updates

I'm here in San Francisco--just arrived--and tomorrow will be doing a webcast at a fantastic museum called the Exploratorium. This is an open-to-the-public webcast--i.e., you can come see me in person or you can see me through your computer. The webcast starts at 1 pm PST on Wednesday, the 13th. I will be talking about hurricanes for the first time, and even showing some slides on this new subject (for me), though nothing too extensive. We will also be talking about politics and science. Anyway, go here to tune in to the webcast online. It will also be archived, of course.
Once again, I'm speaking on election day, hopefully after the results are in, in Coral Gables, and then in Orlando two days later. These are the last two public speeches for a while--perhaps until 2007. Not sure yet. Again, these are the details: Tuesday, November 78:00-9:00 PMBOOKS & BOOKS265 Aragon AveCoral Gables, FL 33134 Thursday, November 97:30- 9:00 amThe Westin Grand Bohemianfor Planned Parenthood of Greater OrlandoTickets available at www.ppgo.org In the new year, I will be adding a new talk to the repertoire--an Al Gore-style PowerPoint heavy on multimedia which will, of…
I have either been holed up writing somewhere, or on the road speaking, for quite a while now--and the speaking side of things doesn't let up until November 9. Here are the remaining public events: Tuesday, November 78:00-9:00 PMBOOKS & BOOKS265 Aragon AveCoral Gables, FL 33134 Thursday, November 97:30- 9:00 amThe Westin Grand Bohemianfor Planned Parenthood of Greater OrlandoTickets available at www.ppgo.org Among my various trips, I just spent three days in North Carolina doing a series of talks and meeting the locals. And now, thankfully, we've got a picture from my blogger meetup in…
I've just finished up a fun whirlwind tour of the Raleigh-Durham area, which included three talks and lots of meetings with scientists and fellow science bloggers. Abel Pharmboy was my thoughtful and accommodating host, and as far as science bloggers go, I also got to meet Coturnix of A Blog Aound the Clock and Dave Munger of Cognitive Daily. They have posts on my events, too. See here for Abel's banging the gong to announce everything, here for Coturnix's reaction to my first bookstore talk (and our after-hours drinking experiences), and here for Dave Munger's reaction to my second one. I'm…
Okay, I wasn't supposed to be blogging...and now, I'm not any more. At all. Period. Let me just repost my events list for those wishing to catch me on the road in the next month or so; note that a new event, in Miami/Coral Gables, has been added, for election day no less (wonder what that will do to turnout...): Friday, October 274:15 PM-5:45 PMNational Association of Science WritersFall 2006 Annual MeetingTremont Grand Meeting FacilityTremont Plaza HotelBaltimore, MD Saturday, October 287:00 PM-8:30 PMQuail Ridge Books3522 Wade Ave.Raleigh, NC 27607 Sunday, October 294:00 PM-5:30 PMRegulator…
Well...I am not bringing this blog back to life for the moment...but I also can't avoid a major update like this. I'm happy to announce that an article I did for Seed last year, about the Dover evolution trial, is now contained in Houghton-Mifflin's Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006, edited this year by Brian Greene. Obviously this volume, by definition, has lots of great stuff in it, including articles by Daniel Dennett, Dennis Overbye, Charles Mann, and many others. I hope you'll check it out. You can buy the book here.
I have had a very, very good September. I traveled across the country, and back, twice (with offset credits for my carbon). I gave fifteen speeches, to (I would guess) over a thousand people in total. At many of my stops I made new friends, or was able to get reacquainted with old ones. I even got to speak in the Phoenix area where I was born, where my mother grew up, with three of my uncles in the audience. I did umpteen radio interviews, and even caused a radio station to fold (that's the interpretation if you're superstitious, anyway). I signed probably hundreds of books. I had not one,…
As usual, being on the road is starting to wear on me a little bit...but there's one more talk tonight, and then I hole myself up again to work on the hurricane book. This one is in Santa Fe: Friday, September 297:00 PM-8:30 PMCollege of Santa FeThe ForumSanta Fe, NM Meanwhile, Dietram Scheufele also blogged my appearance eariler this week in Madison, WI. As he puts it: "Mooney is one of the very few writers in D.C. at the moment who understand the importance of successful strategic communication about emerging technologies, and who is able to articulate this message very succinctly. We are…
I had a good event at Changing Hands bookstore, in Tempe, Arizona, tonight. So many people came to the talk that the bookstore had to rearrange chairs quickly, in a larger space, to accommodate them all. In the audience, among others, was fellow ScienceBlogger John Lynch, the author of Stranger Fruit and a prof here at Arizona State. And so were not one, not two, but three of my uncles who live in the area...one of whom, my uncle Tom, is pictured here along with John and I. You see, we got beers afterwards. Oh, did we. Tomorrow I'm off to Albuquerque. I love the Southwest. I only wish I…
"...tiresome polemic masquerading as a defense of scientific purity...." "The reader must therefore decide if the narrator is unreliable or just hopelessly naïve...." "Mooney's polemical fervor blinds him to the political content inherent in all discourse that connects science to human affairs." "....his one-dimensional view of the world can only reveal the obvious...." "Were Karl Rove to read this book, I suspect he would be comforted." Such praise for The Republican War on Science comes from Daniel Sarewitz, of Arizona State University, in whose backyard I'll be speaking this evening.…
Fellow science blogger John Fleck has a piece this week in the Albuquerque Journal about yrs truly blowing through New Mexico. An excerpt: They say it's better to be lucky than good, though it helps to be both. That might describe the arc of journalist Chris Mooney's young career. Science policy is not the sort of thing that usually lands on the best-seller lists. But political fireworks is a different story, and Mooney's "The Republican War on Science" has been a hit. "We had no idea this was going to be as big a deal," Mooney said in a phone interview from Bellingham, Wash., the latest…
Tomorrow I head out for five talks in five days in the following locales....New York, NY; Madison, Wisconsin; Tempe, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. This will be accompanied, as usual, by various radio interviews and such. I'll keep you posted on all of that. Meanwhile, for details on any of these five talks, click here.
I'm happy to announce that the paperback edition of The Republican War on Science is a "Paperback Row" pick for this Sunday's Times book review. The Times also links to John Horgan's mostly favorable review, which was part of a cover package last December. Back then, I didn't know that Horgan, like me, was an English major. Now he directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. In other words, Horgan is yet another rebuttal to the Discovery Institute's credentialism about science reporting.
As you can see in this pic of (from left to right) Big Head Rob, Matt Nisbet, and myself, we were stylin' at Science Club Friday night in DC. Although no one, no one, could out-style Matt Nisbet's white blazer. I scoured the Washington, D.C., area for one to match, so that we would both be wearing our "lab" coats, but had zero success. Anyway, I was psyched that many fellow science geeks were able to come to the party, including the following: Wayne Shields (head of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals), Michael Stebbins, Jennifer Ouellette, Sean Carroll, and Sylvia S.…
...Between now and the bday party tomorrow, I am going to try to get some significant work done. It's an important snatch of time, especially as I have another talk on Saturday (in Ohio, info here) and then I'm back on the road Monday. I'll be talking at an event along with PZ up in NYC Tues the 26th; then I'll be in Madison, WI, that evening; in Tempe, Arizona, on the 27th; in Albuquerque, NM, on the 28th; and then in Santa Fe, NM, on the 29th. The details are all here. All of which is a long way of saying, no more blogging for a day or two. In the meantime, I highly recommend that you play…
Check this out, in no particular order: 1. I finally have stuff up on YouTube, two videos. Go watch them if you like. At the moment I'm competing with Sensei Chris Mooney for views and ratings.... 2. For those who missed my Skeptics Society debate with Ron Bailey over who's worse when it comes to abusing science, you can order a copy here. This, I suspect, will not be on YouTube. 3. I appeared last week on Mother Jones radio, you can listen here. Here's a synopsis of what I talked about: "Republican War on Science author Chris Mooney tells us that it's time for scientists to publicly fight…
Helene is getting to be a hell of a storm. Look at how well defined the eye is. Note also that the storm is taking up roughly a 5 degree by 5 degree latitude/longitude square. That's big. Winds of hurricane strength extend outward 50 miles from the center. All of which means that if Helene tracks towards Bermuda, it could cause even more trouble than did Florence. And did I mention that Helene is a Category 3 storm now? That's the second major hurricane for the Atlantic basin this year. Of course, we haven't had any 4s and 5s. Last year around this time, by contrast, we were about to witness…
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 167:30 PM-9:00 PMVillage Books1200 Eleventh StreetBellingham, 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....
ForaTV 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.
My 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.