…
gregladen | October 17, 2009Dogs:
Cats:
Bonus Cat (below the fold because it also involves mean humans):
And no, I can't explain that.
And now, from the famous Animal Face off series, Wolf vs. Cougar Remix...
(original wolf vs. cougar is here, embedding disallowed)
This is what is wrong with science education in America!!!!
gregladen | October 17, 2009There are several methods.
1) The lower the social security number, the older the bird, but this does not work on most migratory species;
2) You ask for its birth certificate, but they often fake these.
3) Go here and read this post on how to do it using Science.
gregladen | October 17, 2009The Giant's Shoulders Blog Carnival is now up and running at Quiche Moraine. This is an outstanding carnival pointing to some blog posts you will not want to miss.
Seriously. Click here.
gregladen | October 16, 2009The One Hundred and Elevendieth I and the Bird Web Carnival ... which is all about birds ... is posted here, at one of my favorite blogs: The Twin Cities Naturalist. Please go check it out. Click on all the links. Digg and stuble upon, fark and reddit, and maybe even read each of the excellent entries into this, the longest running blog carnival of nature topics ever.
gregladen | October 16, 2009Omar Mouallem, Desiree Schell and Greg Laden (that's me) had a very interesting conversation Wednesday night about how skepticism gets noticed. Through comedy, music, blogging, scientific studies, and other outlets, how do we bring people on board? We decided blogging was irrelevant but that music was cool, we came down divided on what some call "attention grabbing stunts" like blasphemy day and killing crackers. And we are going to finish our conversation tonight, on Skeptically Speaking Episode 29.
Be there or be pie! (And we all know pie are square).
gregladen | October 16, 2009The following is an abstract from an article by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education called “WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE "TEACH THE CONTROVERSY" SLOGAN?” available here.
a repost
Teachers are often exhorted by creationists to "teach the controversy." Although such encouragement sounds on the surface like a proposal for critical thinking instruction, the history of the creationist movement in North America belies this claim. Rather than teach students to analyze and evaluate actual scientific controversies, the intent of "teach the controversy" exhortations is to have…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Down below the fold where it says "CLICK HERE" .... don't click there! First, make sure the following things are true:
1) You are alone.
2) Your computer's sound is turned up.
2) Nobody can hear you.
OK, go...
CLICK HERE
gregladen | October 15, 2009I have been to Uganda a number times, but only illegally or by accident, in which case I was in the remote bush, or in transit, stopping at Entebbe Airport, so I can't say that I know much, directly, about the culture there. However, I have spent months in Kenya and years in Zaire/Congo, and a little time in Tanzania and Rwanda, so I've kinda got Uganda surrounded. I can tell you that the political culture and government of Zaire/Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda are very, very different from one another. At the same time, all of these countries have certain commonalities that are relevant…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Roughly half of the people in the United States reject one or more fundamental tenets of science (most commonly evolution), while a larger percent, perhaps more than 80 percent depending on how we measure, would fail a basic science test. A strong majority of those American citizens who would claim to have strong feelings about one or more science policy issues such as climate change, stem cell research, or nuclear power either know very little about the relevant science or are so badly informed regarding the science that their knowledge is not merely insufficient, but is actually opposite…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Constructivism. Determinism. It is all a bunch of hooey.
A recent paper published by PLoS (Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces) throws a sopping wet blanket on widely held deterministic models of human behavior. In addition, the work underscores the sometimes spooky cultural differences that can emerge in how people see things, even how people think.
A Repost
The following is from a PLoS press release:
Because face recognition is effortlessly achieved by people from all different cultures it was considered to be a basic mechanism universal among humans. However, by using analyses…
gregladen | October 14, 2009How to find out the official US time:
Click here for the US Gummit Official Time Web site.