As the Worm Turns

For no good reason what-so-ever — other than to see if my limited UNIX chops are up to the task — I’m moving the blog off the Wordpress.org host to Laughing Squid in San Fransisco. This will allow to me use the various Wordpress plugins and widgets and googaws and doodads that aren’t available to […]

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I’m going to “borrow” a post on the Florida Student Philosophy Blog because it illustrates my essential point about the relationship between reason and religious faith. (I will leave my relationship to the original posting intentionally vague, although the clever will be able to suss it out.)
Joe Long, an FSU Philosophy grad student, critiques Sam […]

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“The Economist Style Guide: 9th Edition” (Profile Books)
While I like my complex, structured style, it might be time to explore other ways to communicate using the written word. I do this for two reasons. One, my complex, structured style sometimes becomes a labored, leaden style. Two, complex subjects deserve to be explored simply. When you […]

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All the cool kids (Hat Tip) are doing it, so here I go:

 
You scored as Militant Atheist, Willing to take theists to task, the Militant Atheist is someone who knows deep within themselves that there is no god and they want to tell you all about how they know. Even though they’re as annoying in […]

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I’m still not convinced blogging is a worth-while activity, for me or for anyone else. For one, it takes up too much time. To blog effectively one need to spend too much time dredging the internet for useful stuff — but, much like dragging a river for bodies, all you usually end up with are […]

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It’s not that I’m in love with Gonzalez, tenure or Intelligent Design; it’s just that this is the only topic that drives up hits to my pretend blog. So here we go:
Even though PZ Meyers and I agree on all the substantial facts about the world, we disagree about the interpretation of those facts. I […]

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So, what’s the connection between the plotline of “Heroes” and the 9/11 Truth virus?
<Spoilers ahead>
Both involve secret conspiracies to blow up New York for political gain. But what’s the relationship between them? Are the producers and writers of “Heroes” secretly infected with the truth virus? Perhaps trying to make the idea more palatable for the […]

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Previously I commented on a neo-creationist mistake about free will; ‘dacook’ on Uncommon Descent was under the impression that the possible discovery of free will in flies was somehow proof that scientific materialism was false.
Here we have the same mistake, but from the other direction: Philip Ball claims that, even if we do discover the […]

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So it turns out that Iowa State University likely acted appropriately in denying Guillermo Gonzalez tenure; the original article (subscription required) is here and a good summary can be found here. In short: Gonalez didn’t produce new stuff after moving to ISU, but tried to get tenure on his research done as a post-doc.
I’m still […]

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On the one hand, the usual suspects cry foul when Guillermo Gonzalez is denied tenure, at least in part because he is an advocate of Intelligent Design.
On the other, those who want to defend the integrity of the Scientific Establishment are just fine with it — denying tenure because a teacher believes odd and peculiar […]

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