Awards banquet last night. Stephen Law got one, Jessica Ahlquist got one, Dan Dennett got one.

Everybody stands up when Jessica takes the podium. We can’t help it. I usually don’t like it when people leap to their feet, but I don’t object this time. I bet Jessica finds it cringe-making, but it can’t be helped.

I have 8 minutes on this computer and anyway it’s time for the banquet…

But it was a fun day. Outreach talk this morning – Jessica rocked the house.  A talk-lunch, lunch, at which I talked to Dave Silverman, and Ellenbeth – she and I share an online stalker. Seriously. Russell Blackford on secularism. Pat Schroeder!!! this afternoon. She too rocked the house.

Gotta go.

So I saw Dennett arriving and then I went on into the bar area and plugged in my notebook and posted that I’d just seen Dennett. That took fifteen minutes or so – it’s not my notebook after all, it’s the horrible connection, everyone says it’s horrible. Well that plus reading up on the latest exploits of the Harvard Humanists took about 15 minutes. Then I packed up and was about to go wander around a little to see if PZ had arrived when PZ turned up in front of me, having just arrived. We went over to the bar and joined Tom Flynn and Dennett and Liz Cornwell and Debbie Goddard to schmooze.

Lots of good talks yesterday. Ellenbeth Wachs on nightmare stuff in Polk County and the way they tried to shut her up. Dave Silverman on the importance of not losing law suits. Rita Swan on getting rid of religious exemptions to laws mandating medical care for children. Lionel Tiger on women ruining everything. Stephen Law on the evil god. Harry Kroto on lots of things – education, science, Murdoch – he’s terrific.

More later.

I was just walking through the lobby and there was Daniel Dennett arriving. No one else around, just Dennett.

Reception thingy last night. I met Melody Hensley and Simon Davis, and Lauren Becker, and Ron Lindsay, and Jessica Ahlquist, and Russell Blackford and Jenny Blackford, and Stephen Law, and then after we’d been turfed out of the ballroom or whatever it is, Paul Fidalgo arrived after a delayed flight. All fun. Also Tom Flynn and Debbie Goddard, but I didn’t meet them, because I already had.

It’s slow work, typing on a tiny keyboard – I keep making typos because the keys are in unfamiliar places.

I will continue to be quite brief and boring for a few days. But I promise I’m being fascinating in real life!

So this little notebook laptop I got for emergencies and travel turns out to be deathly afraid of the internet; it either freezes in panic or faints dead away whenever I ask it to do anything. Therefore I have to proceed with caution, so posting will be mostly link-free for a few days.

I see where Rush Limbaugh called a college student who testified to Congress about the need for insurance to cover contraception a “slut” and a “prostitute.” I think it’s bad that he did that.

I don’t think much of Hemant Mehta’s post yesterday on how Chris Stedman is just misunderstood, but Rieux (in comments there) and Crommunist (on a post at his place) have said good things about that.

The sun will soon be setting here in Florida.

Orlando is very flat. The view from here is of flatness all around with a few tallish buildings visible on the edge of the frame, spaced widely apart (like, two due north, one northwest, none due west, etc – it looks quite random). It’s interesting. I’m not accustomed to flat. Where I live is very lumpy.

Ok that’s a little better. The bar emptied out some so I have an armchair pulled up to a table, and there’s less noise of chatter.

The trip itself was interesting, I must say. I’ve never flown Seattle to Houston before, and it’s all mountains for a long long time. Very cool.

Also very puzzling in spots – weirdly geometrical in appearance in what appears to be mountainous wilderness – straight lines where straight lines make no sense. They don’t seem to be roads, because of the wilderness thing. [Read more…]

Now I’m at a different airport, the one in Orlando. Unfortunately my room is on the wrong side to get the airport Wifi, so I’m sitting in an armchair in the lobby when I would much prefer to be sitting at the desk in my room. Ho hum.

Anyway I’m here. I’ve seen Tom Flynn and said hello, and he says Stephen Law is around somewhere, and that’s all I know so far.

I want to join in the quarrel with Hemant Mehta, but I have to catch up with it first.

So here I am at the airport. I got nothin to say except that I’m at the airport.

I’m at SeaTac’s fancy sitting-area place, which faces a giant window – from the table where I am it’s acres of grey sky with a little scrim of airplanes and runways at the bottom. Quite nice.

Lawrence Krauss says a necessary thing. He starts from a campaign argle-bargle by Rick Santorum saying that higher education is bad because it kills faith.

Mr. Santorum views this apparent facet of higher education as a danger, and his proposed solution is simple-less higher education and more faith.

As a faculty member at an institution of higher education, and as a scientist, however, I question the basic premise that loss of faith is a bad thing. If it is true that those who are more educated have a greater tendency to question their religious faith, shouldn’t we consider that this might be telling us more about religious faith than about how harmful getting a college degree can be?

Yes, we should. [Read more…]