Physical Sciences
pharyngula | March 12, 2007Lynn Margulis has sent the opening statement for her blog tour below. You should feel free to respond to it, raise other questions of any relevant sort, or say whatever you want in the comments; she'll be along later today to respond to those that interest her. I will be policing the comments, so trolls, please don't bother; serious comments only, and keep in mind that she's only going to respond to a limited subset, so make 'em good.
In addition, she'll be available later today in the Pharyngula chat room (channel #pharyngula on irc.zirc.org; if you don't have an IRC client, that link will…
aardvarchaeology | March 10, 2007Wednesday last I asked Aard's growing ranks of regular Dear Readers to say "Hey" and introduce themselves. And the response was great! Many, many thanks for all the appreciative comments.
My purpose in asking this was twofold: a) I wanted to get to know you guys better, b) I wanted to know how I could improve the blog. The first part of the plan worked fine: I am very honoured to have such a diverse and insightful readership! But the second part kind of backfired. In fact, it's a classic case of a poorly thought-through research design, and I should really be ashamed of myself. In fact, my…
clock | March 9, 2007Yes, today, PZ is 50 years old!
Archy, Grrrlscientist and myself are compiling linkfests today. Just make sure that you have the word "Myers" in your post (having just "PZ" messes up with some search engines - too short).
This year, Dan Rhoades is the first out of the box with a cool tentacled cartoon.Richard Dawkins wrote a poem.Grrrlscientist did a scientific study.
PZ himself acknowldeges his age.Last year, I made this cephalopod collage (click to enlarge).Greg Laden wrote a limerick.John Wilkins wrote lyrics for a Broadway musical.Sean Carrol gave PZ a... well, you'll have to see for…
goodmath | March 5, 2007 One of my fellow SBers, Kevin over at Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge wrote a scathing article reviewing an incredibly bad anti-evolution blog. There's no way that I can compete with Kevin's writing on the topic - you should really check it out for a great example of just how to take a moronic creationist, and reduce him to a whimpering puddle of protoplasm.
But while looking at the site that Kevin shredded, I can across a link to another really, really bad site, and this one is clearly in my territory:Science Proves Creation, a site set up by an individual named "Samuel J. Hunt". Mr…
thusspakezuska | March 2, 2007This is the second of three discussion posts for Week 2 of Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science. You can find all posts for this course by going to the archives and clicking on Joy of Science under in the Category section.
This post deals with the reading by Fox.
What do women need to succeed in science? Does what they need differ from what men need? If so, why? What constitutes a good environment for women in science? What constitutes success? Will having more women in science affect the way that science is done?
The reading by Fox addresses most of these questions for the case…
evolvingthoughts | March 2, 2007
Way back in 1843, John Stuart Mill wrote this:
When the laws of the original agent cease entirely, and a phenomenon makes its appearance, which, with reference to those laws, is quite heterogeneous; when, for example, two gaseous substances, hydrogen and oxygen, on being brought together, throw off their peculiar properties, and produce the substance called water---in such cases the new fact may be subjected to experimental inquiry, like any other phenomenon; and the elements which are said to compose it may be considered as the mere agents of its production; the conditions on which it…
drorzel | March 2, 2007As I've noted many times, I grew up out in the sticks, in a small town which nonetheless has a Wikipedia page. I should note, though, that I am not hick enough to have been the ScienceBlogger to discover this article about cutting-edge physics research:
Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, and her student Tracy Boechler have conducted a study on the physics of cow-tipping.
Ms Boechler, now a trainee forensics analyst for the Royal Canadian Mounted Corps, concluded in her initial report that a cow standing with its legs straight would require five people to…
hrynyshyn | March 1, 2007A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it was more that little appropriate that I might be reminded of that particular truism by a friend of mine who just happens to be a librarian. The lesson involves a variation on that most modern of phobias, the fear of radio waves, and it's a classic case of how paranoia can spring from a dilettante's familiarity with the science behind a technology.
Just about everyone has heard about efforts to gauge the threat posed by cell-phone use. All that mysterious electromagnetic energy propagating through the ether -- and our brains -- what is it doing…
jrosenhouse | February 28, 2007During my recent hiatus Phillip Johnson emerged from his hidey hole and posted some new expectorations regarding the current state of ID. I realize other bloggers have already ripped into Johnson's ill-considered comments, but why should they have all the fun!
He begins with his standard tripe about finch beaks:
The claim that evolutionary science has discovered and verified a mechanism which can account for the origin of biological information and complexity by involving only natural (unintelligent) causes is supported by an immense extrapolation from limited evidence of minor, cyclical…
thusspakezuska | February 27, 2007Welcome to the Week 2 of our course on "Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science". This post will be a presentation of the summaries for each of this week's assigned readings. If you were not able to do the readings or couldn't get access to the books, I hope this post will give you a good flavor of what the week's readings were all about.
You can reference the course syllabus for more details about the readings in the whole course and the course structure. Here's the initial post about the course. And here are some guidelines about how I'll post on readings and what we should strive for in…
pharyngula | February 25, 2007He's baaaack. That creationist surgeon, Michael Egnor, keeps flaunting his ignorance — and his verbosity — in the comments.
Your assertion that you answered my challenge 'perfectly' is, well, not perfect. I asked for a measurement of new information, not anecdotes about new functions. You and Nick have managed to generate molecular 'just-so' stories, anecdotes without actual quantitative measurement, for your central hypothesis that Darwinism can account for biological complexity. I guess 'just-so' stories are in your genes.
Egnor is trying to make the argument that evolution cannot increase…
tsmith | February 23, 2007Via From Right 2 Left, I see that U of Iowa physics professor. Fred Skiff, will be speaking on intelligent design next week:
At the next "Finding God at Iowa" Lunch Forum, Fred Skiff, University of Iowa professor of physics and astronomy, will speak on the theory of intelligent design. The forum will be held from noon to 1 p.m. March 2, in the Ohio State Room (Room 343) on the third floor of the Iowa Memorial Union.
Skiff will offer "A 'Fireside Chat' on Intelligent Design." He will discuss some of the questions underlying the debate over intelligent design in nature, such as: What are the…
jstemwedel | February 22, 2007Following up on my query about what it would take for a Young Earth Creationist "to write a doctoral dissertation in geosciences that is both 'impeccable' in the scientific case it presents and intellectually honest," I'm going to say something about the place of belief in the production of scientific knowledge. Indeed, this is an issue I've dealt with before (and it's at least part of the subtext of the demarcation problem), but for some reason the Marcus Ross case is one where drawing the lines seems trickier.
First, for the sake of argument, I want to set aside all questions of Marcus…
sb admin | February 22, 2007A week ago, a colleague pointed me to this New York Times article about Marcus Ross. Ross is an individual whom I personally have a hard time respecting, given what he's done. He's a Young-Earth Creationist who has managed to get a PhD in geosciences studying a species that vanished 65 million years ago... and all along maintaining as if he believed what he was doing.
This has been written about elsewhere in the blogosphere; I'll just point you to Janet's blog entry on the matter, and you can jump forward from there.
Here's my take on the matter: Ross is not intellectually honest, at least…
evolvingthoughts | February 15, 2007
Theory: A word that gets used a lot in discussing science, or attacking it.
Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed. [Claude Bernard, 1865, Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine.]
The term comes from the Greek for "viewing" or "contemplation". It used to be used to mean something along the lines of "laws of nature" + "methods" for a particular domain, or subject.
The term was used extensively from the beginnings of the…
drorzel | February 13, 2007PhysicsWeb has astory about a new theory of axions that claims to resolve some discrepancies between past experiments. Two previous experiments looking for axions-- hypothetical weakly interacting particles that might be an explanation for dark matter-- have found conflicting results: the CAST experiment looking for axions produced in the Sun found nothing, while the PVLAS experiment looking for axions by studying the rotation of polarized light in a magnetic field may have seen something. (I talked a bit about the latter here.)
Of course, the new theory is not without its complications:
Now…
purepedantry | February 12, 2007Oh wow.
Oh wow.
This press release is simply astonishing. Maybe it is because it has been a long time -- and as a consequence I have a mind for dirty press releases. Maybe it is just because I quite generally have a dirty mind. However, this is the singularly most amazing press release ever to be released in the history of science. This is not hyperbole. Read for yourself:
In the context of sexual reproduction, natural selection is generally thought of as a pre-copulation mechanism. We are drawn to features of the human body that tell us our partner is healthy and will provide us a…
razib | February 10, 2007I hope you've been checking out the Just Science site this week. If you haven't, I recommend the RSS feed, http://www.justscience.net/?feed=rss2 for ease of browsing. In any case, I just want to announce that I'm shutting down the feeds Sunday night at 9 PM PDT. The site will then be frozen in that form until next year, when we'll do this again. Thanks to everyone who participated, and I hope you've been enjoying the posts. If you haven't had time to check everything out, you know where to go for the next year to browse them. Below the fold I've placed the URLs for all the participating…
developingintelligence | February 7, 2007Although "executive function" may seem like an elusive topic for study, in cognitive neuroscience it is largely approached simply as the ability to control one's own behavior in accord with some goal, despite interference from previous experiences. Central to many accounts of executive function is the ability to "cancel" or "inhibit" actions that are not currently appropriate - this is the same capacity that is said by many to deteriorate with age, with alcohol, with the onset of ADHD, and to be under-developed in young children. Despite the utility of "inhibition" as an explanatory…
drorzel | February 7, 2007Janet asks "Where do scientists learn to write?" Well, actually, being a good academic, she asks many more questions than that:
Do scientists need to write well? If so, in what contexts and for what audiences? If not, why not?
Where do scientists really learn to write? What kinds of experiences shape their writing? Are these teaching scientists to write clearly and effectively? Are they entrenching bad habits?
Where do you think scientists ought to learn to write? What are the most important things they need to learn about writing in a scientific context? What are the best ways to…