Will South Park teach the controversy?

South Park’s amusement factor has been up and down for me, but I may have to make an effort to catch this evening’s episode.

Cartman’s plan to propel himself into the future goes horribly wrong. South Park Elementary faces strong opposition to the topic of evolution being taught to the 4th graders, especially from Ms. Garrison who has to teach it. Eric Cartman can’t be bothered with what’s going on in class. He’s busy manipulating his own personal time-line to align with the precise release date of the newest, hottest game.

What’s on your desktop?

Female Science Professor is polling her readers on what’s on their computer desktop. It’s not a weird question pulled out of thin air: she noted that male professors may be more comfortable showing pictures of their families than females, who have to be more sensitive to the stereotypes.

It’s not a scientific poll in any sense of the word, but just out of curiousity, let’s see what emerges.

My answer was “Other.” My desktop image right now is of a hypothetical cephalopod-like alien swimming in a methane sea beneath an orange-red sky. What would fit her hypothesis, though, is that my desk has a keyboard drawer that I don’t use (my office computer is my laptop), and that’s filled to overflowing with…pictures of my family.

Watch these!

This morning, I’m off to the Unitarian Church of Willmar to talk about creationism. I’ll be back later, but ’til then, you kiddies can watch some TV. Flea has David Rakoff, if you want to laugh at the inanity of the right wing, while Crooks and Liars hosts the latest Olbermann, if you’re more in the mood for tragedy, in this case the unraveling of the Constitution.

Battle-what?

Uh-oh. Apparently, there was some TV premiere that I missed last night that I’m seeing discussed all over the Intarwubs. I’d let it slide, but Scott McLemee said this:

Looking back, it was probably Tim Burke’s recommendation that made me give the remake a try. He called himself “probably the last geek out there to discover Battlestar Galactica” but actually, no, a few of us were left to follow in his wake.

Yep, that’s me, one of the last geeks to see this thing. I saw one episode a year or so ago…and I wasn’t impressed (it would take a fair amount of dazzle to overcome the hurdle put up by the ghastly original incarnation of the program), and I’ve just never made the effort to follow through on it.

So convince me.

Dodos of your own

You may recall that I reviewed Flock of Dodos last week—it’s good, you should all see it if you can. The movie now has a distributor, so maybe you can. Unfortunately, this isn’t a release for private use yet, so what you need to do is get an institution to fork over $345. Yeah, that’s steep, but it includes public performance rights. Maybe you could convince your local university to get it for a Darwin Day showing…? Recoup the cost by selling tickets?

The Morris Café Scientifique lurches to life again!

Once again this year, I’m setting up our Café Scientifique-Morris, which is going to be held on the last Tuesday of each month of the university school year. This time around, that means the first one falls on…Halloween! So we’re going to do something fun for that one: maybe some costumes, lots of clips from classic horror movies, I definitely think we’re going to need some bubbling retorts of colored fluids, and the chemistry department is tentatively going to provide some treats (ice cream made with liquid nitrogen—chemistry and treats don’t usually go together in people’s heads, I know.) This is the announcement for the first talk:

i-ea9288230b587c16f4c56e3c67c3b525-halloween_announcement.jpg

I’ve been ripping a few DVDs from my collection with classic portrayals of scientists—the Universal Frankenstein series, Re-animator, the Bond movies, etc. (any suggestions? Pass ’em on)—which show us off as evil villains, and I’m going to show short clips from them to illustrate our poor image. Then I’m going to follow up with more but less exciting clips of people like Sagan and Wilson and Dawkins and, if I can track it down, Bronowski to illustrate the real humanism of good scientists. Suggestions for the latter part are also welcome, and that will be the heart of the talk, but face it: I don’t want to overdo the moralizing, and all the fun is going to be in the monster-makers.

I’ve also finalized our schedule. I’ve opened it up to a few people on the other side of campus, so we’re also going to hear about the legal standards for the admission of scientific evidence, and the economics of alternative power generation and transmission, in addition to a discussion of the chemistry we all use in our homes, a bit of astronomy, and a session of insect identification.

  • 31 October 2006 :: PZ Myers, Biology
  • 28 November 2006 :: Theodora Economou, Law
  • 30 January 2007 :: Panel discussion, Chemistry
  • 27 February 2007 :: Arne Kildegaard, Economics
  • 27 March 2007 :: Kristin Kearns, Physics
  • 24 April 2007 :: Tracey Anderson, Biology

It’s looking like a good year for this seminar series. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by!