Remember: tonight, 8 PM EST, it’s Richard Dawkins vs. Bill O’Reilly. It could be a disaster, it could be a triumph, it could be a comedy. I’m hoping I’ll be back at home in time to catch it.
Larry Moran listened to Nisbet’s podcast on Point of Inquiry. No surprise—he didn’t like it at all. I finally listened to it last night, too, and I have to crown Larry the King of the Curmudgeons, because I disagreed with fundamental pieces of his story, but I’ll at least grant Nisbet that there aspects of communication theory scientists would benefit from knowing. So why does he ignore those aspects in his own talks?
I want to focus on one thing: conflict. The podcast revealed another unfortunate inconsistency in the framing approach.
I’ve tried a different tack now — I’ve left several comments on Matt Nisbet’s very own blog, in the fading hope that he’ll actually pay attention to what I’m saying, rather than what he imagines I’m saying, or what other people tell him that they imagine I’m saying. Comments there are held up for moderation, so in case you really want fast feedback, I’ve tossed my comments below the fold here where you can savage them instantly … or you can head on over to Framing Science and state your piece there.
Michael Alan Nelson, writer for the Fall of Cthulhu comics from Boom! Studios, sent me a couple of copies of the comic today, for some dark, mysterious reason. For a little context to this page, the two heroes have just witnessed a horrible suicide, and are going through the dead person’s effects and computer files to try and figure out why he blew his brains out.
Abject fan of the old Hammer Horror movies that I am, I was thrilled to see this bit from the 1959 version of The Mummy. Our hero, John Banning (played by the always wonderful Peter Cushing), has gone to the home of the suspected villain, Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), to see if this recent arrival from Egypt is the person who dispatched the Mummy (Christopher Lee) to kill his father and uncle, and attempt to kill him. The way he chooses to probe for clues is to talk to Bey about … religion. And by golly, he sounds just like me. Bey gives the usual theistic excuses: but people are devoted to him! You just can’t comprehend the god! You don’t know anything about him! And then come the threats. It’s very familiar.
Obviously, the apologist for religion turns out to be the murderous master of the Mummy. The rest of the movie involves a beautiful young woman who is the spittin’ image of the dead Egyptian priestess the Mummy loved, slow motion chases through a swamp (they at least set it up early that the hero is partially lame, so it almost makes sense that the lumbering Lee and limping Cushing are in a fair race), and big guns.
While Cushing’s sneering dismissal of foolish religion does remind me of me, I’m pleased to say that none of my critics have yet managed to reanimate a dead guy and send his plodding corpse my way. They’re welcome to try, and mummies are especially welcome—they never seem to be particularly effective, you know.
Lucky Cambridge: a whole bunch of organizations, including Harvard, MIT, and the Cambridge public schools and libraries are collaborating to put on the Cambridge Science Festival—9 days of science activities around the town. That is exactly the kind of broadly supported activity in the service of science education that can make a difference in public perception. It’s an excellent idea…now if only more communities had that kind of concentration of scientific organizations to make that kind of sustained activity possible.
(via Science Made Cool)
The movie 300 has finally arrived in Morris, and I saw it last evening. I’d heard a lot about this film, in particular that it was loaded with relationships to current events—the war in Iraq, in particular, with arguments for it being pro-war, anti-war, a jingoistic propaganda film, etc. The arguments are all wrong. I could tell exactly what this movie’s hidden meaning was: it’s a retelling of the creation-evolution struggle! “But of course!” you’re all saying to yourselves, “It’s so obvious, now that you mention it!”
Abbie makes an excellent point on it the ongoing discussion of the Nisbet/Mooney paper: just how often do scientists get an opportunity to discuss their work to the public, anyway?
I have a few simple points to make.
It’s Thursday, 5 April, and you know what that means: today is the day of the Mutant Variety Show here in Morris! At 7:00 this evening, in the HFA recital hall, all of the local mutants will be exhibiting their bizarre phenotypes to the public. I’m very much looking forward to it, and anyone else in the region should swing on by.
Note: I am expecting mutants. I insist on mutants. If there are insufficient mutants to satisfy me* … well, I have an Illudium Q32 Explosive Space Modulator, and I’m not afraid to use it.
*Or at least a theremin.**
**I might settle for a kazoo. But that’s rock-bottom. No more compromises.
Well, Skatje’s going to Minicon next weekend—sending her off to hang out with intelligent nerds and geeks and people like Charles deLint and Lois McMaster Bujold and the Nielsen Haydens and Jane Yolen is probably the most responsible thing a parent can do. If any of my readers are also going, make sure she doesn’t just go hide in her room and knit or chat on the computer. She needs to get out and socialize! Make friends! Watch Dr Who! Something!
Unfortunately, although I’ll be providing the shuttle service to get her to and from the con, I’m going to be swamped with work for the next few weeks and just can’t afford to take the weekend off. I’ll probably get a day pass and hang out on Friday evening for a while, though, before Skatje shoos me away. Next year, though, I’m going to plan my calendar a little better and see the whole thing.
So my daughter gets to go to Minicon and she probably won’t even get me a lousy t-shirt.
