Category Archives: Uncategorized

It is not helpful to elaborate the important stories of women talking about harassment to generate lies

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It is not helpful to elaborate the important stories of women talking about harassment to generate lies. Nor is it respectful to those women. So don’t do that.

This:

Bora and I were walking in the same direction and chatting, a bit tipsy, when he asked me if I would walk him back to his hotel. I lost my breath for a second. I froze and stuttered, “No, I have to go.”

does not equal this:

So we start by getting the facts straight. The facts are fine the way they are, the story stands on its own without the middle school antics.


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Scientific American Blogs Responds

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UPDATE:

This just in…

A Message from Mariette DiChristina, Editor in Chief

Scientific American bloggers lie at the heart of the SA website, pumping vitality, experience and broad insight around the community. Unfortunately our poor communication with this valuable part of the SA network over the recent days has led to concerns, misunderstandings and ill feelings, and we are committed to working to try to put this right as best we can.

We know that there are real and important issues regarding the treatment of women in science and women of color in science, both historically and currently, and are dismayed at the far too frequent cases in which women face prejudice and suffer inappropriate treatment as they strive for equality and respect. We recently removed a blog post by Dr. Danielle Lee that alleged a personal experience of this nature….

CLICK HERE to read the entire post.

Key points: “Unfortunately, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove the post….In removing the post, we were in no way commenting upon the substance of the post, but reflecting that the underlying facts were not confirmed.”

I have a problem with this because it seems to say that DN Lee was not being trusted as truthful. But, lawyers will be lawyers, I suppose. But still, it feels a bit icky.

“Biology-Online is neither a part of Scientific American, nor a “content partner.” We are investigating what links we currently have with Biology-Online. ”

This does not surprise me, as the links seemed rather tenuous to begin with. Good to hear, though, even aside from the present maneno. Biology-Online seems a bit questionable.

“Juggling holiday-weekend commitments with family, lack of signal and a dying phone, alongside the challenges of reaching colleagues over a holiday weekend, I attempted to at least address initial social-media queries about the matter with a tweet yesterday: “Re blog inquiry: @sciam is a publication for discovering science. The post was not appropriate for this area & was therefore removed.” I acknowledge that microblogs are not the ideal medium for such an important explanation to our audiences and regret the delay in providing a fuller response. My brief attempt to clarify, posted with the belief that “saying something is better than saying nothing,” clearly had the opposite effect. With 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had simply promised a fuller reply when I was able to be better connected and more thorough.”

(Emphasis added wherever you see it, by the way)

Yes, I agree with the final statement here. That was a goof.

“…we intend to discuss how we can better investigate and publicize such problems in general and search for solutions with Dr. Lee and with the wider scientific community. With the help of Dr. Lee as an author, Scientific American plans to provide a thoroughly reported feature article about the current issues facing women in science and the related research in the coming weeks.”

Mariette does not seem to say if Danielle’s post is back up. BRB…

No, I don’t see it.

Well, this is a start, anyway. Hopefully with this post the conversation will shift to where DN Lee has said she’d like it to shift, towards the underlying problem. This post is a bit unsatisfying but it does explain some things. I think it would be a really good idea for Scientific American Blogs to re-post DN Lee’s post as a matter of faith and good will.

I look forward to seeing a long and thoughtful post on all of this by Bora!


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Will Sciam’s Response to DN Lee’s post deletion mean anything if it happens Monday? UPDATED

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UPDATED:

This is a very interesting and important question, and it probably requires more context than I have the ability or time to give, but I think it is worth putting on the table.

If you look at the twitter hashtags #standingwithDNLee and #IstandwithDNLee (which, interestingly, have distinctly different groups of people using them, which itself is worthy of study … perhaps an example of Tweet Drift?) you’ll be able to catch up if Twitter does not drive you crazy. Looking at the early moments of each thread, we see these two tweets:

and

So that was Friday Evening.

(I’ve described the incident in more detail here.)

Here is what happened.

1) Some jerk at an annoying aggregation site that exploits biology bloggers and writers asked scientist and blogger DN Lee if she was some sort of whore because she declined to provide him with some of her stuff for free. Her stuff being, in this case, blog posts. (unlike)

2) DN Lee wrote about this incident, and for this I and I’m sure the entire community of science communicators thank her. She could have just ignore this, absorbed it, let it pass without comment, but this was a situation where the right thing to do really was, I think, to write about it. Anyway, she did that on her blog at Scientific American. (like)

3) Scientific American Blogs deleted Danielle’s post at first without comment. (unlike)

4) Several blogs (including here but there are many) reposted DN Lee’s original post. (like)

5) A slurry of invective over the deletion of DN Lee’s post began to gush from the intertubes. (like)

6) In response to this response, Mariette DiChristina, a senior administrator with Scientific American and executive editor, placed her foot directly on the poo and went in knee deep with these two tweets:

(unlike*2)

That second tweet is in reference to the apparent fact that there is some sort of affiliation between Scientific American and the lame-ass blog aggregator site that employs the sexist, misogynist, racist jerk that insulted DN Lee

As I write this, it is Sunday morning. An entire evening, followed by an entire day (Saturday) followed by several hours of night and morning have passed and there has been very little, almost nothing, in the way of response by Scientific American. Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor for Scientific American, so he is really the person who needs to address this. Bora is, as you probably know, one of the people who helped build, shape, and define the science communication on line community over the last several years, and is one of the key movers and shakers of Science Online, an important annual gathering of science communicators. Bora also, or at least this is my impression, is mainly responsible for building the Scientific American Blogs entity, and it is widely acknowledged that Scientific American Blogs is the top science blog network out there. And now, there is widespread hate raining down on that network. This morning’s twitter feeds on those two hashtags are stating, in the main, that Scientific American’s failure to respond to the removal of DN Lee’s post equals boycott, canceling of subscriptions to the magazine, etc.

The response from Bora as of this writing has been only this:

There is a great irony here. Just prior to the creation of Scientific American Blogs, was Pepsigate. Pepsigate happened at Scienceblogs.com. Scienceblogs administration decided to create a blog run by the research unit at Pepsi. This made sense to some people because this was a group of scientists working on food and stuff, so why not have them blog at a science blogging network? The problem was that this would be a corporate blog sitting like a wolf in sheep’s clothing among regular science blogs that were written mainly by individuals scientists with mainly academic, not corporate, affiliations.

Bloggers were enraged. Within a short time Scienceblogs.com announced that they had been stupid, apologized, nixed the Pepsi blog, and set up an internal system to help avoid being so boneheaded in the future. But, many bloggers including Bora and a handful of others who are now at Scientific American quit scienceblogs.com anyway. Some even said that bloggers who did not quit scienceblogs.com were doing it wrong. At the time I felt that the exodus was overly dramatic, that scienceblogs.com had handled the problem (eventually) as well as we might expect any institution or company to handle it, and I felt no desire to mess around with moving my blog. There were a few weeks there when I felt compelled to privately contact friends and colleagues after they publicly implied that the hangers-on at Scienceblogs.com were bad, asking them if this is really what they felt and if they were really prepared to defend that position. In all cases, I think, people realized that they were being overly judgmental. The irony is, of course, that Scientific American Blogs was built in part on the basis of a kind of restructuring of the science blogosphere that came out of Pepsigate, and the PepsiExodus was fully (and skillfully) exploited to create an excellent stable of bloggers at Scientific American. But the culture of Trial by Tweet, in part embolded by things like Pepsigate and in part shaped, one way or another, by movers and shakers such as Bora (who has written eloquently many times about the increasing power of the social networks over old fashioned blogging and commenting, etc.) is now looking a lot like a huge flock of chickens. Coming home. To roost.

So, here are the main questions.

First, did Scientific American Blogs do something wrong by taking down DN Lee’s post? Answer: No doubt, yes.

Second, did Scientific American Blogs mess up by ignoring this problem over a weekend (so far)? Answer: I don’t know. Maybe an entity with employees who work Monday though Friday should be forgiven for ignoring a problem over the weekend and dealing with it on Monday (we assume they will do this, yes?)

Third, is there anything Scientific American can say or do to fix this, and..

Fourth, is it the case that failure to address the problem for 36-48 hours is itself so offensive that no matter what they do they can’t fix it?

Answer: Who the heck knows? I would hope the twittersphere would separate the two different issues of removing the post (which was totally wrong) and not responding for several hours. I tend to prefer that we not try and convict others on the internet for delays in addressing things. The rate at which a couple of thousand observers can produce tweets about something, any time of day or night, is high. The rate at which a handful of people with responsibility for a certain important decision can make and put into effect that decision is low, and slower on weekends because weekends are for tweeting, not work. Indeed, the rate of response of the twittersphere may be higher on weekends! In other words, people tweeting about this should ask themselves if they want to be judged regarding something they’ve done on the internet mainly by how long it takes them to respond to someone tweeting about it. This means your level of guilt is tied to the inverse of the rate at which you check your twitter account. That seems wrong. unlike.

Fifth, jut for fun, if we compare Pepsigate and DN Lee’s post removal, is one worse than the other? What is the difference in response by the blogospehere to the two? Will people who stormed off from scienceblogs.com now be required to storm off from Scientific American Blogs or risk being thought of as misogynist sexist racist creeps because they failed to take extreme action?

Word on the street is that Bora will fix all of this using his intertubual magic. The fact that Mr. Internet has not responded (other than one tweet) for so many hours suggests to me that he is stuck between a rock (a centuries old institution that still has not replaced board meetings and face to face conversations with tweets!) and a hard place (the world that he himself has been so influential in creating).

I hope that everyone who has said that they are boycotting Scientific American or otherwise materially responding to this realizes that the speed with which you respond to this problem is not a virtue. Responding correctly is important. Responding rapidly is not. Wait to see what Bora says, or others at Scientific American. Also, listen to what DN Lee says, and give her time to say it.

Then, of course, feel free to fall upon the perpetrators, rend limb from limb, and toss them off the island, if you must.


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Linux Shell Scripting

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I just finished Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook – Third Edition by Shantanu Tushar and Sarath Lakshman. This is a beginner’s guide to using shell scripting (bash) on linux.

Usually, a “cookbook” is set up more like a series of projects organized around a set of themes, and is usually less introductory than this book. “Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook” might be better titled “Introduction to Linux Shell Scripting” because it is more like a tutorial and a how too book than like a cookbook. Nonetheless, it is an excellent tutorial that includes over 100 “recipes” that address a diversity of applications. It’s just that they are organized more like a tutorial. What this means is that a beginner can use only the resources in this book and get results. The various recipes are organized in an order that brings the reader through basics (like how to use the terminal, how to mess with environment variables, etc.) then on to more complex topics such as regular expressions, manipulating text, accessing web pages, and archiving. One very nice set of scripts that is not often found in intro books addresses networking. The book also covers MySQL database use.

All of the scripts are available from the publisher in a well organized zip archive.

I read the e-version of the book, in iBooks, but the PDF version is very nice as well. I don’t know how this would translate as at Kindle book. But, importantly (and this may be more common now than not) the ebook uses all text, unlike some earlier versions of ebooks that used photographs of key text snippets as graphics which essentially renders them useless. Of course, copy and paste from a ebook is difficult, and that is where the zip file of scrips comes in. You can open the PDF file, get the zip archive, and as you read through examples simply open up (or copy and paste) the scripts from the zip archive and modify or run them. Also, the ebook is cheaper than a paper edition and clearly takes up way less space!

If I was going to recommend a starting out guide to shell scripting this is the book I’d recommend right now. It is well organized and well executed.

I do have a small rant that applies to virtually ALL tech-related books I’ve seen. There is an old tradition in *nix style documentation of putting certain information in the front matter. Books always have front matter, of course, but computer documents tend to have more front matter than usual. A typical example is this reference resource for Debian.

Notice all that stuff in the beginning. Like anybody reads any of that, especially the “conventions” section. Proper typography in a code-rich book does not have to be explained in detail. You can see what is code, what are comments, etc. etc. Most of this information should be added as an appendix at the end of the book where it is out of the way and can be ignored.

On a web page like the one shown here all you have to do is scan down, but in a book you have to leaf (virtually or meatspacelly) past all that stuff to get to the actual book contents. The Linux Shell Scripting book being discussed here has the first actual text on actual page 25 or so (though it is numbered page 8). I recommend moving as much of this front matter as possible to the back.

But that is a general rant about all books of this sort, which I happen to think of while reviewing this book.

Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop: Applications and Administration
The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction


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A Short List of Candidates for Mayor of Minneapolis

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A few days ago I wrote a note to each of several trusted fellow political activists asking them to provide me with a short list of which of the many candidates running for Mayor of Minneapolis they would feel comfortable with winning this important race. I did not ask for their number one choice, but rather, which of the candidates they would be reasonably comfortable with if they won. These fellow travelers in local politics were assured that I would include any and all names they gave me on the list, the list would be alphabetical and not ranked, there would be no indication as to who listed what candidate, and the names of the individuals I asked for this advice would be confidential. (I actually promised to destroy the replies.)


The reason I did this should be obvious to anyone following the Minneapolis Mayoral race. At present there are 35 candidates running for mayor. This includes a number of individuals who currently or have held public office in the area, or are otherwise politically involved, and are clearly serious candidates. It also includes a number of individuals whom it is hard to take seriously, such as the person who named himself after a well known movie pirate and one person running under the “Last Minneapolis Mayor” ticket. (I’m not sure if that candidate expect to be the last mayor of Minneapolis, or is making a statement that we’d like to keep the last mayor in office.) Many other candidates, perhaps most, are serious candidates (though often, it seems, with very narrow agendas). The problem is, there is no such thing as a serious candidate if the following two things are true: 1) There are dozens of candidates; and 2) a particular voter is not savvy to the local politics and is thus faced with a huge list of seemingly random names among which it is expected that the voter makes an informed choice.


One can get mad at individual voters for not paying enough attention to be able to vote responsibly in the election for their own mayor. But one can absolutely not expect a citizen to have a cue as to what to do when faced with this absurdly long list. Also given the large number of candidness and the fact that Minneapolis has a ranked-vote system, it is quite possible that a candidate with a funny name (such as the afore mentioned pirate) would be added as third choice by a lot of voters just for fun. And then get elected. Such a thing would not really be democracy in action. It would be something else.


I don’t vote in this election; I live in a different city. But I hold Minneapolis to be a “third home town” because my time spent living in that city is important to me. Also, Minneapolis is a big important city in my larger community. So that’s one reason I’m doing this. The other reason is that Julia just moved to the city and this is her first year ever being able to vote. That made me think of all the other first-time voters in the city, and the possible cynical (and very appropriately so) they may develop when approached with the problem of ranked voting (which is already a complication, though not much of one) and a multi-page ballot (I assume) because so many people simply signed up to be mayor.


The current situation with the Minneapolis mayor race is a joke. Minneapolis, however, is not a joke. It is a wonderful and important city. Clearly, the process has failed and needs to be revised.

My noting that the process has failed, by the way, is not a negative comment on the endorsement system itself. I do have some negative comments on that, but I am not dismayed that the DFL caucus system did not produce a candidate. That actually happens every time there is an open seat for Mayor, it seems. For what it is worth, I do have a few reform suggestions for the caucus. First, make the caucus about the caucus, not about the “very important business” of the party. A typical caucus involves hours of messing around with party business followed by the endorsement of a candidate, and if there is not enough time for that, or everyone is exhausted, that part is shortened. It should be the other way around. The caucus should involve ONLY the endorsement, and a separate meeting held later (or earlier) should address party business. Second, the mayor race appears to have no primary step. There should be one, perhaps. That might involve a third reform, that is, making the race partisan, which it currently is not. I have no useful opinion on whether or not that should be changed.


In any event, here is my list. This is, to reiterate, a list of candidates that people I trust, who are generally politically progressive Democrats, can live with. There is actually quite a bit of political diversity on this list. It happens to include the list I myself would have made.



votemgnA Short List of Candidates for Mayor of Minneapolis:


A Short List of Candidates for Mayor of Minneapolis:

  • Betsy Hodges
  • Bob Fine
  • Don Samuels
  • Jackie Cherryholmes
  • Jeffrey Wagner
  • Mark Andrew

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My Atheist Talk Stuff

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I’ve been a guest or interviewer on Minnesota Atheist Talk radio a number of times. I never talk about atheism because I’m nothing close to an expert on that or related issues (though I do have a chapter in a book about it, here!). And, of course, I’m very involved, professionally, in certain church-state separation issues (like this and this). But on Atheist Talk Radio I mainly engage in either science (lately climate change science but also evolution) or the afore mentioned church-state separation issues vis-a-vis the evolution-creationism “debate.”

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to finally organize the list of Atheist Talk Radio spots I’ve done, and here it is, with links to the podcasts. Sorry if something is missing, but I’m pretty sure I got them all:

Lois Shadewald on Pseudoscience and Greg Laden on Academic Freedom – Atheists Talk #017 May 4, 2008

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:51:32 –0700

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div class=”itemcontent” name=”decodeable”>Cynthia Egli talks with Lois Shadewald about pseudo science, including perpetual motion machines, and the Flat Earth Society which are mentioned in “Worlds of Their Own.” Greg Laden steps in to talk with Mike Haubrich about legislation which is hoping around the country, proposing “Academic Freedom,” that would require the teaching of Creationism in public schools yeast infection treatment.

Greg Laden on Food and Evolution and John Coy on Box Out – Atheists Talk #032 Aug 17, 2008

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:02:26 –0700

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Few things connect atheists better then reading and food. This week, Lynn Fellman interviews anthropologist blogger Greg Laden who talks to us about how human food has impacted human evolution. Later, Grant Steves speaks with John Coy on “Box Out.” Coy has written a novel targets to adolescent boys, an audience which has been a long ignored group. It focuses on how schools and sports can marginalize teens who may not fit a stereotype or expectation.

“Celebrating Darwin and Evolution at the Bell Museum” Atheists Talk #056 February 8, 2008

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:13:48 –0700

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2009 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and 150th year of this book “On the Origin of Species”. We’re celebrating by talking with Dr. Greg Laden, biological anthropologist, U of M. If you haven’t met Dr. Laden, you can get to know him through his nationally known blog. There you’ll find “Congo Memoirs”, his hilarious, hair raising, in-the-wild adventures while doing REAL science.

Similar to 19th century explorers Darwin and Wallace, Dr. Laden writes about tangling with the wild beasts (pythons), disease (malaria), pirates (real pirates) while deciphering how the world works — we know it as Evolution. One hundred fifty years later some of the issues are the same. Our 21st century scientist, Dr. Laden, will give us new insights into how radical the theory was, what’s new in our understanding of it and what to watch for in the future.

Also, on the first segment of the show is Don Luce, curator of exhibits at the Bell Museum of Natural History. Don will talk about the Darwin Day party on Feb. 12th at the Museum, the multimedia presentations by U of M scientists and the exhibit of Frans Lanting’s photography.

The Difference Between Science And Bunk: Massimo Pigliucci on Atheists Talk #059, March 1, 2009

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:19:19 –0700

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Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, of the Stonybrook Institute in New York,is a biologist and a philosopher who has published about a hundred technical papers and several books on evolutionary biology. He is a fellow of the American Associationfor the Advancement of Science, selected “for fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack. ”Massimo is also an atheist, and has published articles in Skeptical Enquirer, Philosophy Now, The Philosopher’s Magazine and American Atheist Magazine.

Greg Laden, who has been a frequent and popular guest on “Atheists Talk,” is an evolutionary anthropologist and professor at the University of Minnesota. On Sunday Greg turns the tables and does the interviewing, talking to Massimo about Ken Miller and the role of God in tweaking the genome at strategic moments; whether or not man is some sort of elevated creature as according to biologists who should know better and the role of pseudoscience in weakening the public understanding of evolution.

NCSE: Genie Scott and Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #68, Sunday May 3, 2009

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:32:06 –0700

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Lynn Fellman will be quizzing anthropologists Genie Scott of the National Center for Science Education and Greg Laden of the University of Minnesota on the subject of creationist attempts to weaken science education in K–12 education. Dr. Scott testified before the Texas State Board of Education as the board was considering how to rewrite the science standards. Texas is critical because of the number of pupils. Textbook publishers write their books to fit with the Texas standards, and if evolution is weakened at the whim of Texas creationists, it affects education in the rest of the states. Dr. Laden has been watching development of the Math and Science Standards for Minnesota and will provide some updates.

Greg and Genie will also be discussing the various approaches to religion in promoting and protecting science education. The NCSE is careful to assure religious leaders that science, properly done, is not necessarily dangerous to their faith (unless strict creationism is a cornerstone of their faith.) Many atheist scientists think that this is a dangerous approach because it dilutes science’s naturalistic methodology. They will discuss what the best approach may be, whether it is “New Atheism” or “Friendly Atheism.”

Greg Laden: “Missionaries in Africa” on Atheists Talk #76, Sunday, June 28, 2009

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:37:53 –0700

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Missionaries tell us that they are saving the world, traveling to foreign lands to help the natives. Of course, “saving the world” means something a little different to those of us who don’t believe there’s a Satan who needs to be battled at every turn. We usually mean saving lives and bettering standards of living, actions that have meaning in the here and now. How do missionaries do in that regard?

Biological anthropologist Greg Laden joins Stephanie Zvan to talk about his experiences with missionaries in the remotest parts of Africa and answer questions about what missions really offer the indigenous populations. He’ll tell us about the good and the bad and let us know where we need to step up to provide secular help uncomplicated by the religion of the missionaries.

This will be the final live Atheists Talk on the radio and the last podcast for a while, until we get the details of the ongoing podcast worked out. If you’re not attending the Pride Parade with the Minnesota Atheists delegation, please consider joining us at Q.Cumbers after the show to celebrate our long and successful radio run.

“Old Bones and Modern Genetics.” Greg Laden, Lynn Fellman. Atheists Talk #79 August 15, 2010

Posted: Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:16:49 –0700

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Lucy, Ardi, Frodo, and us: what old bones and new genetics are revealing today.

Who are these people and can we call them family? Listen to Greg Laden and Lynn Fellman discuss how recent fossil and tool discoveries are changing the shape of our family tree.

A report earlier this week showed evidence for stone tool use at 3.39 million years ago — much earlier than previously thought.

In addition to ancient bones and tools, genetics is filling some of the pre-historic knowledge gaps. For instance, genetic material from 40,000 year old bones show that some of us are one to four percent Neanderthal.

As a biological anthropologist, Greg Laden has insight into how the recent finds are challenging intrenched ideas. He’ll talk about what new trends are changing our understanding of human evolution. Taking us through past and recent discoveries, Greg’s engaging way of thinking critically about the mixing of bones and genes reveal a remarkable and controversial family story.

“Science in the Public Forum” Ira Flatow on Atheists Talk #89, October 24, 2010

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:37:56 –0700

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Where is Science in the Public Forum Heading? It’s time for a discussion!

Most know Ira Flatow as a science journalist, producer, and as the host of “Science Friday,” broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) every Friday afternoon. But did you know about his Minnesota connection? He was the original host and writer for the Emmy award winning “Newton’s Apple,” which broadcast from the television studios at KTCA in St. Paul, Minnesota. Science communicators Greg Laden and Lynn Fellman will ask Ira about the major changes in delivering science news and the effectiveness of new media for science education. Science is changing our culture and Ira has insights on the value of communicating science through the humanities.

Ira Flatow is a national science journalist working in multiple media: TV, web, blogger, national speaker and book author, and most widely known as the host of the very popular radio show “Science Friday” which is a major stopping point for science geeks on their weekly rounds.

Greg Laden is a scientist, a science educator, author and Scienceblogs.com blogger focused on biological anthropology, the creation-evolution “debate” and human evolution.

Lynn Fellman is a visual artist who also speaks and writes about the intersection of art and science; most recently at the “Personal Genomes” meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.

“Science and Reason 2011: Future Watch” on Atheists Talk, #98, January 2, 2011

Posted: Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:37:04 -0700

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div class=”itemcontent” name=”decodeable”>As 2010 rolls out, we all hope the future is bright for 2011. Along with hope, there’s always hype. Bringing us a reality check from their areas of expertise are these savvy thinkers:

Greg Laden, bio anthropologist and bogger for Scienceblogs.com, will give his top ten list of science stories for 2010, with commentary on the new field of paleogenomics Maggie Koerth-Baker, science journalist and writer for BoingBoing.net, will talk about the Future of Energy in the US.

Steve Borsch, media trend expert at Connecting the Dots, has insights for a year of accelerating change.

Will Steeger, WillSteeger.com, arctic explorer and eyewitness to the on-going catastrophic consequences of global climate change will tell us the latest observations.

Interviewer Lynn Fellman, FellmanStudio.com, is an artist communicating science through art, and a frequent science interviewer on “Atheist Talk”.

Host Brent Michael Davids, FilmComposer.us, is an award winning composer and creator of the music for the “Atheist Talk”.

“Zebrafish and Dictionary Atheism,” PZ Myers and Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #104, February 20, 2011

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:36:18 –0700

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Drs PZ Myers and Greg Laden will be our guests on today’s show. PZ is in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro for a pair of talks this weekend. First he will be presenting “The Evolution of Cooperativity” to the Humanists of Minnesota on February 19th, and on the 20th he will be explaining the broader topic of Evolution to the Minnesota Atheists.

PZ Myers is not shy of controversy, as he seems to invoke and generate it at will through his blog, Pharyngula. He writes about atheism, science, politics from a liberal perspective, zebrafish, critical thinking, pirates, sexism and poorly reasoned e-mails. Greg Laden joins PZ for a question and answer session in our studios. Greg generates his own share of controversy at his own blog.

“Science Communication” with Neil deGrasse Tyson on Atheists Talk #110, April 3, 2011

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:03:12 –0700

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Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the leading science communicators of our generation. As the host of Nova Science Now, Dr. Tyson conveys his enthusiasm and excitement for science and his presentation, nixed with wit and humor bring excitement to a variety of topics. Tyson is the Frederick P. Rose Director and astrophysicist at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He hosts the Star Talk radio show. He is a frequent guest on the Colbert Report for whenever Colbert needs science to augment truthiness. Dr. Tyson is the author of several science books for the lay reader.

Greg Laden is a frequent guest and interviewer for Atheists Talk. Dr. Laden is a biological anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Minnesota, and will talk to Tyson about science communication, science education and the role of magnetism in astrophysics (which is Tyson’s specialty.)

“I’ll Take Sweden, Ja Ja,” Martin Rundkvist and Yusie Chou on Atheists Talk #111, April 10, 2011

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:23:36 –0700

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Science Blogger and outspoken Atheist Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist affiliated with the University of Chester. He is the managing editor of Fornvännen, Sweden’s foremost archaeological journal. Yusie Chou is a journalist and broadcaster. She was raised in Mao’s China and came to Sweden at age seven with her family.

Rundkvist and Chou live and work in Sweden; a culture and a country in which atheism is the norm and the mention of god or Jesus by a politician is frowned upon.

On the show, Dr. Greg Laden and our guests will discuss atheism from this perspective, and contrast what it is like to live in a primarily atheist vs. a primarily theist society.

We will also discuss how atheism and atheists interface with the society in which they are embedded can be very different depending on context. In addition, we can find out if a nation transforming over to atheism actually does experience the doomsday scenario painted by many outspoken American religious leaders. We may also talk a bit about our guests’ reaction to Nordic culture in Minnesota and Swedish archaeology.

Greg Laden is a frequent guest and interviewer on our show. He is a biological anthropologist with field work experience in Africa.

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/

“Skeptically Speaking;” Desiree Schell and Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #118, June 5, 2011

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:03:44 –0700

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So, are we making inroads or not? Is skepticism spreading due to all the new media tools that we use in the 21st century? Desiree Schell, who produces the podcast “Skeptically Speaking” and Greg Laden will be bringing out the possibilities. We may be only reaching the already converted with our show and with Desiree’s show, and other skeptic broadcasts; but even if so, there is always more to see, to hear and to learn about skepticism, atheism and humanism.

This episode will touch on a broad range of topics, including a preview of what Desiree will be talking about at this year’s Skepchick track at CONvergence.

From I’m a Skeptic mini-bio of Desiree Schell:

"Desiree explores the connections between science and skepticism, and strategies for promoting critical thinking beyond the ranks of current skeptics. She is also known for delving into the slippery social issues surrounding skepticism. Her show has been near the forefront of conversations about gender issues in skepticism, and about “Skepticism 2.0’s” rebirth as a demographically broad social movement. “We really want to spread critical thinking to the broadest possible audience,” Desiree says. “In order to do that, we as skeptics need to discuss ways that we can make our message more inclusive.”

Greg Laden is a frequent guest on Atheists Talk, as well as a frequent interviewer. Greg is an evolutionary anthropologist and blogs at ScienceBlogs.

Skeptically Speaking – http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/

Skeptical Review Interview with Desiree Schell

http://www.skepreview.com/2010/06/interview-with-desiree-schell-of.html

“Look at All the Crazy Preachers.” Ed Brayton on Atheists Talk #119, June 12, 2011

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:18:20 –0700

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When Harold Camping announced his calculated date for The Rapture to be May 22, rational people laughed at his certainty. We were also saddened that his deluded followers sold everything they owned and devoted their lives to spreading the word that the “End is Near.” The rapture didn’t happen, and Camping made excuses and decided that he meant that it will all happen in October of this year. But Camping is not the only crazy preacher out there, getting publicity by saying and writing outrageous things that no sane person would accept.

Freelance writer Ed Brayton, who writes at ScienceBlogs’ Dispatches from the Culture Wars has been following and writing about religion and politics and highlighting the more stupid and insane conservative and fundamentalist preachers, priests, rabbis and imams. He and Greg Laden and I will highlight the funny, and yet scary people who use fear, bigotry religious certainty to attract followers, money and even influence public policy because of their fractured religious beliefs.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/

http://www.positiveliberty.com/

http://www.declaringindependenceradio.com/

Greg Laden is a frequent guest on Atheists Talk, as well as a frequent interviewer. Greg is an evolutionary anthropologist and blogs at ScienceBlogs.

“The Science of Global Warming.” Science v Denialism on Atheists Talk #126, July 31, 2011

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:26:27 –0700

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Kevin Zelnio and John Abraham Discuss Climate Change

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has released new temperature norms based on 30 year historical data. These are the “normals” that meteorologists compare the days’ weather to the mean for any particular day. The temperature norms are higher than they were ten years ago, and ten years ago the norms were higher than those of the prior decade. Denialism has to be very strong in a person in order to pretend that the global climate is not getting warmer. The data accumulate in the air and in the sea, and on land and indicate with very little uncertainty that human activity is the leading cause of global warming. This is the scientific consensus. The seas are showing the effects of warmer water, as the level of carbonic acids absorbed into the water are having a dangerous effect on the biosphere under the waves. Reefs are bleaching.

At a time when solutions need to be discussed in the public, scientists are facing an increasingly shrill level of “debate” and denial from those who claim that they are alarmists who are crying fire in a crowded theater when there is no need to worry. Denialists claim the atmosphere is too big and chaotic for us mere humans to have an effect.

Those of us who are familiar with creationism’s means and methods recognize the tactical similarities between creationism and global warming denialism. Our guests for this show are Dr. John Abraham and Kevin Zelnio.

John Abraham is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics) at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, He responded to a presentation made by Chrisopher Monckton at Bethel University. Monckton is a leading denialist who has many convinced that scientists are lying about global warming, but Abraham showed how this charge is false. http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

Kevin Zelnio is a science journalist and blogger at Scientific American Blogs and at Deep Sea News. He has written on the effects of the change in climate on the ocean (and our fisheries,) in addition to far-ranging subjects involving sea invertebrates . Greg Laden and Mike Haubrich will co-host today’s show.

To Catch a Fallen Sea Angel by Kevin Zelnio

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=to-catch-a-fallen-sea-angel–2010–11–05

Climate-Science Smackdown, Pt 2 , by Casey Selix

http://virou.gr/u0jYi4

Abraham Reply to Monckton by John Abraham

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Abraham-reply-to-Monckton.html

Donald Prothero on Atheists Talk #136, Sunday, October 9, 2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:17:44 –0700

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Donald Prothero is a palaeontologist who is very much disliked by the Discovery Institute and loved by skeptics, science aficionados, and students. He has written several books and over 200 papers for peer reviewed journals, popular magazines, and anthologies. He wrote “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters,” “Catastrophes!: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, and Other Earth-Shattering Disasters,” “Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and the Future of Our Planet,” as well as numerous text books and scientific monographs.

Don is in town for the Geological Society of America meetings, and has agreed to come by the studio and chat with Greg Laden about dinosaurs, climate change, science denialism and, of course, the psychology of cryptozoology, which is the subject of one of his current writing projects.

Professor Prothero is Professor of Geology at Occidental College and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society.

Links of interest:

Donald Prothero – The Psychology of Cryptozoologists on Point of Inquiry – http://www.pointofinquiry.org/donald_prothero_the_psychology_of_cryptozoologists/

Skeptics Guide to the Universe Interview with Don Prothero – http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=268

American Museum of Natural History Podcast – http://www.learnoutloud.com/Results/Author/Donald-R.-Prothero/14195

Don Prothero on the East Coast Earthquake – http://www.wypr.org/category/podcast-keywords/donald-prothero

A short list of some of Donald Prothero’s books:

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters

Catastrophes!: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, and Other Earth-Shattering Disasters

Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and the Future of Our Planet

After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals (Life of the Past)

The Evolution of Artiodactyls

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h4>Shawn Lawrence Otto on Atheists Talk #142, November 20, 2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:48:54 –0700

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This week on Atheists Talk, hosted by Stephanie Zvan, Greg Laden will interview author Shawn Otto.

Shawn Lawrence Otto has just launched his book, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, a richly documented and well-reasoned analysis of modern science denialism, especially addressing climate change. Shawn notes that scientists are inherently apolitical in their work, but that science itself is always political, and ties this important observation into recent patterns of partisan maneuvering, questionable journalistic ethics even among the upper echelon of the fourth estate, and religious distortion of scientific findings and science-based policy making.

Join us on air for what is guaranteed to be a lively and enlightening conversation, and then join us at Q. Cumbers for brunch. If you bring a copy of Shawn Otto’s book and a pen, you can get it signed!

Shawn Lawrence Otto’s website – http://shawnotto.com/

Activist Blogging, Jennifer McCreight on Atheists Talk #159, Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:33:35 –0600

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“Blogs are stupid.” “Blogs are graffiti with punctuation.” Those are two of Google’s autocomplete suggestions on the topic of blogs. That doesn’t make the statements true, of course.

"Atheist blogs are:

always stirring up controversy."

mean."

strident."

an echo chamber."

slacktivism."

A lot of things get said about atheist blogging, but most of them aren’t said by atheist bloggers themselves. With Jennifer McCreight in town to speak at the Minnesota Atheists monthly meeting, we take the opportunity to gather together a number of atheist bloggers to talk about what they do, why they do it, what they have accomplished, and what they hope to accomplish in the future. In addition to Jen, we will have Greg Laden, Brianne Bilyeu, and Stephanie Zvan in the studio this Sunday.

Human Evolution: John Hawks on Atheists Talk #164, Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:49:08 –0600

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John Hawks is one of the nation’s leading palaeoanthropologists and has lately been working with ancient DNA, recent and earlier Human Evolution, and an interesting project that is a sort of casting call for extinct humans and their relatives.

Most of you know John from his famous Internet site called “John Hawks Weblog: Paleoanthropology, Genetics and Evolution.” John is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which is one of the better known and respected for this sort of research.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that there are many interesting and exciting things going on in human origins research these days, and on Sunday morning, on Atheist Talk radio, John and Greg Laden will cover as many of them as they can. Were the Clovis people Solutreans? How many hominids were there in recent prehistory? And what do both ancient and modern DNA studies tell us about the Neanderthal side of the human family?

“Regenesis” George Church on Atheists Talk #194, November 18, 2012

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:06:02 –0700

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They are the stuff of horror and science fiction stories. They are the fodder for much political debate and public fear. Yet they may be our future and our salvation.

What are they? They are artificially created biological organisms. Authors George Church and Ed Regis, in their new book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Recreate Nature and Ourselves, tell us they are coming, and they tell us not to be afraid. Wary, perhaps, but not afraid.

Church is a molecular geneticist, who created many of the tools we use for genetic sequencing. He is also the founder of the Personal Genome Project, which looks to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and place the data in the public domain to facilitate research into the interplay of genetics and environment in determining how we become who we are. This Sunday, he will talk to us about what we may expect from this future in which we have this kind of information and this kind of power.

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h4>“Denialism on a Large Scale” Greg Laden on Atheists Talk #214, April 14, 2013

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:15:47 –0600

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Climate denialism operates on a scale and with funding that would have made an old-school tobacco executives green with envy. This makes the climate wars a perfect venue for learning about all the tricks of denialists.

Greg Laden stumbled onto climate denialism through a combination of concern for the environment and studying what climate history can tell us about human evolution. He has documented lies, threats and simple misinformation while working to get good information on climate change out to audiences on his blog and elsewhere. In the process, he’s received legal threats, death threats, and more factually incorrect comments than he can count.

This Sunday, Greg will join us in the studio to help us learn to spot denialism in the wild and to tell us what to expect from climate change denialists in the next few months.

  • “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”, Michael Mann on Atheists Talk #284, October 5, 2014

    Posted: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:46:12 -0600

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    Greg Laden interviews Michael Mann about his book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”.

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    Thinking About Thinking

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    … on Skeptically Speaking:

    This week, we’re diving back into neuroscience, to learn how common conceptions of the brain stand up to real research. Desiree Schell speaks to neurologist and author Robert Burton, about his book A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves. She’s joined by neuroradiologist Jeff Anderson, to get the scientific perspective on the differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres. And she’ll speak to cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, about the promise and peril of the push back against pop neuroscience.


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    Has Alien Life Been Discovered?

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    No.

    First, let me tell you that the Journal of Cosmology has a very checkered history and anything published in it can not be trusted in the same way one might trust counter-intuitive results, provisionally at least, in a legit journal.

    An article in the journal indicates that British scientists found stuff way high up at the edge of the out space-atmosphere boundary that must be from comets.

    They give the argument that it must be from a comet because they did their sampling of it during a time when comet dust would be likely found in the region (because a comet’s remains,a meteor swarm, was bombarding the Earth). They plan to test this idea further by sampling again at a later time. Unfortunately, rather than sampling during a period of little or no comet-remnant activity, they will sample again during high commet-remnant activity. This way they can establish the TRUTH of WHAT IS OUT THERE using the best available method: CONFIRMATION BIAS.

    There is a picture of the life. It is clearly a diatom fragment. Expect Anthony Watts to be reporting on this momentarily!

    Diatoms, or fragments of them, are tiny itty bitty things and tend to make up a good proportion of air-dust. Probably, this is air dust.

    Also,earlier recovered “aliens” were tested to see if they had DNA, and they do. This led the researchers to conclude with high certainty that life on earth started elsewhere because “there are hardly any biologists in outer space” (or words to that effect).

    I hesitate to provide this, but HERE IS A LINK to an article describing this amazing story. Or maybe amazing is the wrong word. Maybe I mean unbelievable.


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    Climate Scientists Killed in Chopper Crash While Studying Arctic Ice

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    I just heard about this:

    University of Manitoba climatologist among three killed in fatal crash in Arctic Ocean

    A Manitoba researcher is dead after a helicopter crashed into the Arctic Ocean Monday evening.

    The University of Manitoba climatologist, Klaus Hochheim, was among three people who died in the crash, which happened around 7 p.m. CST in the McClure Straight in the Northwest Territories.

    The helicopter was on a routine mission to check ice conditions at the time it crashed and was travelling with the CCGS Amundsen, a coast-guard ice breaker.

    Marc Thibault, the commanding officer of the CCGS Amundsen and Daniel Dubé, the pilot, also died in the crash.

    Hochheim, an experienced climatologist, was 55 years old and left behind a wife and three children. He had worked at the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Earth Observation Science for the past 12 years, focusing on sea ice climatology and remote sensing in extreme conditions.

    Very sad.


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