cmooney | September 17, 2006
I've kinda missed hurricane blogging--even though you readers seem to enjoy fights over "intelligent design" much more. In any case, here are hurricanes Gordon and Helene, drifting harmlessly out to sea (though Helene might still have a few surprises in store). In general, it's been that kind of year, folks. All the really dramatic hurricane action has been in the Pacific. At this point, it's possible that the U.S. may get an entire year-long reprieve from major hurricane threats; that Ernesto will wind up being our worst 2006 landfalling storm. That certainly would be nice.
Meanwhile, I'm…
cmooney | September 16, 2006
Hoping to see some Bald Eagles as I make the 80 plus mile drive from Seattle up to Bellingham today, in order to deliver this talk:
Saturday, September 16
7:30 PM-9:00 PM
Village Books
1200 Eleventh Street
Bellingham, WA 98225
I'm feeling a bit under the weather--to much masquerading about--but as long as I've got plenty of water I should still be able to speechify. Anyway I've never been to this part of the country before, so I'm really looking forward to it. Stop by if this is your area....
cmooney | September 15, 2006ForaTV was there filming my very well attended talk in Mountain View, CA, earlier this week, and you can watch the whole event through this link (scroll down). I cannot find a direct link to the program, unfortunately.
On the left bar, under "Sights and Sounds," I'm also building a list of links to my some of my best permanently archived radio and TV appearances, so check them out.
cmooney | September 15, 2006Okay, the "rebuttal" (PDF) of my work from the Discovery Institute went online early today. So I have at least gotten to peruse it briefly. I can't allege that I was "surprised" by it, though the timing of its release remains curious.
Anyway, you can peruse the document yourself, here, and compare it with my chapter on ID. I've done so, and, well...I'll tell you my opinion later. This is the time for your own reactions.
P.S.: Casey Luskin came to my talk last night. I appreciate his openness to hearing the other point of view, and he seems like a perfectly nice guy. However I gave him a…
cmooney | September 14, 2006The Discovery Institute is apparently going to come out with a report tomorrow outlining 14 "false facts" in my book. I hope that the first I hear about the contents of this report is not on the air with Michael Medved. We'll see.
Still, we can start with Discovery's press release announcing the so-far-unpublished report, and see what kinds of critiques they're promising. Let's take the first:
Mooney writes: "Wherever uncertainty remains in the current evolutionary account--and as we have seen, uncertainty can never be fully dispelled in science--ID theorists swoop in and claim, "God must…
cmooney | September 14, 2006Man, I just arrived in Seattle and had scarcely gotten a nap in when I woke up to find this:
SEATTLE -- In his book The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney declares war on intelligent design, calling it a "reactionary crusade" promoted by "[s]cience abusers." Discovery Institute now responds to Mooney's war on intelligent design (ID) by publishing a detailed report, "Whose War Is It, Anyway? Exposing Chris Mooney's Attack on Intelligent Design," documenting 14 major errors Mooney makes when writing about ID in his book. The report will be available online on Friday, Sept. 15.
"Why do so…
cmooney | September 14, 2006My main thought on departing Portland this morning is, jeez, I'll be back in like three days.
On September 18, I will be speaking at Reed College at the invite of the Reed Secular Alliance.
Portland's Reed College, according to the Christian Century, is the most secular college in the nation--the number one school where "students ignore God on a regular basis."
The event, at Eliot Hall on the Reed Campus, will take place in a chapel.
cmooney | September 14, 2006I'm about to head to the Portland airport now...Seattle next. Today only contains one event, no radio bookings:
Thursday, September 14
6:00 PM-7:30 PM
Elliott Bay Books
101 South Main Street
Seattle, WA 98104
Last night at the Powell's Technical Books store was a great event. I think they were a bit overwhelmed by the crowd, not used to that kind of thing. I don't know how many were there--well over fifty, certainly, but probably less than a hundred. I gave one of my most dynamic talks yet, largely due to the fact that I didn't have a podium to hide behind, which is something I ought to keep…
cmooney | September 13, 2006I've just found an online interview that I did with the Portland-based bookstore Powell's, where I'll also be appearing tonight. For some reason I hadn't tracked this down before now. You can read it here. Excerpt:
Have you ever taken the Geek Test? How did you rate?
I'm not sure what the Geek Test is so probably not. But if it's an accurate test I ought to rate fairly highly.
I just noticed that Powell's also made the paperback edition of my book a Powells.com staff pick, which I really appreciate. I'm looking forward to checking out the scene tonight at Powell's Technical Books store.....
cmooney | September 13, 2006Okay, I'm readying myself for the criticisms and hate mail....I have agreed to debate Jonathan Wells again, this time for an hour. And it's going to be on a conservative show: The Michael Medved Show out of Seattle. We're doing it in studio, from 1 to 2 pm PT, on Friday.
Okay, now's your chance to fire away with all the reasons why I shouldn't be doing this. Or, if you're in the mood, feel free to post any constructive comments concerning my last performance against Wells; or, thoughts on what I might do differently this time; or, vivid descriptions of just how badly I'm going to get my butt…
cmooney | September 13, 2006
Karl J. Mogel was there last night at Booksmith in Haight-Ashbury, and he's got a long rundown on the talk, plus lotsa pictures like the one above. Check it out.
Meanwhile, Brian from Backseat Driving was there the night before out in Mountain View, and also has some reactions. FYI Brian: I wasn't saying we shouldn't oppose Richard Pombo, just that he might not be the most vulnerable enemy of science to target in the upcoming elections--and that we ought to focus on races where a difference can really be made. Of course, if I'm wrong, and if Pombo really is vulnerable, then I take it back.…
cmooney | September 12, 2006I'll be on this show from 8:30 to 9:00 am PT, or 11:30 to 12 pm ET today. I realize that's not a lot of notice. But you should be able to figure out how to listen in from here....
cmooney | September 11, 2006I've just gotten some of the pictures from my Thursday talk in La Jolla at the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals conference. They look great, thanks to Holly Connor for taking them. Here they are:
That's me using some audiovisual effects during my talk. If you want to know what it is that I'm actually doing, come out and hear me speak!
Meanwhile, that's me laughing at what is probably one of my own jokes....
After the talk, I received the ARHP "Preserving Core Values in Science" award from president & CEO Wayne Shields. Mimi Zieman, an M.D. who chaired the session…
cmooney | September 11, 2006In my new talk, I strongly emphasize that scientists need to be strategically aware of how they are communicating their knowledge and their results in politically contentious areas. If they're not careful, not only might they communicate badly--but what they say might actually backfire.
It' hard to think of a better case study than the recent controversy over the latest work by the biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology. ACT's scientists published a study in Nature about deriving pluripotent stem cell lines from single cells taken from an embryo, a result touted as "an approach that does not…
cmooney | September 10, 2006I've got a busy day tomorrow in the Bay Area. So busy, unfortunately, that I probably won't have any time to track Hurricane Flo, which could be our most damaging storm of the year. I also doubt I'll be watching the perhaps-soon-to-be Tropical Storm Gordon, or keeping an eye on ShanShan in the Pacific.
Instead, I'll be shouting my barbaric "war on science" yawp from the rooftops. First, I'll be appearing at 10 AM PST, for an hour, on the Ronn Owens Show on KGO-AM 810. I believe this is the top rated talk show in the Bay area, and I'm honored to have been invited back on the air. You should be…
cmooney | September 9, 2006My ScienceBlogging brothers and sisters have been checking out The Republican War on Science in paperback, and I appreciate recent reactions from the following (in no particular order): Uncertain Principles, Respectful Insolence, Thoughts from Kansas, Afarensis, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Discovering Biology in a Digital World, Mike the Mad Biologist, the Scientific Activist, Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge, and Thoughts from Kansas (again!). Thanks to you all. A few excerpted comments below (sorry I couldn't quote everybody!):
Respectful Insolence: "...one of the things that…
cmooney | September 9, 2006
Flo is getting organized, finally. Maximum sustained winds are at 70 mph, and minimum central pressure is now 990 mb. By the next advisory this storm may be classified as a hurricane (if it isn't one already). The media, I'm sure, must be getting very excited.
Hurricanes run the gamut in size, and Florence happens to be a very large storm in terms of its spatial scale. And that makes a very big difference, as Jeff Masters notes:
Florence has a very large swath of tropical storm force winds that have been blowing for many days over a huge stretch of ocean. These factors, when combined with…
cmooney | September 8, 2006
TS Florence is giving the forecasters a hell of a time. They can't see any real reason why it hasn't strengthened--but it hasn't. Chalk up another mystery to the weird Atlantic hurricane season of 2006. As forecaster Lixion Avila amusingly puts it in his latest discussion, which follows upon multiple prior predictions of intensification that have been belied by events:
LAST TWO VISIBLE SATELLITE IMAGES PRIOR TO SENDING THIS ADVISORY SUGGESTS THAT THE CLOUD PATTERN IS A LITTLE BETTER ORGANIZED AND THE CENTER APPEARS TO BE TUCKED INTO THE CONVECTION. IF THIS TREND TOWARD ORGANIZATION CONTINUES…
cmooney | September 8, 2006Having done a lot of traveling and speaking, I've come to know very well that there are better and worse days in terms of how well a talk comes off, how many of the things-that-inevitably-go-wrong actually go really wrong, and so forth.
By these lights, yesterday was a near perfect day and a really great start to the book tour.
The speech at the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals conference, where I received the annual "Preserving Core Values in Science" award (the last awardee was FDA whistleblower Susan Wood), was attended by hundreds and extremely well received. It was the…
cmooney | September 7, 2006
Don't look now...but the latest forecast has Florence as a strong Category 2 storm hitting Bermuda in 96 hours. Of course, that's still a long range outlook subject to the usual caveats and uncertainties. I don't know how vulnerable Bermuda is to hurricanes due to geography and such. But you know they've got to be watching this one closely.....