March 28, 2011
The April 2011 edition of Australasian Sciencereports on a survey showing that the majority of Australian adults reject evolution in favour of some form of creationism, either outright special creation or evolution guided by God. I don’t think it is quite as bad as it seems, as the survey was […]
March 19, 2011
Published by admin at March 19, 2011
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As part of National Science Week is a TV series “From Research to Reality”. The first 3 episodes have gone to air already and have been really well received. (WiT (Women in Technology) is featured in one of the episodes.) The Challenge Queensland’s science and innovation sector is at the forefront of […]
March 19, 2011
Published by admin at March 19, 2011
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Check out a very interesting post by David Lappi on trends in global temperature: not just the last 100 years, but the last 10,000 years, the last 5 million years and the last 65 million years. The two striking things about the trends shown are the huge shorter term natural variations […]
March 12, 2011
Published by admin at March 12, 2011
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“Feared, hated and adored” is what Kzinti cubs feel about their fathers (Kzin are intelligent carnivores invented by science fiction writer Larry Niven), and I can’t think of a better description of people’s attitude to Ayn Rand – though not usually in the one person! I think we’re going to see a […]
February 5, 2011
Published by admin at February 5, 2011
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According to a report in Science, President Obama has become an advocate of market forces: Letting market forces help the United States reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by choosing “cleaner” sources of electricity has been a popular notion among some Republicans, who oppose the Democratic alternative of putting a price on […]
February 4, 2011
Published by admin at February 4, 2011
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We in the West have a great life, where for all the limitations on our rights and freedoms, we do have rights and freedoms. But we often forget the price someone, somewhere, somewhen, paid for those rights and freedoms. Reporting on the anti-government protests in Egypt, The Washington Post quotes […]
January 31, 2011
Published by admin at January 31, 2011
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As the “is-ought problem” in philosophy is the unifying thread in my chapter “Good Without God” in The Australian Book of Atheism, I thought I’d check out what Wikipedia has to say on the topic. A jarring omission was – no mention of Ayn Rand’s elegant solution to the problem. On […]
December 20, 2010
A note in an Analog science fiction magazine from the 1960’s referred to the word “mumpsimus” as a word that doesn’t mean what people are likely to think. And what a delightful word it is: mumpsimus noun ( pl. -muses) A traditional custom or notion adhered to although shown to be unreasonable; a person who […]
December 15, 2010
An interesting report on technological progress in Biblical archaeology in Sciencemagazine, on the American Schools Of Oriental Research Annual Meeting: At the meeting, a series of biblical archaeologists came to the podium for 2 hours of data-rich presentations—and put their colleagues on notice that their field is in the midst of […]