Hey everyone in Davis, if you happen to have time from 4-5:30 this afternoon, or if you don’t you can make time, I’m going to be on a panel discussing Food, Farming, and Genetics with Michael Pollan. You know, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and whose name has been plastered all over Davis for the last two months. If you are not sure, then let me tell you, I’m going to be wearing something really wacky - you simply can’t pass this up! There will be no way to see it ever again!

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It comes every year in Davis, and tries to infect people. No, it’s not the flu, but its a little similar.

The creationists are coming!

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(via Pharyngula via Think Progress)

I have just learned a disturbing truth about An Inconvenient Truth. Remember the Al Gore-starring documentary, that got five stars for accuracy, and that I raved about on the Mindcast? The National Science Teachers Association, or NSTA, was offered 50,000 free DVDs of this documentary. Absolutely free, at no profit to anyone except perhaps the post office. What a deal! How do you think the NSTA would respond to such a deal? Think again.

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I’ve been watching listening to Beyond Belief 2006, and it is simply eyebrow-raising. Science, religion, morality, reason, and the future of our species. Check it out, it’s got people from Lawrence Krauss to Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Joan Roughgarden.
Beyond Belief 2006

One person seems mightily displeased about it though. Keep dreaming of the Templeton prize, Dembski. Keep dreaming.

I talk about science on the Mindcast, and I write a bit about it here on my blog. In the last few months, I’ve been shedding my blogging timidity (strange, considering that I’ve written a weekly newspaper column), but I’ve most often been moved to write a blog post when something ticks me off, or makes me laugh. So that means a lot of stuff written about ID/Creationism. They don’t deserve that much attention from me, especially since there are many science bloggers who are really on the ball with this brand of pseudoscience.

It’s time for me to dig into what I’m really interested in. Plant genetics. There will be plenty of time for educating, debunking, and lots of Read More…

When I flew to Madison a couple weeks ago, one person I sat next to told me he was intolerant. Lactose intolerant. I confided in him that I, too, was unable to digest this milk-sugar, but my love of cheese made me keep lactase tablets in constant supply.

The following week, I read about a case of lactose intolerance in airplanes that got national coverage. But a different kind of intolerance. Read More…

Episode 41 of the Mindcast is up!

Download it here.

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I just posted Episode 40, which features an interview with Chris Turney, author of Bones, Rocks and Stars. Now, for my review of his book.

People need to understand how we measure time. Today with our regular calendars and atomic clocks, the measurement of time can be taken for granted very easily. In addition, anti-scientists take advantage of the fact that most people do not know how we know how old the Earth is. Many believe that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old, roughly, after the domestication of the dog and the fig. A fellow host at KDRT once asked me how we determine the age of rocks, because he keeps running into creationists that make bogus claims with parroted talking points. I knew all about several kinds of radiometric dating methods, but I needed to find someone who might be good at explaining how all these different things fit neatly together.

A few months later, I got wind of Chris Turney’s new book, Bones, Rocks and Stars, The Science of When Things Happened. Chris sent me an advanced copy, and right off the bat I knew he would be the right person to help untangle the past for us. Read More…

Episode 40 of the Mindcast is up!

Download it here.

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My website host provides me with an interesting collection of statistics about who comes and goes to my website. Everything from the browser being used, to the number of visits, bandwidth, time of day, time on the site, and even the search terms that brought them here. Because of these statistics, I now know that October was a record month for me! Read More…