jlynch | September 9, 2007Just got back from my public lecture - approximately 90 secular humanists packed into the meeting room to hear me talk about the history of the Intelligent Design Movement and their recent fortunes. The talk lasted a little over an hour and there was plenty of questions and discussion afterwards. All good.
Here [swf] are the slides for the talk (minus some animations).
Update: Because the Flash seems to be causing problems for some people, here are the slides as a PDF. Also I've corrected the head count ... for some reason I had doubled the actual number.
jlynch | September 9, 2007Events
1839 - John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.
Births
1737 - Luigi Galvani, Italian physician and physicist
1922 - Hans Georg Dehmelt, German-born physicist and Nobel laureate
1923 - Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, American virologist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1841 - A. P. de Candolle, Swiss botanist
1941 - Hans Spemann, German embryologist and Nobel laureate
1985 - Paul Flory, American chemist and Nobel laureate
2003 - Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist
jlynch | September 8, 2007Births
1918 - Derek Harold Richard Barton, British chemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1811 - Peter Simon Pallas, German zoologist
1894 - Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician and physicist
1965 - Hermann Staudinger, German chemist and Nobel laureate
1980 - Willard Libby, American chemist and Nobel laureate
1981 - Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist and Nobel laureate
1985 - John Franklin Enders, American scientist and Nobel laureate
jlynch | September 7, 2007I had the pleasure of spending Friday evening as Guest Coach for the Sun Devil women’s soccer team. The Guest Coach program honors faculty who are selected by student-athletes and allows them to get behind the scenes on game day. So 5:30pm saw my daughter and I at the soccer stadium, meeting the players & coaches, and having a good time. I will always remember the look of happiness on my daughter’s face as she sat in the locker room among the players, so a thanks goes out to everyone for making the evening so much fun.
Nine PM unfortunately saw the Sun Devils lose 1-0 to the third ranked…
jlynch | September 7, 2007Events
1936 - The last surviving thylacine dies at the Hobart Zoo.
Births
1707 - Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist
1829 - Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, German organic chemist
1836 - August Toepler, German physicist
1914 - James Van Allen, American space scientist
1917 - John Cornforth, Australian chemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1799 - Louis Guillaume Lemonnier, French botanist
1991 - Edwin McMillan, American physicist
jlynch | September 6, 2007Following on from Oreskes' reply to Schulte, the endocrinologist replies with an open letter over at SPPI, a contrarian mouthpiece. Schulte notes:
I drafted the paper because I had become concerned that patients were being perhaps unduly alarmed by media reports of catastrophic climate change and were coming to harm through resultant stress. Peer-reviewed studies of patients' views on the subject of climate change had reinforced my concern... I am an endocrine surgeon with numerous published papers in the medical journals. My sole concern in this debate is the welfare of patients.
Ummmm.…
jlynch | September 6, 2007This coming Sunday I will be giving a public talk on the Intelligent Design movement for the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix. Details:
Designs on Darwin: A History of the Intelligent Design Movement
September 9th @ 9:00am (Brunch to start, followed by talk)
HomeTown Buffet, 1312 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
Talk is free and open to the public.
jlynch | September 6, 2007Births
1732 - Johan Wilcke, Swedish physicist
1766 - John Dalton, British chemist and physicist
1802 - Alcide d’Orbigny, French naturalist
1829 - Marie Zakrzewska, Polish physician
1876 - John James Richard Macleod, Scottish-born physician, physiologist, and Nobel laureate
1892 - Sir Edward Appleton, English physicist and Nobel laureate
1906 - Luis Federico Leloir, French-born chemist and Nobel laureate
1939 - Susumu Tonegawa, Japanese molecular biologist and Nobel laureate
1943 - Richard J. Roberts, English biochemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1635 - Metius, Dutch mathematician and…
jlynch | September 5, 2007I will, with sadness, note that the tenor Luciano Pavarotti has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 71 and probably the greatest tenor of his generation (source)
This is timeless ...
jlynch | September 5, 2007A few months ago I predicted this would happen. I saw the interface in action over the Summer and, boy, was I impressed. Now you can have all the fun without the phone. Pity it's only 16G though.
jlynch | September 5, 2007As some of you may know, I received my undergraduate and graduate training at University College Dublin (Ireland). Now it seems that there is at least one gullible and uninformed supporter of ID in that esteemed university. John Feehan is a lecturer who works on agricultural management systems and in the Jesuit journal Studies has the following to say:
Proponents of 'intelligent design’ posit a rather directly interventionist role for God. Michael Behe has presented a compelling case to the effect that Natural Selection, as we understand it - the progressive accumulation of small mutations -…
jlynch | September 5, 2007From here:
I'm confident that in the not-to-distant future the information-revolution will sound the death knell for Darwinism. The hard evidence of technology will shake the pillars of evolutionary theory and toss them into the dustbin of history. When America restores true Bible science and accountability to our Creator God into our political and educational institutions, we'll have taken a giant step toward healthier national character and the prevention of crime, life without purpose and the consequences of our condom culture.
jlynch | September 5, 2007Events
1977 - Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched
1984 - STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
Births
1787 - François Sulpice Beudant, French mineralogist and geologist
1792 - Pierre-Armand Dufrénoy, French geologist and mineralogist
1857 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian rocket scientist and inventor
Deaths
1906 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist
1917 - Marian Smoluchowski, Polish physicist
1943 - AleÅ¡ HrdliÄka, Czech anthropologist
1948 - Richard C. Tolman, American mathematical physicist
2002 - David Todd Wilkinson, American astronomer
jlynch | September 4, 2007Events
1956 - The IBM RAMAC 305, the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk storage, is introduced.
Births
1906 - Max Delbrück, German biologist and Nobel laureate
1913 - Stanford Moore, American chemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1784 - César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer
1852 - William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist
1977 - Jean Rostand, French biologist
jlynch | September 3, 2007Apologies to a number of people who had comments held up in moderation in this thread. I've only just returned from three days in San Diego and was not in a position to keep an eye on the comments.
jlynch | September 2, 2007Events
1976 -Viking 2 lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.
Births
1710 - Abraham Trembley, Swiss naturalist
1869 - Fritz Pregl, Slovenian chemist and Nobel laureate
1899 - Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist and Nobel laureate
1905 - Carl David Anderson, American physicist and Nobel laureate
1907 - Loren Eiseley, American anthropologist
1938 - Ryoji Noyori, Japanese chemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
2005 - Richard S.R. Fitter, British ornithologist and botanist
jlynch | September 2, 2007Births
1850 - Woldemar Voigt, German physicist
1853 - Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist and Nobel laureate
1877 - Frederick Soddy, British chemist and Nobel laureate
Deaths
1764 - Nathaniel Bliss, English Astronomer Royal
1832 - Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach, Austrian astronomer
2004 - Joan Oró, Catalan scientist
jlynch | August 31, 2007Events
1804 - Juno, one of the largest main belt asteroids, was discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding.
1914 - The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.
1979 - The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes at a distance of 21,000 km.
Births
1848 - Auguste-Henri Forel, Swiss entomologist
1856 - Sergei Winogradsky, Russian scientist
1877 - Francis William Aston, Nobel laureate in Chemistry
1888 - Andrija Å tampar, Croatian physician
Deaths
1600 - Tadeáš Hájek, Czech physician
1988 - Luis Alvarez,…
jlynch | August 31, 2007Naomi Oreskes’ reply to Schulte got me thinking about the journal Energy & Environment, which appears to be the climate science equivalent of Rivista di Biologia (more here on that particular turkey). The journal was founded in 1990 and it offers a home for climate contrarians. According to this 2005 article, the journal is found in only 25 libraries worldwide and is unlisted in the Journal Citation Reports. Actually, I’ll take that back, it makes Rivista look like Nature.
Just as Rivista has an "interesting" editor in Guiseppe Sermonti, Energy & Environment has an unorthodox editor…
jlynch | August 31, 2007Ah, Labor Day weekend. Sun, fun, and the start of college football. ASU plays San Jose State (home of my Scibling Janet) tomorrow night - the first game under Dennis Erickson. There is should be little doubt that ASU will win, though they may struggle against the Spartans.