Self-exposure – a journalist out of depth

Book Review: The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry by Suzan Mazur.

Price: US$16.50; NZ$35.oo
Perfect Paperback: 376 pages
Publisher: North Atlantic Books (February 9, 2010); Scoop Media Publishing
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1556439245
ISBN-13: 978-1556439247
Journalist Suzan Mazur created a small flurry several years ago with articles on a planned scientific meeting (The 18th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical [...]

Scientific method and the “supernatural”

This is a repeat of a post from over 2 years ago:
Richard Dawkins TV series Enemies of Reason has caused some discussion about the relationship of science to the supernatural. This also comes up in discussions of the nature of science, the science/religion conflict and the motivation behind intelligent design and creationism. Some of the [...]

Belief, knowledge and science

This is a repeat of a post from 18 months back:
A pernicious feature of current attacks on science is the promulgation of the idea that scientific knowledge is “just a belief.” That it has no more validity than any other belief. That non-scientific beliefs should be given the same status or legitimacy as scientific theory.
This [...]

Richard Dawkins in Auckland – update

I reported recently that Richard Dawkins will speak in Auckland next March.
Looks like there has been an overwhelming demand for tickets. To accommodate everyone the organisers have  now arranged a live screening of Richard Dawkins’ only Auckland appearance in 2010. Tickets for the screening are now on sale.
Details of his appearance are:
7.00pm to 8.30pm
Saturday [...]

Richard Dawkins in Auckland next March

This guy leads an extremely busy life. I know he is promoting his recently published books The Greatest Show on Earth and consequently gets into book tours. But his publishers certainly work him hard.
Next March (Wednesday 10th) he is speaking in Wellington during the Writers and Readers Week at the NZ International Arts Festival (see [...]

Appropriate thanks

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 [...]

Galileo and Hollywood

I have always enjoyed Carolyn Porco’s talks. She is the director of CICLOPS, the Cassini Imaging Science Team. Cassini is currently in orbit around Saturn.
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 [...]

Why Evolution Is True

Here’s another great video from the recent AAI Convention. It’s a presentation by Jerry Coyne based on his recently published book “Why Evolution Is True.”
I haven’t read it yet but it has had great reviews. Jerry describes it as complimentary to Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth.
The video is great. Jerry Coyne does present [...]

Richard Dawkins in Wellington next March

Auckland got Richard Dawkins by video this year when he announced the winner of the inaugural Royal Society NZ science Book of the Year award.
Next March Wellington will get him in person. Dawkins will be speaking during the Writers and Readers Week at the NZ International Arts Festival.
Details (evening of Wednesday March 10 at the [...]

Promoting confusion

A great feature of the scientific endeavour is that our ideas, hypotheses and theories are usually tested against reality. In fact we get very worried when we can’t do this. Consequently there has been some philosophical discussion and concern around speculative ideas or hypotheses like string theory (really hypotheses not theories) and the multiple universe [...]