The Lounge

A new interview with evolutionist/atheist Mano Singham can be found here. To quote him: "Once you concede the idea of a god, you have ceased to think rationally in that area of your life, and are prey to those who preach extreme forms of religion. Of course, most people do not go so far, but that is because most people are not really that religious, though they say and act like they are. In the TV show House, someone asks the title character whether he is an atheist and he replies "Only on Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time it doesn't seem to matter." I think he is right. Most people are just nominally religious and unlikely to go off the deep end. It is the …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrUD-5hf1A I know conspiracy wackos are a hobby of some people here, so I thought I'd share. These particular wackos apparently consider this a victory of some kind.

hey - i'm trying to find sci-fi novels to read that portray a future that doesn't break CURRENT known laws of science, or at least comes as close to that ideal as possible (i.e. not star trek or star wars). does anyone know any good titles/series? thank you in advance

Yeah I was born in 1990 but whatever, I love 80s music and new wave! My favorite band is Duran Duran.

Comment: I've seen apostrophes being used all over the place, in newspapers, in web posts, in letters. So I thought I'd give everyone in this for'm th' "101" on 'em: Apostrophes are a part of a linguistic feature (of English) called contraction. Contraction is what happens when two words are joined together (generally this happened first in spoken, then in written English). Examples are words like can and not, which become cannot, then can't, or we and are, (which might have been we-are) becomes we're. An apostrophe is always used (as in both examples) to signify the elision of one or more characters from such a compounded, or contracted word. This contraction-eli…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7055625.stm I wonder which one was Caesar? Seriously though, how do you think the government of Delhi and cities that face similar crises should respond? Is it slaughtering the monkeys worth it? As urban sprawl grows, these problems are just going to increase.

WHEREAS, recognizing that the animal subspecies Canis lupus familiaris has, since time immemorial, demonstrated a unique capacity for loyalty, devotion, love, friendship, compassion, and service to humankind, and have earned the colloquial sobriquet of “Man’s Best Friend” ORLANDO COUNTY ORDNANCE 2006

:eek: You think that is for real?

In charta-murus mensis scribere: T.V. is usually my daily equivalent of a background “moving and speaking” wallpaper. I leave it turned on, even swiveling it round so I can “see” it if I'm sitting at my PC. Perhaps it is my muse of sorts. It forms a sort of background to my daily “conscious space”, and often my nightly “unconscious space” (I fall asleep with it left on). We have, down in “Godzone country”, as I'm sure many reading this also have in theirs, a “resurgent” Christian evangelism, wherein the lost and downtrodden, the misunderstood and the socially impaired, are “oferd a noo salivation”, often from a brand-new pulpit, wearing what looks like a brand-new…

Just out of curiosity, has anybody viewed you as some sort of snob because of your intellectual skills? Just this week, my parents called me some sort of intellectual snob! Well, it isn't my fault that their arguments are usually riddled with logical fallacies (usually the appeal to emotion or hasty generalizations/conclusions), or that most people use (or even worse, teach) inaccurate information. The thanks I get for trying to enlighten them...

Why did the pregnant moose approach the road? To give birth away from hungry grizzly bears, according to researchers who say expectant moose have learned that roads provide a relative safe-haven for their new-born calves. Joel Berger of the US Wildlife Conservation Society says his team's findings demonstrate how protected nature reserves can alter animal behaviour in unexpected ways. For 10 years, starting in 1995, Berger and colleagues tracked female moose in and around Grand Teton National Park in north-west Wyoming, US. Each year, the team put radio transmitters on between 18 and 25 female moose, about three quarters of which were usually pregnant. They al…

Anyone catch that Nova this week on epigenetics? Pretty fascinating stuff.

As some of you are already aware, Cap'n and I have recently set up a website to tackle pseudoscience, and poor scientific journalism http://www.dbunked.com. Being responsible for the latter, if anybody here finds good examples of bad scientific journalism (current articles please) that warrants a correction i.e we'll get in contact with the publisher, then please take a look at the links below. It's still early stages, but we've decided to get things going and it will be great to have some solid examples to scrutinize, research and debunk. Introduction to how we'll tackle the problem... http://forum.dbunked.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5 Details on submittin…

I've started work on a film depciting "a year in the life of scientists". I'm trying to capture the reality of science - not just the "big breakthroughs" which usually receive attention. Throughout the production, I'm posting raw video footage, short films and other material on my "production blog" website. I'd encourage anyone to have a look and get in touch if they'd like to make suggestions. http://www.test-tube.org.uk/ All ideas and feedback more than welcome. You can also subscribe to videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/nottinghamscience Or joining "Nottingham Science Appreciation Society" on Facebook. Cheers

In light of Dawkins' recentish high profile attacks on YE OLDIE GODS. Is there a relatively current, and growing energy, within the science community to step up attacks, in order to attempt to extinguish the belief in deities once and for all?

As a modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch. My children have never failed to make me proud. As parents do we decided to aid with our childrens education by purchasing a computer. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were happy we had made the decision Our son Terence was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. But he be…

Now not knowing if nature or reality such as QM and evolution for example is truly finite to any real extent and the reality of organic evolution being a part of that very nature from any level be it classical to QM and such also becoming evident in even astrophysics what is the implication to humanity in regards to worldview and behavior? It derives so many profound speculations I will not even attempt to cover them all here, and not to appear as a hippy out of touch, but is the reality of the future in regards to something so natural as evolution truly in our hands via behavior? If such is so would it not for the simple sake of survival be humanities best bet to ch…

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/03/clowns-kicked-kkk-asses/ Just read this today, and according to this the KKK got their asses handed to them by a bunch of clowns in Knoxville,Tennessee. Check it out!

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem but 4/5 time the new thread button doesn't show. i thought i had been banned for a bit. anyway, to what i was going to say before... can anyone else connect to the chatroom? i've tried pidgin, xchat and (shudders) the java client on the boards. nothing is working.

Does anyone here have an Omerta account? In case you want to know what this is, here's the link.

http://www.tibetcustom.com/article.php/20070803133532961 Damn but I'd love to see the form you fill out for this one.

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2007 samples of research recognized by the Ig-Nobel committee of judges this year, in four different categories: LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. "Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," Juan M. Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005, pp 95-100. …

I've moved the Wikipedia article for SFN to the new name "SFN (scienceforums.net)" and added a disambiguation page to differentiate between the different uses of "SFN." More importantly, the article has been nominated for deletion! I do not know the SFN article's fate.

I'm looking for a few enthusiastic folk with some writing talent to join Snail and me in a new venture: dbunked. dbunked will be a collation of pseudoscience and scientific myths debunked -- much like Snopes, but for the science world. We also hope to help improve the popular perception of science by sending letters to media agencies when they goof, and by publishing editorials and features that emphasize the importance of good scientific thinking. If you're interested in helping, visit our signup page and follow the instructions. If you'd like to be a "resident expert" for dbunked, and you have impressive credentials, visit our expert signup page. You don't have …