CFI: It's Time for Science and Reason

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o2_U0ggvb8



We need more efforts like this, to counter the pernicious spread of woo-woo throughout modern life. We need more of the likes of Dawkins, Pinker and Dennett on TV, and more exposure of rational thinking generally.

Politics, religion and moral psychology: Jonathan Haidt - TED Talks

Jonathan Haidt: The real difference between liberals and conservatives



These TED Talks are usually (as here) short, pithy and well worth watching. Unique, provocative content.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

Will Eoin Colfer taint Douglas Adams' masterpiece? (repost from other blog)

Eoin Colfer (pic) has been asked to write the sixth part of Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy', and some people are expressing concern.

I'm linking to the repost on RichardDawkins.net as well as the original Guardian article, because the comments at RD.net highlight a common concern raised whenever some piece of literature is 'continued', or a classic film is remade.

People seem to be worried that an inferior sequel or continuation somehow taints the original work. It doesn't. The original work is still there. Look at modernisations of Shakespeare. You may like them or loathe them, but the original plays are still available, entirely unaltered by any reinterpretation. My great uncle, Herbert M. Jenkins, was adamant that Shakespeare should be played in one of only two ways: Elizabethan dress, or the dress of the period the play was portraying. (He had a point - there's a passage in Julius Caesar where Caesar is described by an onlooker as "throwing open his doublet". No mention of him wearing a toga, which seems more likely attire for ancient Rome.)

I think Uncle Bertie was wrong. Authors, dramatists, film-makers, indeed creators of any kind are free to draw on any sources for their inspiration, copyright permitting. They may or may not do a good job (though that's often a matter of opinion or artistic judgement). But whatever they do, they will not extinguish the original work, which is available for anyone to experience in its pristine original form.

Or even to make yet another adaptation.

Burnee links for Sunday

American Chronicle | Imagine There's No Heaven - David Swanson

The Skeptic magazine news page » Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People

Origin of the specious | New Humanist
A. C. Grayling puts the boot in

BBC2 to air documentary marking 20th anniversary of the The Satanic Verses | Media | guardian.co.uk

Pharyngula: Peeeedaaaaaants!

Skepchick: Spiritualism, Carl Sagan, Fact and Fiction…

The Freethinker › Teachers ‘must respect’ the creationist views of their pupils
Direct link to Michael Reiss's paper:
the-BA: Should creationism be a part of the science curriculum?

Neatorama » The REAL Secret Behind Crop Circles

Saudi OKs Killing "Immoral" TV Execs, Decree Says Permissible To Kill Satellite TV Network Owners Over Immoral Content - CBS News

Bad Science » Matthias Rath drops his million pound legal case against me and the Guardian.
...and the Guardian itself:
Matthias Rath: Fall of the doctor who said his vitamins would cure Aids | World news | The Guardian

Creationism and the advance of counterknowledge :: Damian Thompson

Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists? | The Spectator

DC’s Improbable Science: The gripes of Rath

LHC roundup

By no means comprehensive, just some stuff that caught my eye (or my newsreader) during this week of Big Bang Day. First, just to check:

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

. . . which neatly leads into:

Hysteria over LHC reaches critical mass | Edger

The BBC has been as guilty as anyone in its general news bulletins, though Radio 4 put out some good coverage - Engineering Solutions with Adam Hart-Davis, in particular:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00d9yz3

After the above link expires, download an mp3 from RapidShare here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/341848048/EngineeringSolutions_BBCR4i-20080910.mp3

Finally, also from Adam Hart-Davis:

Large Hadron Collider: Why we're all in love with the 'God particle' machine - Telegraph

Dancing plague - Strasbourg, 1518

You couldn't make it up . . .

"In July 1518, a terrifying and mysterious plague struck the medieval city of Strasbourg. Hundreds of men and women danced wildly, day after day, in the punishing summer heat. Some of them even died. In his book A Time to Dance A Time To Die, just published, a British historian of medicine based at Michigan State University has uncovered fresh evidence into why this so called dancing plague took place. The author John Waller explains what exactly the dancing plague was."

Today Programme, BBC Radio 4:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7612000/7612071.stm

Harlan Ellison: "Pay the Writer" - an outdated concept? (repost from other blog)

Harlan Ellison is well known for being . . . forthright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE



(via WritersWeekly)
His point of view is a valid one, but it's also a little dated in this age of new media. For all his maverick bluster Ellison is an established writer who got where he is today by traditional methods. Those methods have become less appropriate now that so much free stuff is available.

New writers ('underpublished' writers, as Evo Terra of Podiobooks.com calls them) would do well to explore the alternatives. Slavishly insisting that every word carries a price-tag can be counterproductive. In essence Ellison is right, but it's worth remembering that writers can receive 'value' for their work in other than money.