This is another archival repost from the old blog — this time from april 2009. I found on the iPlayer the latest in BBC2’s series of Darwin documentaries, Did Darwin Kill God? This is theologian Conor Cunningham’s attempt reconcile science and religion, and show that their differences are all just […]
This was originally written a year ago on a now disused blog. I’m reposting it here because I enjoyed writing it so much that I wouldn’t want it to disappear. People love a good argument with Richard Dawkins. So many people are so desperately seeking reassurance that he is wrong, […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from March 2008. Wow, a slow news day, eh? The BBC, shunning predictable Chinese military aggression, another turn of the tides in Iraq, and yet more boring news about the economy, lead with “Brown criticised over embryo bill“. […]
Another in the ongoing project to archive posts from an old blog – this one from february 2009. Not in the television programme — well, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet due to pesky tennis fans capturing the remote control — but in the Simon Mayo interview (page […]
Over at Journalology I discuss the issue of academic fraud in China, again. Academic fraud is an issue that few take seriously enough anywhere, and while China has a particularly big fraud problem, I worry that people allow that to distract them from the fraud problem at home. Read it […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog, first published way back in March 2008. I’ve been following CBC’s How To Think About Science series, and caught the Evelyn Fox Keller episode the other day. It was interesting, but there were a couple of issues that I just can’t […]
(This is another archival repost of something written on the old blog a few years ago.) I’ve been catching up with about a month of blogosphere this weekend, after travelling, and other distractions. I managed to catch a discarded copy of G2 with Ben Goldacre’s homeopathy article, so I was […]
I’ve posted a quick review of The Way The World Is, physicist-vicar John Polkinghorne’s attempt at explaining to other scientists why he is a Christian. It’s a tedious and embarrassing piece of work. The book, that is. The post, I hope, is at least entertainingly sarcastic. Read it here.
Every time I blog about the future of science publishing and the opportunities for radical changes to the way science is conducted and disseminated, somebody comes along and leaves a comment telling me that the state of science publishing is perfect but one thing: the lack of “green” open access. […]
The paper that initiated the great MMR hoax has been thoroughly discredited and retracted by the journal that published it, but the anti-vaxxers still claim — and hoodwink some parents — that more research is required to establish whether or not vaccines cause autism. I thought therefore that it was […]
Skepticism is about critical thinking and knowing how to avoid being fooled by charlatans and the honest but mistaken. Over at Lay Science I explain one way that you can get fooled: by people citing the activities of cells in a dish as scientific proof for anything and everything. Read […]
Since sequencing the human genome, the Sanger Institute in the UK and the US National Human Genome Research Institute have turned their sights — and their vast sequencing capacities — to cancer. Cancers can be thought of as genomic diseases, caused by somatic mutations, and progressing by the accumulation of […]
This is an archive repost, originally posted on the old blog shortly after Johnny Ball had made his first appearance at Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People. Skepticism — the movement and the everyday scientific method — is about vetting the new ideas that want to take up residence […]
Charles Quackenbush stands at the far end of the platform, away from the crowds around the shelter at the platform steps; positioned well over the tactile paving and the yellow line. “The train now approaching platform… one… is the… oh nine… oh four… service to… London Victoria… calling at… Herne […]
Gulliver has a beer. This is an archival repost of something written on the old blog in august 2009. As always, it was great to see everybody at Science Online, and great shame not to have more time to talk to everybody. A Sunday afternoon informal in the park next […]
Charles makes coffee. Charles is making coffee, I mean. It’s not his job, or the activity that defines his life. At least, he doesn’t think so. Others might. Others know nothing about what defines Charles’s life. To others Charles is the fifty-something with coffee-breath who gives bad lectures. They see […]
This is another archival repost, written for the old blog in June 2009. This week Gordon Brown gave his cabinet a shuffle, after a bunch of his friends walked out on him. He managed to upset scientists twice. First he merged the department of universities and whatsits into the department […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. There are those who declare Darwin’s literary brilliance, and those who proudly announce that The Origin is beyond their wit and attention […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. It’s getting late in the book, and for a while now Darwin has not so much been explaining and testing his theories, […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. Two pages into chapter thirteen we get a fantastic image of Darwin pottering in his conservatory, dipping his duck in various fish […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. Oh dear, the topic seems to have taken a distinct veer into creationism, around here, and I fear that will not change […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. The creationist site that I briefly reviewed yesterday repeated the claim that the fossil record does not support descent with modification, and […]
-or- “(One of many reasons) Why genomics matters” This is an archival repost which was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. In chapter 14 of The Origin Darwin discussed embryological stages and their utility in classification. This utility derives from the fact […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. Chapter ten is supposed to be a response to the objection that if evolution were true, one ought surely to be able […]
This post is part of a series on The Origin Of Species. It was originally posted on the old blog in feb 2009, during the Darwin 200 celebrations. In chapter nine, Darwin takes a long look at hybrids. And I mean a long look: he can really go off on […]