The latest episode of Skeptically Speaking is out, where you can listen to host Desiree Schell talk to WIRED writer David Dobbs about Naomi Wolf’s latest book, and to your truly about the disastrous media coverage of ENCODE. Listen online, grab it in podcast form, or find on one of the many radio stations that carry the show.
A big thanks to Desiree and producer K.O. Myers for having me on the show, and helping me sound less incoherent than I might have.
I’ve got two clarifications on some dates I tossed out during the interview:
I said ENCODE has been going for at least five years. I was thinking of the post-pilot phase, which began in 2007, after the pilot phase publications. ENCODE itself began in 2003.
I said people have been studying transposable elements for at least 30 years. I had in mind the 1980 papers on selfish DNA by Orgel and Crick and Doolittle and Sapienza. But of course don’t forget that Barbara McClintock discovered transposable elements in the 40’s and 50’s, and won her Nobel Prize on the subject almost 30 years ago.
In case you missed it last Sunday, you can now listen to Marie-Claire as guest host of last Sunday’s Skeptically Speaking on Science Cinema. Go listen her discuss with veteran film makers how to convey science through movies.
And tune in this Sunday for an episode on scientific controversies, featuring yours truly on the media disaster that was the ENCODE coverage, and David Dobbs talking about, um, vaginas and neuroscience. You don’t want to miss that.
UPDATE: Sorry for the confusion… I’m used to listening to the podcasts, not the live show. David Dobbs is live now (Sunday), and the whole packaged deal will be out in podcast and radio show form on Friday. Tonight’s discussion with Dobbs is fascinating, so definitely tune in!
I would like to receive a note like this. Obviously not this one, but something like it, based on entropy and poultry, would be nice:
hi! i hope you are having a great day. here is a drawing of a chicken. she is having a great day, because 8 words ago she didn’t exist (now 14 words). But now she does. So, things seem to be getting better for her. and, if you think about it, somewhere in the universe had to get a little more chaotic to allow enough order to be imposed on the ink to draw that chicken. the whole universe came together to make that chicken drawing. wow! that’s teamwork. considering the effort we all just went to in order to draw you a chicken, I hope you like it. i mean really like it.
hope you have an even better day than this chicken.
PS – her name is Madame Poulle d’Artangin, but she likes to be called Betty.
The Finch and Pea 