One of the (many) things I enjoy about teaching is seeing students develop the confidence to take part in discussions & present (& defend) their own views on the topic du jour. Classes where that happens are really seriously enjoyable. And so it was on Friday, when I was in a tutorial class & we […]
Continue readingYear: 2011
a pat a day may help keep the doctor away
Poppa’s been in hospital for the last two weeks. Until he was transferred to a hospital closer to his home we were visiting him regularly, but there was one member of the family that he couldn’t have cuddles with, & he really missed that. And who was he missing? Ben, the little poodle.
Continue readingcreationist ‘report’ writing: marked down again
Yesterday I received an e-mail from someone using the pseudonym ‘WinteryKnight, who said: I was just wondering if you have any recent research publications on experimental biology? I am thinking about writing a blog post comparing you to Michael Behe, and I want to be as fair as possible when I compare your research publications […]
Continue readinganother form of donation
A few days ago my fellow Scibloggers & I had a bit of a discussion around blood donations (as part of a wider discussion of issues relating to the disastrous earthquake in CHristchurch on Tuesday 22 February). While at present the Blood Service isn’t calling for extra donors, I thought I’d write another post on donation […]
Continue readingan ancient origin for the human eye
We understand a fair bit, these days, about the evolution of the complex, ‘camera-type’ vertebrate eye. Not that this has stopped creationsists (most recently the ‘intelligent design’ camp as represented by the Discovery Institute) from arguing that the eye is an excellent example of How Evolution Is Wrong – what, they ask, is the use […]
Continue readingmy humble little blog is found by the discovery institute
Well, colour me startled! It seems that some of the things I said in a recent blog post & its associated comments thread have attracted the attention of the Discovery Institute. They don’t appear to be particularly happy with me. I don’t think that I’ve ever been called "dishonest" and "a liar" before, had my […]
Continue readingwhere lamarckian evolution might take our little furry fiends…
… and it ain’t pretty 🙂 (I thought another chuckle might be good for us all)
Continue readingpredicting earthquakes: hedging your bets
Fellow SciBloggers Peter Griffin & David Winter have recently written posts on Ken Ring’s (in)ability to predict earthquakes (here and here respectively). This is something I’ve also touched on earlier & I thought I would follow up on it now – the specific issue I want to address is that of hedging one’s bets.
Continue readingmy blackberry’s not working…
Well, not mine… I thought everyone might enjoy a good chuckle – I’ve had a few IT issues recently and one of our Faculty computer folks thought that the following might take my mind of it. Which it did 🙂
Continue readingmy heart goes out to christchurch
I haven’t managed to settle to blogging for a few days – like everyone else I know, I’ve followed the dreadful events in Christchurch and wondered what on earth I could do (settling on dispensing hugs both real & virtual, offering beds to friends & family if they need to leave home, and making a donation […]
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