Subscription & email updates

here are two convenient ways of keeping in touch with entries on this blog – email updates and RSS subscriptions.

Email updates

Email updates of the latest posts are sent out daily (depending on posting frequency. These usually contain the full text and links. The service is provided by Feedburner, your email address is not identified and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Subscribe to email updates via this link:  Subscribe by Email

RSS feed

If you are familiar with RSS feeds and News Readers you can follow Open Parachute posts via an RSS feed. Simply add it to your news reader and you will get notification of every post. Want to find out more about news readers? Have a look at Google Reader or Bloglines.

Subscribe to Open Parachute

These buttons enable subscroption via google:

or a range of other news aggregators:

Other subscriptions

You can also subscribe to comment on Open Parachute and to RSS feeds or emails updates for posts on specific subjects – at this stage New Zealand blog rankings and comments. Use the links below

Subscribe to Comments
Subscribe to NZ Blog Rankings
Subscribe to NZ blog rankings by Email

Permalink

See also

Hand of God

Paul Cultrera

I watched the documentary Hand of God the other night. It left me deeply angry.

The film was made by Joe Cultrera and documents the sexual abuse suffered by his brother Paul as a child. The abuser was the Catholic priest  Joseph Birmingham. Paul was abused as an alter boy in the 1960s and told no one, including his family, for 30 years. Meanwhile the priest, despite other allegation of sexual abuse, was promoted by the diocesan (seems to be a common way for the church to ignore the problems it creates).

Science blogging prize

Phil Plait points our (A new blog prize: the Quarks!) that science blogs have been under-represented in annual blog awards. So he is welcoming the announcement from 3 Quarks Daily of four annual blog prizes. They are for Science, Arts & Literature , Politics and Philosophy.

Science is to be the first – to be announced June 21 with nominations of blog posts by Midnight (NYC time) June 1. The first place award ‘will be called the “Top Quark,” and will include a cash prize of one thousand dollars; the second place prize, the “Charm Quark,” will include a cash prize of three hundred dollars; and the third place winner will get the honor of winning the “Strange Quark,” along with two hundred dollars.”‘

There are a number of NZ science blogs now who should consider nominating a post (e.g. simon.net.nz, Science Media Centre Blog, Physics Stop, Henry, Cr!key Creek, Hot Topic, Bioblog and I apologise for those I have missed). I guess chances are remote alongside the high ranking US science blogs. But you never know. The nomination process itself may bring a bit of traffic and let people know that we have such blogs in New Zealand.

Scientific laptop fashion?

I must upgrade my computer soon. Meanwhile I keep my eyes open to see what is available and what might be suitable for me. I have even considered a laptop – so am naturally interested in what people are using.

I recently watched the videos of the Origins Symposium. It was great and well worth the time. However, I was a little distracted by the laptops presenters used. As many of the presentations were by panels of five or so people sitting in front of the audience their laptops were often lined up in a row.

Patricia Churchland favours Macs but steven Pinker doesn't!

Pimping Ida

Local blog, Bioblog, has a brief informative post about the fossil Ida and the public relations hoopla around it (see a wonderful fossil – but not a missing link). This hoopla is a worry – it’s not the way to do science. I was shocked to find out that public release of information on the fossil, and the first scientific publication on it, coincided also with publication of a book and screening of a TV documentary! Big money is involved.

The New Humanist goes into more detail about the PR spin around Ida (see Pimping Ida and Ida fever).

Permalink

See also:
The Link

Similar articles

Subscribe to evolution category

Public hearing for Salinger case

Mediation between Jim Salinger and hi former employer, Crown Research Institute NIWA, has failed. There will now be a pubn;ic hearing before the Employment Relations Authority. According to Stuff.

“It is a bit sad that common sense could not prevail, but now we will go to the next stage,” the Crown agency’s long-serving principal scientist said.

His lawyer has lodged a claim with the Employment Relations Authority, but would not reveal details.

Employment law specialist Peter Cullen said the next step would involve Dr Salinger filing a statement with the authority, setting out his grievance and how he wanted Niwa to solve it. The hearing would be public.

“The statement could include reinstatement to his job, reimbursement of lost wages and compensation for humiliation and distress,” he said.

See also:
Clamping down on science communication
Good luck Jim

Agnostic/atheist labels

I get annoyed with people who won’t accept how I describe myself. Those who respond to my self-description as an atheist by saying: “No you’re not. You’re an agnostic.” It’s interesting that this response usually comes from theists – and never from other atheists.

Jonathan West has some interesting comments on this labelling at The Guardian (see I’m an atheist, OK?). He describes this disagreement on definitions as “scattering confusion in its wake like a muckspreader in autumn.”

Poles Apart – wrong process, right conclusion?

A new climate change assessment book, Poles Apart by Gareth Morgan and John McCrystal, was launched at Parliament on Tuesday. The audience contained representatives of both sides of this debate. The main speaker was Dr Nick Smith, Minister for Climate Change Issues.

This is a somewhat unusual contribution to discussion on this issue. It is not, itself, produced by climate scientists. Nor does it come from well reconginsed sceptics of climate change – although the authors admit to seeing the IPCC reports as “alarmist.”

The greatest show

Here’s a book to look forward to.

Coming this September is Richard Dawkins‘ latest book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. I understand that this book will engage more with the arguments of those who seek to deny this evidence – the creationist/intelligent design proponents.

It should be good. Not only is Dawkins an excellent presenter and populariser of science – he is also an extremely good writer. This is why he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001.

Religious moral relativism – another example

This example of religious moral relativism from the International Humanist and Ethical Union Another blow to Universal Human Rights.

The Saudi Gazette announced today (14 May 2009) that, exactly as they promised, the OIC is moving ahead with the creation of an “Islamic” Human Rights Commission. As IHEU warned in a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2008, this commission will have as its guiding document not the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but the Cairo Declaration of 1990 which refers to the Sharia as its “only source of reference” to human rights, ignoring completely the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights to which almost all Islamic states are party. When IHEU tried to refer to this incompatibility in the plenary of the Human Rights Council we were silenced on a point of order when the Pakistani delegate claimed “it insulting to our faith to discuss the Sharia in this forum”. The president of the Council agreed, and ruled that it would no longer be permissible to discuss in detail any particular system of law. The effect of that ruling has been to place any human rights abuse carried out in the name of religion outside the scope of international law.

The intention in creating the Islamic commission is clear: International Human Rights norms will no longer apply to anyone living in an Islamic State, their rights will be defined exclusively in terms of the Sharia. And in the words of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the OIC, “the preservation of the Islamic family values have been enshrined in the OIC charter”.

Roy W Brown

IHEU main repersentative, UN Geneva

Permalink

Similar articles

Related articles by Zemanta

• Johann Hari: Stand up for the right to criticise religion (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Inversion Of Human Rights (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• United Nations – Outrage at UN Human Rights Council resolution on defamation of religions (newswire.ca)