Category: Follies of the Human Condition

Blueprints of the Afterlife in the NY Times

About a quarter of the way through the book I’m finding this to be a great mix of Snow Crash-type characters in a world that would give Philip Dick a run for his money, with hints of Oryx and Crake and Against the Day. My intent is not deny Boudinot’s originality – it’s to get you to read the book.

At the NY Times: All Sorts of Strange Stuff Happens When You Destroy the World: Ryan Boudinot’s Novel ‘Blueprints of the Afterlife’, by JOHN SCHWARTZ

This novel is, in a word, freaky. Woo-jin, the dishwasher, finds a young woman’s body. It is taken away by the police, and he finds it again. But the first body is still in the morgue. Continue reading “Blueprints of the Afterlife in the NY Times”

Super Apathy

Briefly, I don’t care that you don’t care.

You can read the rest of my rant over at The Paltry Sapien

Trivial Pursuits

In the 20 January 2012 edition of Science Magazine, editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts makes a strong argument that science education should not be about the “facts” of science or the false god of “rigor”:

Trivial Pursuit is of course merely a game; but it reminded me of the much more serious battle. . .for my grandchildren, “science” includes being able to regurgitate the names of parts of the cell in 7th grade. . .Although rigor might appear to be a worthy goal. . .they are taught with an overly strict attention to rules, procedure, and rote memorization. . .for far too many, science seems a game of recalling boring, incomprehensible facts. Continue reading “Trivial Pursuits”

The latest evolutionary developments have passed me by

“Geolocating Tweets”:

As the rising generation replaces us, with their seemingly inborn familiarity with all things IT, does this make them in effect a new species? A species possessing the solution to the riddle of existence, the answers to all the questions which have plagued us — the old Hominids — for the last two million years? Continue reading “The latest evolutionary developments have passed me by”

More evidence that opposition to evolutionary biology is about religion, not science

Intelligent design and the oxymoronically titled creation science, despite their pretensions to being a scientifically principled opposition to one of the our most well-established scientific theories, have never been anything more than attempts to dress religion as science.

From the National Center for Science Education:

INDIANA CREATIONISM BILL PASSES THE SENATE

On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89. As originally submitted, SB 89 provided, “The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.” On January 30, 2012, however, it was amended in the Senate to provide instead, “The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from
multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.”

Unfortunately for the Indiana senate, this kind of non-stealth creationism legislation has a long, perfect record of complete and expensive failure in court.