There seems to be a big mobilisation of climate change deniers at the moment. Someone on Twitter described selective use of stolen emails, “Climategate”, as pre-Copenhagen smears. They added a quote from Churchill which I think is very apt: “A lie is halfway round the world before the truth can get its pants on.”
Most of the local media seems to be taking a relatively balanced approach to the Climategate email issue (see for example A climate scandal, or is it just hot air?). However, we now have a “controversy” manufactured by the local Climate Science Coalition an Climate Conversation Group. A group of climate change deniers, none of them climate scientists themselves, who attempt to cast doubt on the science produced by real climate scientists. This started with a press release (Are we feeling warmer yet?). picked up and promoted by Ian Wishart (a local conspiracy theorist and climate change denier) and some local conservative and religious apologist blogs (see for example I confess I now believe in manmade Global Warming, Climate scientists caught lying and New Zealand not warming?).
Basically, it was a manipulation of raw data from NZ weather stations to support their preconceived claim of no temperature change over time. Accompanied by a claim that NIWA has dishonestly adjusted the same data to produce a temperature change.
This guy leads an extremely busy life. I know he is promoting his recently published books The Greatest Show on Earthand consequently gets into book tours. But his publishers certainly work him hard.
The University of Auckland is pleased to present one of Britain’s foremost science writers Richard Dawkins in his only Auckland appearance.
Richard Dawkins will be introduced by Brian Boyd, The University of Auckland’s Distinguished Professor of English. He teaches a course in Literature and Science that includes Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker.
About Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins will present evidence for his argument that evolution is an incontrovertible fact. In his new book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, the renowned evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist takes on creationists, including followers of “intelligent design” and all those who question evolution through natural selection.
Tickets will be available from iTicket (go to RICHARD DAWKINS LIVE! – iTICKET). The Auckland Alumni pre-sales have sold out but you can pre-register for sales to the general public starting November 30th.
Some of the more extreme climate change deniers, and others who have an anti-science agenda, continue to dredge through the domestic debris of the emails stolen by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. Their conclusions are, of course, predictable. Meanwhile, the balanced media summary oif this fiasco is probably well represented by George Monbiot in the Guardian: “The leaked exchanges are disturbing, but it would take a conspiracy of a very different order to justify sceptics’ claims.” (see Global warming rigged? Here’s the email I’d need to see ).
I particularly liked his depiction of the email that the climate change deniers and their allies would dearly love to find. It’s a great satire and portrays some of the silliest conspiracy theories promulgated by deniers. Continue reading →
With the US Thanksgiving holiday coming up I thought it worth repeating this article from 2 years back.
There are many religious ceremonies and prayers giving thanks to a god. I often think these are rude on two grounds:
I many case these are imposed on people who don’t share the belief in a god (consider our parliamentary prayers, Christian prayers and “grace” in a mixed social situations);
Thanks are directed at a mythical being while the real people responsible for the goodness in the world are ignored.
The later point was made by Daniel C. Dennett in his article THANK GOODNESS! In this he expressed his thanks for recovery from nine hours of serious heart surgery. It’s worth reading the full article but consider this extract:Continue reading →
It’s amazing how much we are finding out about other bodies in the solar system these days. And the images we get back from some of our robotic spaceships can be incredible.
Here’s one taken by Cassini during a deep swoop past Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. This is an intriguing moon because it is thought to contain an ocean of water below an ice surface. It is also very active with plumes of material shooting at least 1000 km into space. In fact, these plumes may be contributing material to Saturn’s rings.
The swoop, early this month, was the deepest yet brought the spacecraft to about 100 km from the moon’s surface. it also took the craft through the heart of a plume enabling further investigation of its compositions and density. Scientists thinks the heating and tectonic activity arises from tidal forces caused by proximity to Saturn. There is even speculation that this energy and the presence of liquid water could provide conditions for life on the moon.
The current “scandal” erupting around the hacking of servers at the University of East Anglias’ Climate Research Centre is rather predictable. The public release of stolen emails has been seized on by climate change deniers as evidence for their claims of manipulated data and faulty peer-review. Even more dishonestly they have been used to attack the integrity of science, and scientists, in general – quite apart form any climate change issue (see for example WarmingGate, The scientific community and self-criticism, Climate scientists caught lying and How the Global Warming Scientists Really Work at four local religious apologetics blogs). On the other hand, researchers and many newspaper commentators say the emails show nothing more than frank discussion between scientists around the world and details of their collaboration on research projects and journal articles.
Price: US$43:16 Hardcover: 394 pages Publisher: Roberts and Company Publishers; 1 edition (October 15, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0981519474 ISBN-13: 978-0981519470
Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic
This Tuesday is the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species“. And earlier this year we celebrated the 200th anniversary of his birth.
These anniversaries have been marked by publication of books about Darwin’s life, his ideas and various aspects of evolutionary science. Most of these are aimed at the adult reader. But here is one which will appeal to school children and young adults – an important section of readers.
The Tangled Bank is an introductory text book. It will be ideal for introductory classes on evolution and biology. But it is also going to appeal to many adults, and especially to families.
So far I have found 126 NZ blogs with publicly accessible sitemeter stats. This is about 20% of the total on my database.
The blogs are listed in the table below, together with daily visits and page view numbers averaged over the previous 7 days. The data was that given by by the NZ blog ranking tool on November 19th.
Have a look at that tool. Its a way of comparing your own blog’s performance from day to day - a roller coaster ride which can be quite exciting!
Just be aware that it relies on spreadsheets at Googles Docs and data is not always available. If the data is missing or incomplete, wait a while and reload the page. it will eventually show up.
Meanwhile I am still keen to hear of any other blogs with publicly available sitemeter stats that I have missed. Contact me if you know of any. Continue reading →
In this talk given at the AAI 2009 Convention she covers some interesting topics (see video below). These include the question of science and atheism, can science determine if a god exists and the contribution of Galileo to the scientific method. I think the latter subject is very important in the International Year of Astronomy. We keep being distracted from it by religious apologists whose only motive is to find excuses for the Church’s treatment of Galileo, in the process often distorting or denying Galileo’s scientific contributions. Porco also discusses problems with the modern-day public attitudes towards science.
Poor old Charles Darwin. In this year of celebration, when we mark the 200th year since his birth and the 150th year since the publication of his great work The Origin of Species, he is being subjected to a real deluge of misrepresentation. The ideological opponents of science, particularly evolutionary science, have been working overtime to quote him out of context, to cherry pick quotes, to “prove” he was a horrible person and that the “materialist” heart of science must be ripped out.
This guy leads an extremely busy life. I know he is promoting his recently published books ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3557ea39-1280-4523-9842-a5a3088c388e)
goodness in the world are ignored.
by 
Subscribe to Open Parachute
Subscribe by Email
