This is an extension of a much earlier post on meaning, or the universe’s apparent lack thereof, as well as Sean Carroll’s presentation from The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012. Both of those are virtual prerequisites for making the most out of this post, primarily because I don’t feel like reiterating a bunch of stuff.
So, given that there is no meaning to life, the universe, & everything
Courtesy of Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True, I want to alert people that Donald Prothero’s book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters is now on sale at Amazon, in e-book format. Normally $23.99, for month of November it is just $3.99!
In addition, one of Coyne’s readers, James (yes, the same James we all know and love) is throwing in an extra bonus:
In honor of the day, I present to you an image from a few weeks ago, while I was trying to get decent photographs of a tiny thread-legged assassin bug, Stenolemus lanipes. I thought the pattern on the abdomen could be considered appropriate.
Though I admit, now that The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog pointed out the ‘horns’ to me, which I’d missed at first, I now can’t help
“Now where did this odd callous on the side of my thumb come from?”
Oh. Yeah.
That might do it…
I’m pretty hard on philosophy, but I’m even harder on pseudophilosophy, the practice of asking questions that aren’t even comprehended or, much worse, are asked for the sake of asking. Unfortunately, quite a few people still seem to fall for this, and we have been treated to countless instances – blogs, articles, books, etc. – where someone has taken the bait
I’m sorry, this really does amount to (I feel terribly uncouth even breathing the word) a tweet, and I hereby promise not to make a habit of it. But it occurred to me this morning how much America is the land of opportunity. No matter how feeble your understanding of biology or science, or even if you’re an incredible asshole, you can still go on to become a Republican politician!
Other
Well, that’s what I was initially after, but the conditions weren’t right at the nearby river, so I chased other images instead. They look better at higher resolution, so here’s me making the page very long.
No, I’m not on a water droplet kick, but if it looks cool, Ima take a pitcher of it…
Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist and one of the bloggers at Cosmic Variance, gave a talk at The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012 in July, regarding the nature of scientific unknowns and how this translates to our confidence in physical reality.
Walkabout podcast – Intolerance will not be tolerated!
Among a collection of concepts that are poorly understood and almost completely mismanaged in our current culture sits intolerance. Ask anyone if intolerance is good or bad, and I bet you’ll garner ‘bad’ as an answer the majority of the time. This is an indication
Yes, being a northern hemispheran, autumn is encroaching here, which means the availability of subjects is waning rapidly and I’m going to be grumpy and irritable for a few months (not helped at all by sinuses that react badly to the conditions.) Yet, there are still some last holdouts defying the season, like an aster flower that abruptly came into bloom under the dog fennel
