Science Denial, at Darryl Cunningham Investigates

Simply too good not to share.

Image: Darryl Cunningham Investigates

That's merely the first in a series. Take a few minutes and read the whole thing.

Goldarce is Pure Gold

Good Stuff.

Symphony of Science

Very nice!


Check out The Symphony of Science for more.

[Tip-o-the-Hat to RabidApe]

What's this? Faith AND Reason?!?

 Todd Wood, a Young Earth Creationist, has this to say:

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

Not the sort of thing you generally hear from YEC, and a pleasant surprise. I bestow upon Todd Wood the title of Scientia Causidicus, for demonstrating the capability to be honest, a rational thinker, and to maintain his faith. Thank God for that.
[Hat Tip Evolutionblog and Thoughts from Kansas]

Parrots the Universe and Everything

Douglas Adams on Parrots, the Universe, and Everthing. Grab a drink and a snack, because this is a lllooonnnggg video.

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world's creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity.

Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world's creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity.

The whole video is an hour and a half, so make some time, and grab a snack and a drink.

I Won! I Won!!

Such a contest it was too, since I floated the idea (see first comment) with the intent that creating something like this would be fun. My entry won out among the thousands of submissions and ... well ... maybe it was hundreds ... or at least a dozen ... ok ok, it was just me as far as I know, but I still had fun with it.

From misc

So perhaps I should explain what the heck I'm talking about? I should, but I'm really tired and have to get up very early in the morning, it is going to be short and abrupt:

A new blog - The Thomas Society - by Presbyterian minister Jonathan Weyer and friends, discuss rationality and religion, or maybe religious rationality, something like that (REALLY TIRED), needed an avatar for his blog award, "The Attie".

I'm very happy that Jonathan liked my image. I am happier still to read his blog, because it seems to provide the kind of rational discussion of religion I had given up on ever finding. Jonathan wins too, he's the latest addition to my Scientia Causidicus.

Ride 'Em Cowboy!

A picture is worth a thousand words.



Lots more pictures at Camels With Hammers.



Video here, or see the tweets.



If you missed what this is all about, see this post at Phyrangula.



My favorite, a picture from Islanddave.






For the record, I am an agnostic, and I applaud the Secular Student Alliance in their efforts to shine the light of reason on creationist silliness.

The Tangled Bank

Carl Zimmer has been dropping hints about his forthcoming book; The Tangled Bank [Amazon].

It's coming out in time for {insert mid-winter celebration of you choice here}, so I'm going to be dropping some hints too.

Carl Zimmer is a great science writer; you can find a selection of his articles on his web site or blog.

Science Envy

Read it and weep at Pandas Thumb. [Especially if your name rhymes with Dilliam Wembski.]

Stand in awe at the power of us scientists, we only have to use big words, show lots of data, click our fingers and politicians will um, er, well … ignore us actually. Until real disaster actually does strike.

[Hat Tip 2 A Simple Prop]

Failure is Fun!

Failure is fun, if you do it right, and the Science Fail blog does it right. "Dirty Harry" takes the simple approach of posting anti-science quotes -without comment - and letting them speak for themselves. So are laugh out loud funny. I grabbed a few examples to post here; some real gems like ...

Josh Greenberger: "One fossil is NOT evidence."

Renuo Fides: "The general hypothesis of ID CAN be tested by the scientific method - although not as it pertains to "naturally" occurring life forms."

Jorge: " - by your own use of the term - you confirm it is a theory. Science has very few facts as such - other than data. Biology has many theories but almost no laws or "facts". "

There is more, and there is worse ... FAR worse ... at Science Fail.

Disclaimer: Excessive reading of posts at Science Fail or sites linked to from Science Fail may cause ocular bleeding. The management of this blog is not responsible for injuries that may occur as a result of excessive laughter. Do not taunt Science Fail. Study has shown that 50% of all Science Fail readers are below the median intelligence of all Science Fail readers.

Scientia Causidicus: Steven Dutch

This is the first of what I hope will be a regular series of posts bringing attention to, and hopefully honoring, people who are strong advocates for science. In my own pidgin internet-translation-latin version of the taxonomy of Linnaeus, I am titling this group the Scientia Causidicus (Science Advocates).
To qualify, these people have to say, do, or write something which directly or indirectly advocates good science. If they happen to have a bit of fun with it at the same time, that is even better. There are many people this might apply to, but I will attempt to apply this to people who deserve more attention that they get for their efforts. Note that actual science qualifications are not required (but probably help).
I might have to come up with a separate category for people who promote bad science, and in doing bring attention to what good science really is. I'll need a name for that too, perhaps Scientia Cado (Science Fallacy)?

Back on-topic though ... with no further ado I present my first Scientia Causidicus honoree, Dr. Steven Dutch, Geologist and Professor of Natural and Applied Sciences at University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. Professor Dutch hosts a most interesting collection of writings on
Science, Pseudoscience, and Irrationalism. [image DaytonACS]

This page links to a large group of articles on topics from Science and Pseudoscience to Vaporizing the World Trade Center.

A few selected quotations:

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutability is one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover, I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determine whether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games. Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all you have to do is commit to a criterion for testing. It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-minded enough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?

AND

"Respect"

Every so often I get e-mails from people complaining I don't treat these topics or their believers with respect.

There is nothing in crank movements worthy of respect.

First of all, cranks don't treat the orthodox with respect. They can accuse science of willfully neglecting or falsifying evidence. They can accuse their own nation of bringing down skyscrapers and causing thousands of deaths, or deliberately breaching levees to flood New Orleans, but aim a little critical language at them, and they howl about being "disrespected." Aww, poo' baby.

Also, from Dr. Dutch's University Survival Guide (scroll down about half-way), the Top Ten No Sympathy Lines, which includes:

How Am I Doing In Class?

You're failing.

If you don't know the class material well enough to assess your own progress, and you don't know enough math to estimate your grade given your progress to date, you're failing.

You may luck out and get something higher than an F, but as theologians say, don't confuse mercy with merit.

There is much more, go see for yourself.

Richard Feynman likes Orange Juice (and the Bongos)

[from OpenCulture.com and MetaFilter and Cosmic Variance and Cynical-C and (maybe originally?) Pablompa]

That seems to have been recorded shortly before his death from cancer. Here's is an older video of a bongo player in his prime.