I subscribe to a publication called New Scientist, a British science magazine. It’s a little pricey (because it’s a weekly, unlike Scientific American), and my friend the Grump sometimes gets annoyed by its unabashed leftist political slant, and it’s a bit uneven at times (for example, the current issue has a large “alternative history” section with some questionable speculations about what would have happened if (for example) Newton had not […]
I feel like I’m cheating when write a blog post about somebody else’s page, but this one is too funny to pass on. Check out the web page “Over Three Hundred Proofs of God’s Existence” for some clever, funny, and even thought-provoking (in a very negative sort of way) “proofs” of the existence of God. So, with apologies to my mother…. here are some of them. They range from the […]
Since coming back from Paris, I’ve slowly fallen back into my normal routine. Routines are very helpful. They keep us from having to rethink our schedule of activities anew every single day. If every work day I get up at the same time, drink coffee and read the paper for the same amount of time, shower and get dressed in the same amount of time, I can be safely assured […]
It seems the SSSBlog has inspired the New York Times! A good opinion piece appears today making one of the points made earlier in this blog, that people can’t really comprehend the vast time scales necessary to make evolution work.
It’s almost football season, and that means the SSSBlog will be living and dying each Saturday with the Univ. of Iowa Hawkeye football team. During my time in Iowa City they went 3-8, 3-8, 5-6, 5-6, and 2-9 … ah, those were the good old days. But the past three years they’ve finished in the top ten nationally, and last year in their last game they beat defending champion L.S.U. […]
More follow up to the earlier post on intelligent design: The New York Times published this article today discussing the substantive arguments made by the proponents of intelligent design. Also, the fundamental idea isn’t new. Various forms of the so-called “anthropic principle” have been around for many years. The principle tries to answer the question of why so many fundamental physical constants in our universe are precisely what they have […]
Give somebody a post, and all of a sudden they want everything their own way. My friend the Grumpy Moderate is feeling too big for his breeches and has decided he needs his own damned Blog. Well OK then. His political/current events comments will migrate to a new blog, The Grumpy Moderate. My less serious, more eclectic posts will remain here on SSSBlog. He was already getting on my nerves, […]
Inspired, no doubt, but the Grumpy Moderate’s views on “intelligent design,” the New York Times published today this article about the funding origins of the movement. Kudos to the professor at my old school, the University of Iowa, quoted in the article, who while apparently believing in “intelligent design,” makes the same point as the Grumpy Moderate in his post yesterday: “They’re interested in the same things I’m interested in […]
I introduce my readers today to a new character: The Grumpy Moderate. The Grumpy Moderate is a guy (apologies to my female readers, but he’s a guy) who views the news through a pane of skepticism. He’s pretty bright, but thinks that intelligence is overrated. The Grumpy Moderate loves science, though. He likes to parse through the b.s., dislikes dogma and extremism, loathes pretense, likes pragmatism, and is highly suspicious […]
From IOL. (Local Sonoma County angle: Bullfrogs are one of the preditors of the California tiger salamander, an endangered species whose habitat is the Santa Rosa Plain. Perhaps someday we can form a local bullfrog militia.) Le Haillan, France – Picture this: French hunters stealing out at night in pairs, one with a torch to light up the eyes of their prey, the other armed with a .22 calibre rifle […]