I don’t know if the public can handle this

It’s official. The big event is on. At the end of this month, it may be the end in more ways than one: four will enter, but only two will leave. It’s the Pretty Boys vs. the Godless Savages in a brutal debate at the Bell Museum.

SPECIAL EVENT:
Speaking Science 2.0: New Directions in Science Communication
Friday, September 28, 2007
7:30 p.m.
Bell Museum Auditorium
$5 Suggested Donation

Seed magazine writers and influential science bloggers gather to discuss new directions in science communication. This lively panel discussion will cover a range of topics, including science and culture, public engagement with science, the role of scientists in the public discussion of science, and communication via the Internet, film, museums and other media. Author and journalist Chris Mooney, American University communications professor Matthew Nisbet, University of Minnesota anthropologist Greg Laden and University of Minnesota Morris biology professor PZ Myers will join moderator Jessica Marshall, a U of M science journalism lecturer. A reception in Dinkytown will follow the event.

Co-sponsored by the Bell Museum of Natural History; Seed Magazine/ScienceBlogs; The Humphrey Institute’s Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy; and the Minnesota Journalism Center.

For more information about ScienceBlogs visit: http://scienceblogs.com/
For more information about the Bell Museum visit: http://www.bellmuseum.org/

It’s gonna be intense, man.

If you can’t make it, rumor has it that it will also be taped for the Point of Inquiry podcast. A recording won’t fully capture the smell of fear or the texture of coagulating blood, though…SO BE THERE.

Something to terrify the students: LOANS

Orac has a discussion that might be of interest to the young ‘uns: what kind of debt is hanging around your neck after med school? I can’t even imagine getting out of school with a bank expecting me to pay off a few hundred thousand dollars.

I went to college in the late 1970s, when we still had reasonable support for college students. I was on my own — my parents still had 5 other kids at home — but I could actually get through four years of college by holding down two part-time minimum wage jobs and with a fair number of scholarships and low-interest or no-interest loans. I graduated with perhaps a few thousand dollars of debt that I paid off easily — I’d get these quarterly bills for something like $30. Since these were loans at negligible interest, I almost felt a little regret at paying it off.

Unlike Orac, I took the grad school track. They pay you to go to grad school in biology. It’s a pittance, and you get to live in cramped apartments for a few years on macaroni and cheese (mmmm…free government cheese…) and the refreshments at departmental seminars, but you don’t come out of it poorer than when you went in. You also don’t come out of it with great job prospects and the employment is all for a low salary, but that’s another issue…

Urbanized

Would you believe the Urban Dictionary has an entry for PZ? It’s lousy—I can’t believe anyone uses the term that way, and I can’t imagine how they pronounce it. And pzizzle isn’t any better.

Myers, at least, has some punch to it: “Last name of any various white masked knife weilding bad muther *uckers.” I still think most of these entries are jokes sent in by people, especially when the spelling and grammar are atrocious, and that they don’t really have any common usage.

Arguments for morality are not arguments for religion

(This article is also available on Edge, along with some other rebuttals to and affirmations of Haidt’s piece.)

Jonathan Haidt has a complicated article on moral psychology and the misunderstanding of religion on Edge. I’m going to give it a mixed review here. The first part, on moral psychology, is fascinating and a good read that I think clarifies a few ideas about morality. The second part, though, where he tries to apply his insights about morality to the New Atheists*, fails badly. I can see where he has thought deeply about morality, but unfortunately, he hasn’t thought clearly about the New Atheism (and perhaps that isn’t entirely his fault. We’re “New”, after all, and I don’t think the structure and goals of these New Atheists have quite gelled yet.)

[Read more…]

Credit where credit is due

A football player, Kevin Everett, suffered serious spinal cord trauma in a game the other day. That’s tragic, but the impressive part of the story is that he may recover to some degree thanks to advances in treatment, and most surprising, this comment from a consulting neurosurgeon:

“I don’t know if I would call it a miracle. I would call it a spectacular example of what people can do,” Green said. “To me, it’s like putting the first man on the moon or splitting the atom. We’ve shown that if the right treatment is given to people who have a catastrophic injury that they could walk away from it.”

No miracles, just hard work and fast action and science. Sounds like the right answer to me.