Hey! Carl Zimmer has been inspired by one of my posts!
Didn’t give me credit, though…
Author: Al Denelsbeck
1F4
Well, it’s my 500th post, provided you ignore some deleted update markers and having to rebuild the blog long ago when the last software failed to perform, and the idea that everything I write goes through a few drafts. But anyway, it’s an important milestone, since it’s halfway to 1,000 posts, which is where I actually get readers, right? Nice
Frustrations, part nine
Edit: I’d already used “part eight” on a previous post and missed it, so this has been renamed.
I have a small collection of school presentations that I’ve put together, primarily about arthropods – life cycles, feeding habits, camouflage, and so on. For one of them, I have pretty much everything about lady beetles illustrated, save for just one thing:
Book review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
There were two things that prompted me to read this book: an interest in the curious history of psychic research within the US military, and the reputation that the author seems to have in skeptical circles. I’ll skip the dramatic buildup by saying that the book failed to address either of these.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson, is an account of Ronson’s
You mad?
The Girlfriend pointed this out to me, since this one had slipped past my radar, but two recent pics illustrated a trait I had mentioned long ago, in the early days of the blog, back when my readers numbered, well, pretty much as they do now (we won’t talk about those numbers.)
I read this article that said…
When I was taking an online course on reasoning and constructing good arguments (which I never completed, but that’s another post,) there was one interesting tidbit that was covered: some conclusion might be perfectly correct, but the argument leading to the conclusion could be flawed or unsupportive.
Middle of nowhere
“Middle of nowhere.” This is one of those phrases that have gradually gotten more annoying to me over time, and I realize now that it subtly says a lot about our society, and perhaps even influences our reactions.
The middle of nowhere tells us that it’s far from roads, and restaurants, and telephones, and people overall – this is, supposedly, the “nowhere”
Great horny toads!
If you’re the least bit familiar with frogs and toads, you know that anything but the most cautious approach to any pond where they hang out will send them sailing off the bank into the cover of the water, or vanish beneath the surface if they’re in the water in the first place. This, however, is a set of rules that does not apply to mating season.
On approaching the little drainage pond
The missionary position
At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne has tackled yet another foofaraw among philosophers this particular topic is one of frequent appearance, being Does science assume naturalism? And ever so typical of philosophy, it begins with traditional assumptions and goes even further off course from there.
The duel comes over the various definitions of terms like naturalism and supernatural,
Still trying
Here, we’re still wondering if spring has finally decided to settle in, or if its meds are going to wear off and send it scurrying for safety someplace, wherever spring goes when it’s not around – my guess is a shop that does specialty jams. The past few days have been spent dealing with the peripheral effects of a minor surgery – not mine, but that of The Girlfriend’s