Yearly Archives: 2011

Top Science Books of the Last Year

December 1, 2011UncategorizedAmazon, Book review, Books, books, gift ideas, scienceGreg Laden

These are books that I’ve reviewed here, and would like to recommend that you seriously consider picking up if you are looking for a cool present for someone and you think they should read more science.

I’m including a couple of bird books in this list, but I also recently wrote up a summary of just bird books that you may want to check out.

These are in no particular order, and I’m not paying a lot of attention to publication dates. What matters is that I’ve I’ve put the book in this stack of books I’ve got here that I clean out every year about this time; Some are clearly older than one year but if you’ve not read them or know someone who has not, this simply must be corrected. I’m also not listing anything I’ve reviewed in the last few days because you just saw them. This is more a reminder of what you forgot to read last June or whenever!

And the books are:
Continue reading Top Science Books of the Last Year →

Top GOP Strategist: “Occupy Matters”

December 1, 2011UncategorizedElection 2012, Occupy Wall Street, Protest, Protest, RepublicansGreg Laden

The Republican Governor’s Association met in Florida this week and featured pollster Frank Luntz, who … told attendees that he’s “scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death.” The pollster warned that the movement is “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

Apparently, there are some interesting changes going on in the current culture of politics. According to Luntz, people still prefer “capitalism” to “socialism” (we all know the average American has no clue what either one is, so when we say “capitalism” and “socialism” we speak not of the systems but the words themselve… but I digress). But, he says, people know that capitalism is immoral. That’s an improvement! He suggests to his Republican mentees that they avoid the word “capitalism.”
Continue reading Top GOP Strategist: “Occupy Matters” →

Mitt Romney for Senate!

December 1, 2011UncategorizedElection 2012Greg Laden

Below the fold because it’s big: Continue reading Mitt Romney for Senate! →

Adventures in Defending Evolution

December 1, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

NCSE’s Josh Rosenau and Steve Newton sit down with the West Virginia University freethinking, inquiring, secular humanists, and chat about the rise of science denial, the ongoing battles with creationists, NCSE’s new climate change initiative, and more. Where: Morgantown, West Virginia. When: 4/5/2011

Sciency links you will like

December 1, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Get out your 3D glasses and have a look at Vesta.

Coolest pictures of dinosaur nest ever.

Best science books of 2011 according to a Science Librarian

Kentucky church bans interracial couples

December 1, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Southern Man ….

A small church in Pike County, Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from most church activities “to promote greater unity among the church body.”

Melvin Thompson, former pastor of Gulnare Freewill Baptist church, proposed the ban after Stella Harville brought her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, to services in June. Harville, who goes by the name Suzie, played the piano while Chikuni sang.

Before stepping down as pastor in August, Thompson told Harville that her fiance could not sing at the church again. Harville is white and Chikuni, a native of Zimbabwe, is…

guess. read the rest here

Hat Tip, Aseem

Bachmann: Teaching Only Evolution Is ‘Censorship’

December 1, 2011UncategorizedBachmann-MicheleGreg Laden

Uffda …

At an education forum at the University of Northern Iowa this afternoon, GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said she favored the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in schools, saying that just teaching the science of evolution would be “censorship by government.” Asked by a Catholic student why it’s not a violation of the separation of church and state for a public school to teach the religiously-tinged theories, Bachmann said evolution is just a “theory”…

Read the rest.

Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

December 1, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Nature’s beauty can be easily missed — but not through Louie Schwartzberg’s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day.

Do iPhones really do this?

December 1, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Mitt vs Mitt

November 30, 2011UncategorizedElection 2012, RomneyGreg Laden

With bonus footage:

A foundation in (mainly human) behavioral biology

November 30, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Behavioral Biology is not Evolutionary Psychology, but many people, even smart people who should know better, get that confused. One could think of Evolutionary Psychology as a subset of behavioral biology. Or, one could think of Evolutionary Psychology as the deformed misguided freakish evil sibling of behavioral biology that should have been smothered at birth. Not that I have strong feelings about it or anything ….

Anyway, I like to talk about Behavioral Biology but I find too often that the people I’m conversing with think we are discussing Evolutionary Psychology. This is a little like being an astronomer and everyone wants to speak with you about astrology. But worse.

So, I’ve created an annotated bibliography of mainly classic (but some more recent) foundational readings in (mainly human) behavioral biology. It is here: A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology

And in related matters, do check out the podcast of the recent conversation with Eric Michale Johnson, Marie-Claire Shanahan, Desiree Schell and Moi: Culture and Tradition

We need this law in the USA!

November 30, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Hat Tip Scott Brophy, who also wrote this great blog post: OMFG. WSJ Gets Loopy. Me, Too.

LeRoy Bell Retrospective

November 30, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

As you know, my very talented nephew, LeRoy Bell, was (unfairly) voted off the XFactor, which I have now officially stopped watching.

So the XFactor is no more as far as I’m concerned, but LeRoy isn’t. I’ve put together a compilation of some of his work for you to review. Here.

A garden in my apartment

November 30, 2011UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles — researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY. And the results? Delicious.

soda. pop. snap.

November 30, 2011UncategorizedLanguageGreg Laden

The other day, and I kid you not, I saw someone say to someone else “would you like a soda” and the person stared back and said “why would I want a soda” and a third party repeated the question, only saying “would you like a pop” and the person said “yes, very much, thank you.”

I grew up in Soda Country, where 80 to 90 percent of the time people used the word soda. Now, I live in Pop Country where 80 – 100 percent of the time people call soda pop. For a while, I lived in the Soda Enclave along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, where soda is commonly used but there is enough nearby pop that people are cautious.

There is a website that deals with the Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy. Here. I love the rollover interactive map, but this graphic here is the cold hard reality.

I’d love to see one for frying pan vs. skillet.