Monthly Archives: October 2009
Buffy is my personal saviour
As always, the Onion has the scoop. I really like this new religion of Fictionology. One gets to choose a fictional character as your messiah, deity or general moral teacher. Who better than Buffy? Look good, kick evil doers, and … Continue reading
Science eats its seed corn
An essay in PLoS Biology observes that the state of granting in science is having a chilling effect on research, by selecting for a lack of originality and allowing too short a time frame to plan and undertake research. As … Continue reading
Filed under General Science, Politics
Travel Diary 10: DC
I met these guys and got trashed: I circled our next destination in red… From left, my host, Mitch Coffey, me, Mike Ikeda, and Robert Grumbine. Robert’s wife Vicki is taking the shot; and of course she was the sanest … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative
Is your university really undergoing a fiscal crisis?
I have friends who are forced to do five days’ teaching and research work in four days a week, ostensibly because of the Global Financial Crisis. It turns out, this is often not the real reason why…
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Filed under Education
New evolutionary blogger
Sean Stan Rice, an evolutionary biologist at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, has started a blog: Honest-Ab (which he has named after a weed he once used in experiments; not noticing that it is named also after Theophrastus, Aristotle’s student who … Continue reading
Filed under Evolution
Defining religion
In line with my putting passing thoughts down as they occur to me, in this post I will discuss some of the questions regarding how to define religion such that it becomes an explicandum for natural accounts of religion.
Filed under Philosophy, Religion
Travel Diary 9: An Australian in New York
I’m an alien, a legal alien, and I have been in New York for a week. This is what I did there…
Filed under Administrative, Evolution
Travel Diary 8
Today I went with Matt and Cathy Silberstein to Chris Thompson’s place on the Rockaway Beach, in howling gales and breath condensing weather (in other words, just like home), in Paul and Gail Gans’ car. Where we met John Pieret, … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative, Humor
Travel Diary 7
So yesterday was a full day. I attended a talk by Tony Coady, coincidentally of my alma mater Melbourne, on whether religion is a danger. He argued, well, I thought, that it was no more a danger than any other … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative, Epistemology, Politics, Religion
