So, there’s about 30 or so of the ScienceBlogs clan gathered in New York City this weekend. We’ve been busy, ummm, bonding or something, and also having some serious discussions, but now we’re more or less free. We’re kind of dispersed in a chaotic fashion, but some of us, including at least me and Bora, and probably several others, are planning to meet at the BBar and Grill, at 40 East 4th St., from about 7:00 on. All are welcome, come on down and join us!
Damn, I live a block away from there, but probably won’t be able to make it. Ya’ll have fun!
I would be stopping by too but I’m going to the Red Bulls vs. Galaxy Match tonight.
60,000 people to see Becks.
Hey, Myers, why don’t get your butt down to Chris’s diner in the Bronx, so I can give you the low-down on how to speak your mind to those Christian idiots with their bible-based delusions?
This is unfair! Your West Coast fans get a detailed travel itinerary days in advance, while your East Coast Pharyngulites get a two hours heads up. Not fair! I’m returning my Fan Club Membership and finding another blog.
inkadu, it’s just a physical phenomenon–as any traveler knows, time compresses when traveling east and expands while traveling west.
things just happen too damn early out east is all–nothing PZ can do about it.
Jeeze, you guys couldn’t have done this last week so you could join forces with the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe crew to form an unstoppable Volton-like conglomeration and destroy New York all Godzilla-style?
Dammit!!
I wish I had seen that post earlier. I already made plans to go visit friends out in the country IF PZ was not gonna be around. I missed it by 15 minutes. Ah well. Until next time.
-DU-
I second inkadu! What’s with the lack of prior notice about an NY trip? I hope you’ll be out and about tomorrow as well!
Let me second the dismay!
My evolution Meetup ended at 7:00, and I was wishing for just such a thing to go to. I would certainly have stopped by, had I had warning.
Do us New Yorkers a favor next time, and give us a heads up. It would have been wonderful. (And I’ll bet that some of our other heroes were there, too….
sigh
Oh, by the way, for the other New York metro area folks here, this is the URL for the evolution Meetup, if any are interested:
http://evolution.meetup.com/48/
[and Becks was in town….]
Let me recommend Housing Works (used) Bookstore @126 Crosby St (Just south of Houston and easy walking distance)
Love to see you if you ever come to Toronto…
Yeah… too short a notice! Damn you, PZ! Erm… how about Sunday? What are your plans? Can we get a heads up?
You wussies! I had to drive for 3 hours to get there (uphill in the snow all the way), but I still went.
PZ is just as I pictured him — 6’5″, dazzling smile, deep James Earl Jones type voice, and commanding presence.
Two hours swept past like lightning. And then I drove the three hours home.
But it was worth it.
Thanks, PZ! Great to meet you. And thanks to Grrlscientist, Bora, and all the others there.
I live 2 blocks from there. I’ll be there. But how do we find you…just walk up?
Oh crap, I *would* be reading this on Sunday morning… Hope y’all had a nice time in “my city” last night!
What may be a splendid monotheistic bitchslapfest coming up on Brit TV: Islam on Jesus (he was rescued from the crucifix by angels, you know).
As it happens liveblogging at my gaff from 11.15 BST.
I would have, too, except . . . . [grumpy OT venting]:
. . . I was in Philly growling at an admiring review of Behe’s The Edge of Evolution that surfaced in the Inquirer this weekend. It’s by one Cameron Wybrow, described as a “freelance writer with a doctorate from McMaster University . . . [who] has published two books on the origin of modern science.” (What he got a doctorate in, I’m not totally certain, but his Ph.D. thesis got published as The Bible, Baconianism, and mastery over nature : the Old Testament and its modern misreading, which apparently argues against the idea that biblical ideas inspired ecological exploitation by claiming that it was really just a “misreading of Scripture in the service of modern technology that caused this . . .)
Highlights? , Behe already’s been “ denounced by the self-styled defenders of science – biologists like Ken Miller and Jerry Coyne, and non-scientists like Michael Ruse and Barbara Forrest . . .” With EOE, “The response to Behe has been predictable. The editors of the major print media have assigned known enemies of ID to trash the book – Richard Dawkins for the New York Times; Coyne for the New Republic; Miller for Nature; Ruse for Toronto’s Globe & Mail. A large part of each review is ad hominem, concerned with Behe’s alleged religious agenda, his minority status among biologists, and other irrelevant matters. In Dawkins’ review, the science is barely touched, . . . Behe deserves better. The Edge of Evolution makes a serious, quantitative argument about the limits of Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot honestly ignore it.”
Yes, Dawkins dedicates only 7 paragraphs of a 10 para piece to ‘the science’ – although his response both seems phoned in and too clever by half – but the funny bit is that if he actually read Miller’s review, there’s no sign of it – he just uncritically repeats Behe’s claims about malaria and chloroquine resistance that got ripped up there and elsewhere . . .
Dear me, that’s just down the street from my old Alma Mater (Cooper Union on Astor Place at the nonharmonic convergence of 3rd and 4th Aves and the Bowery, the BOWery…)
You think you’re an old geezer! Why, when I was whippersnappering at Cooper back during the real Summer of Love, you all wouldn’t have been having any evolutionist confabs down there, unless you were prepared to have it in a flophouse. Gentrification is an interesting phenom, but I do wonder where all the derelict old winos went, if such still exist.
Damn PZ, I was just in New York visiting my atheist aunt the entire weekend and we were looking for places to eat and drink!!!
Sorry I missed that!