Yes. Yes we are.
(Photo by August Berkshire; if you squint, you might notice Ron Numbers caught in the background between me and Neil Shubin, too.)
When I picked up my mail this afternoon, I was surprised to find several large boxes waiting for me. I was surprised when I opened them, both by the nature of their contents and by the fact that there was no note to say who sent them. Whoever it was, thank you! I don’t think anyone has ever given me a gift quite as unexpected. I now own…
I’m on the cover of this month’s Humanist magazine, and they’re running the text of my humanist of the year acceptance speech.
So, if I wave this around, will it get me to the front of the line at all the hot, trendy, New York nightclubs?
Barbara Bradley Hagerty felt obligated to go find some rambunctious New Atheist for her series on religion on NPR, and guess who she scavenged up? Yeah, me. Just got off the phone. You’ll have to listen for it sometime on Thursday morning to find out what I said.
I might get some more hate mail this week. Oh, boy!
What with all my flitting about, I got a few questions about whether I was ever planning to do any talks here in Minnesota. Yes! Yes, I am!
On Monday, 16 November, I’m going to be doing a debate. I hate debates, but I’ve been dragged into this one. It’s being promoted by the local creationist loons and CASH, and I’d like to see a good turnout from the sensible, scientific, godless community. I’ll be arguing with a loud clown, Jerry Bergman, on “Should Intelligent Design Be Taught in the Schools?” I think you can guess which side I’m going to be on.
On Thursday, 3 December, I’ll be back on the Twin Cities campus to give a public lecture, again sponsored by CASH, on development, neuroscience, and evolution. It will be all science, so the creationist kooks have no part in this one.
Oh, and there will be a few non-local events in November, too. I’m giving the keynote at the IGERT symposium in Bloomington, Indiana. This isn’t a public lecture, I’m afraid — it’s part of an evo-devo meeting. If you want to register, don’t do it for me — I’m most looking forward to hearing my grad school advisor, Chuck Kimmel, tell us what he’s been up to, and there are a whole series of enticing talks planned.
And don’t forget Skepticon II! I’ll be at Missouri State University, 20-22 November.
That’s it for my Fall travel plans — I’m mainly going to be home, working. Then I erupt into a whirlwind tour of the planet in the spring.
I’m about to do a live podcast with Matt Dillahuntey — tune in if you’d like, or catch it later.
Josh Timonen has put up a video of my talk at AAI. Tear into it!
One of the things I neglected to say more clearly, but should have, is that what I’m complaining about is the creationists’ blithe conflation of complexity with order. We can build up immense amounts of complexity from nothing but noise, so just babbling about how complicated something is says nothing about the impossibility of its origin from chance events. Order, functionality, and, as Joe Felsenstein defined it, adaptedness are more relevant properties, and we have a natural mechanism for generating those, too. It’s called selection.
Someone over at the RDF also mentioned that he thought the Q&A was really good, too. I agree — I need to learn to shut up more and just get the interactivity going. Maybe my ideal talk would be 5 minutes of raillery and inflammatory incitement, followed by 55 minutes of questions and comments.
I’m in Cincinnati — I was flown down here to give an interview for a Canadian show, as I mentioned before. They bumped up the time of the interview to shortly after I arrived here, which was nice…I’m all done now! Free in Cincinnati! Of course, then I fly out early tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t have much time to be free. But I’ll be back home tomorrow evening, anyway.
I have to finish writing up all the interesting stuff I heard at the AAI convention, but once again, I’m on the road — I’m driving up to Minot, ND to give a talk tonight at 7pm in the Aleshire Theater on the MSU campus. I’m going to be spending most of my day driving, I think, and then talking, and sleeping, and driving back, and then getting a whole two days of relaxation at home.
I have then crazily agreed to appear in a Canadian prime-time documentary by a Christian film company (I must have delusions of being the reincarnation of Daniel) which will be in part filmed at the Creation “Museum”…so a little more travel. This could be interesting. At least they were a bit more honest in their invitation than the wankers who made Expelled.
They also enjoy a little something to drink.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover a bottle of OriginAle: Darwinian IPA and an imperial stout, Gudeløs, waiting for me when I checked in. The Danish contingent wants me to come out to their big meeting in June in Copenhagen…I am so there. Bribes were completely redundant.
The RDF is also giving the speakers bottles of merlot, nicely personalized with etching. Now I have to decide whether to drink it or save it…ah, I think I’ll drink it and save the bottle.
In the non-drinkable category (really! That’s not what we’re all about, and I haven’t seen a single drunk atheist this whole weekend!), the pleasantly surly people at Surly-Ramics gave me this lovely necklace with a familiar motif.
Thanks everyone!
