Actually I'm not. The Sea of Faith In Australia crowd are very nice and easy to get on with folk, and many of them are your garden variety humanists, atheists and skeptics. Lawrence Krauss is a very nice guy with a good patter in anti-ID; nothing I haven't heard before but, and this surprised and educated me, something that few of the audience seemed all that familiar with.
One thing that has been very useful to me is to get a cross bearing on what interested and intelligent folk know and do not know. That will help me be a little more clear in the future. My talk is tonight, so we'll see if they like what I have to say.
OK, back to Mornington Crescent, you lot.
More like this
Well I have done my talk at the AAP conference, and survived with ego intact (as if there was any doubt). All I need to do now is sleep for eight straight days.
Sorry but I don't have the time free to do a meet up in Melbourne, so back to Mornington Crescent.
Finally, I've been promoted to Rouge admin status.
Because I have to hand back my laptop to my present employer, and my future employer won't have a Mac for me before mid-January or later, I may not be able to post much for a while. I do have access to a desktop PC, but what can one really do with that sort of SNAFU technology anyway?
So, I finally have access to the internet. For the past few days I've been either in London, on planes, trains or in Exeter, where I am now for the ISHPSSB biennial conference of philosophers and historians (and some sociologists) of science.
This might interest you:
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobs/RO048/Research_Fellow/
St. Pancras
Krauss was in Minneapolis in March for an Atheist Convention, and while I was only able to attend part of his talk I did get to chat with him a bit following the book signing. He is a very nice guy, and will be calling in to be our guest on "Atheists Talk" very soon.
Speaking as a Trekkie, I have to say that Krauss's greatest contribution to the enterprise of science is unquestionably The Physics of Star Trek. Of course, I do realise that's probably similar to a great classical actor like Alec Guiness being best known for the part of Obi-wan Kenobi.
Still, better to be known than not.
Hainault
Thanks for some very interesting information and discussion, John, about the possible origins and evolution of religion. And for your willingness to engage any of us in discussions about the many and varied topics in which you take an interest. I would have thought that most of the people there knew about ID. (I met Ken Ham once in Brisbane years ago and couldn't believe that some one so smart could have such dumb ideas. Ohio is welcome to him.)
Keep up the good work.