This is another archival repost, originally written on the old blog in Nov 2008. I’m on the train! Yay for the Eee PC! In between distractions from the frosty countryside and industrial heritage of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland, let me share the essentials of setting up your new Eee, should […]
This is an archival repost of something I wrote on the old blog in october 2008. This week, I am mostly clearing my Google Docs of old half-written blog posts which I never got around to publishing… From the discussions in the publishing/OA blogosphere, one would get the impression that […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog. At the age of ten, nearing the end of the final year of primary school, we, the class, were sent for a week to Brenscombe Farm, near Poole Harbour, on the coast of Dorset. One of the days was devoted to […]
This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in september 2008. There are differing opinions in the blogosphere over the merits of calling out bullshit. Does one feed the troll? Is it ever acceptable to sink to ad hominin attacks? I try to stay civil, and I […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog, originally from september 2008. It’s a right good science fest on Radio 4 at the moment. If you missed it, you must listen to Physics Rocks (available until 17/9). It’s Brian Cox talking to comedians about their enthusiasm for science. It’s […]
This is another archival repost originally written for the old blog in 2008. I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence – as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason […]
This is another archival repost, originally written in september 2008. It was great to meet everybody at the London Science Blogging Conference. Before my dissection of what I thought were the important themes, I should just apologise for the accident with my facial hair — it was only this morning […]
This is another archive repost from the old blog, written in aug 2008. The psychologist Oliver James was on The Late Edition a couple of weeks ago.[1] His argument was unconvincing and his behaviour unimpressive. So I took a quick look at his website. He offers for download a Radio […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this time from July 2008. So, the following video was brought to my attention, and I was so impressed that I had to share. Admittedly, it took me some time to getting around to the sharing bit: it’s difficult to […]
This is an archival repost originally written on the old blog in 2008. Hah! Made you look! No, but seriously… The schizophrenic argument of the creationists goes something like this (my paraphrasing): How can we believe anything these scientists say when they keep changing what they say to accommodate the […]
This is another archival repost, originally written for the old blog in May 2008. Darwin’s 1837 phylogeny, with root and branches. I’ve talked about Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) on the blog a few times before, particularly in the context of bacteria acquiring genes for things like antibiotic resistance, and in […]
Humphrey Lyttelton, 1921 – 2008 Humph tells me he has to leave us now as he’s been invited to a club night by St Peter, and this is something of a climax for him. He’ll drop everything to be taken to heaven by St Michael. He says he can’t wait […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from feb 2008. Somebody in the Nature Podcast editorial team is clearly not a fan of “new atheists”. The “guest rant” spot, or whatever it is they call it — podium, I think — has been given to […]
This is an archive from the old blog, originally written in 2008. Regular readers may have noticed that I get rather annoyed by the casual use of the word “chemical” to mean “synthetic chemical”, and the use of the naturalistic fallacy (natural good, chemical bad) that is associated with this […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from january 2008. This post is part six in a series. The series so far can be found here. Cogito, ergo sum. René Descartes, 1637. I’ve given five posts and several thousand words over to introductions to principles […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog, this time from jan 2008 Tina Beattie was on Start The Week this morning, talking about the New AtheismTM. I only caught little bits of it, but I’ve managed to find the time to flick through the podcast. You can guess […]
I’ve been reading John Gribbin’s In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat. He casually mentions the atomic (or, rather, ‘atomistic’) theories of the ancients — in particular Democritus. Gribbin accuses historians of science and popular writers of attributing too much to Democritus, whose ideas about the world do not resemble modern physics. […]
This is another archival repost, from jan 2008 Many people in Britain have been campaigning for a repeal of the blasphemy laws, which have had a bit of bad PR since they were used in an attempt to censor Jerry Springer: The Opera a few years ago, and since we […]
This is another archival repost from the old blog — this one from January 2008. The post is part five in a series. The series so far can be found here. In the first installment of Sunday Syndrome I used the example of Prader-Willi Syndrome. This week we’ll bring in […]