In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Belinda, James and Richard discuss the Real Australian Sceptics and Australian anti-intellectualism, and read out some listener emails from California, New Zealand and Finland. Plus, I get mentioned! Because I have a funny accent. No other reason.
This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is a sample of the enlightened views of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Listen to the full 12 minute clip, if you can bear it. It’s pretty sickening.
Oh, and we have a new contact email address for the show: youngausskeptics(at)gmail(dot)com. Drop us a line if you have feedback, questions, praise, criticism, or spoilers for upcoming television show episodes1.
What are you waiting for? Listen in the audio player above, subscribe via iTunes or Libsyn RSS, become a fan on Facebook, and follow the Young Australian Skeptics on Twitter.
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Note: If anyone actually does the latter, bad things will happen. ↩
Since I’m floundering about what I should write about next in terms of science or philosophy (I was tossing up about the definition of “function” in biology, but the literature is far too dense for me to get through), I thought I would share another insight into the world of my favourite music. Last time it was the violin-plucking indie rocker Andrew Bird, and this time it’s Björk, everyone’s favourite Icelandic icon.
Now I fully admit that Björk can be hard to get into. Friends of mine are quite familiar with my “Björk journey”, in which it took me four full listens of her entire discography in order to start to realise that the music was actually good. In fact, I was listening to her 2004 album Medúlla for the first time a couple of years back, before one of my sister’s choir concerts (quite appropriate, actually), just sitting in the car thinking “What the hell am I listening to? This is actually really scary – and not in a good way.” That thought didn’t go away until a few weeks later – for some reason, it all started to make sense.
What I’m saying is: don’t expect to like her music when you first listen to it. I’ll try and select some more accessible tracks for you here, but even these might be taxing for people not used to listening to music outside their comfort zone. Listener beware.
So, characteristics of the music itself. Björk’s style is hard to define, as she often switches between genres within albums, and each song rarely contains elements from only one genre. The only real constant is her vocals, which really ground each track and remind you, as you listen to her discography, that it’s all coming from one person – this is all her music. I suppose another characteristic is dense instrumentation and layering, although that’s not true for all her tracks.
I could take you right now on a journey through each of her albums, starting with her 1993 debut Debut (haha, Björk, haha) and ending with her latest, Biophilia, but there are just too many albums to get through, so I’ll only share four songs (far too few, I know) – a selection of my favourites that I’m relatively certain most people won’t find repulsive on a first listen. But, of course, your mileage may vary.
Let’s still do it chronologically (in terms of composition) though, shall we?
In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Richard, Belinda and I discuss eggless chickens, analytical thought and its effects on supernatural beliefs, and the compatibility of science and religion. Plus, Belinda interviews Eugenie Scott from the National Center for Science Education about recent developments in anti-evolution legislation in the US. This marks the third time Eugenie has been interviewed on the podcast – which means that 6.8% of all the “proper” episodes contain an interview with her. You can’t say she doesn’t deserve such attention though, come on.
This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is from a trailer for the evangelical Christian movie “IndoctriNation”, featuring Answers in Genesis’s Ken Ham. Don’t you just love him?
You can find out more about the National Center for Science Education at their website.
What are you waiting for? Listen in the audio player above, subscribe via iTunes or Libsyn RSS, and become a fan on Facebook.
In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Belinda, James, Jason, Richard and I – along with special guest Ashley Paramore from the Secular Student Alliance – discuss the Global Atheist Convention 2012, as well as secular/atheist student groups and Ashley’s time in Australia.
This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is from the official trailer of the chemtrail conspiracy movie “Why in the World are They Spraying?”. Fairly insane.
I was lucky enough to have my friend Khalil Cassimally interview me a couple of weeks ago for The SA Incubator, a Scientific American blog that focuses on the next generation of science communicators. Now, the interview is online! Have a read whilst it’s still hot. Or even when it’s not. I doubt it’s going away any time soon.
The interview goes into details about my science communication niche, podcasting, geekiness and my plans for the future. More information about what I think: just what everyone is dying to hear. Well, then again, you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t want to know what I think, right? Right.
Dramatic title! Perhaps too dramatic! But whatever! Finally, after a couple of weeks caught up in the Global Atheist Convention 2012, the Test of Faith panel discussion and some hardcore university writing about mouse testis cDNA libraries, I’m back to blogging again, as you can see. I’m exhausted, and I’m not out of things to do yet, but the pressure’s been turned down quite a bit.
If you were wondering, the Global Atheist Convention went spectacularly well. As a volunteer in a vibrant blue t-shirt I was running around all over the place most of the time, but I still got to catch most of the speakers, which were on the whole excellent. Speaker highlights were Sam Harris’s surprise meditation session, the video tribute to Christopher Hitchens, Simon Taylor and Tom Ballard at the Gala Dinner, Leslie Cannold on secularism in Australia, Daniel Dennett on whether or not some Christians actually believe in God, and, of course, Eugenie Scott’s talk on intelligent design. But the real highlights were meeting all of the wonderful people who I never get to see except at large conventions like this – people from across Australia and the world who I’ve met through the Internet.
I finally got my picture taken with Eugenie Scott (at the wrap party, hence my Darwin Tree shirt)! Third time lucky. Also, that's Chris Stedman on the left, who I got to meet for the first time at the convention and is a wonderful (very famous) person.
Kylie Sturgess, who co-MC’d the whole thing with Lawrence Leung, penned a great wrap-up post full of links to various people’s impressions of the convention. Worth a look if you missed out or just want to remember what happened in greater detail because, like me, you have a terrible episodic memory.
Related to the GAC, the Reason for Faith Festival panel discussion on science and religion I was on took place last Monday, which was actually a lot of fun. While six people (plus one moderator) on stage tended to get a little hectic at times, the discussion was respectful and quite interesting. One major thing I learnt was that, for at least the Christians on the panel, who were all accomplished scientists, Christians don’t necessarily think they have the answer to every question (which seems like a silly thing to think now, but for some reason it never crossed my mind that they could be uncertain). When I queried them on the topic of God’s interaction with biological evolution, none of them had formed a coherent idea about what they thought God had to do with evolution – they admitted this. Rather than fall into one of many defined camps (theistic evolution, intelligent design, etc.), they preferred to remain unsure and reserve judgment, something I’d never observed before.
The event was professionally recorded and a video should surface at some point (which I will of course link to when the time comes), so you won’t have to rely on my terrible relaying abilities to understand what happened for long. I was told by a few people who were in the audience (atheists and Christians alike) that I actually did well on the panel and made some interesting points, which I wasn’t expecting, so, er, there’s that.
Oh, and I spent a good deal of this week writing about identifying gene fragments from mouse testis cDNA libraries for a practical molecular biology subject I do at university, and – because of the specific genes I identified – I never want to read or write about histone H3 variants again. Those nucleosomal bastards.
Ever since 2009, I’ve been waiting for the indie/art/experimental/genre-bending pop/rock group Dirty Projectors to release another full-length album: the next chapter after their terrific Bitte Orca. Sure, they released an EP with Björk that was pretty cool, but at only 22 minutes, it didn’t fully satisfy my deep need for Dave Longstreth’s songwriting and arrangement skills.
But apparently I need not wait much longer! The first single/track/thing from their new record (whose name has yet to be revealed) has dropped1, which means the full album is not far away.
Unfortunately, the track is so good that my excitements levels have tripled. That can’t be healthy for my blood pressure.
Is it just me, or has Dave Longstreth been honing his vocal chops?
You’re all familiar with the Global Atheist Convention 2012, right? It’s a massive event being held at the Melbourne Convention Centre from April 13th-15th, featuring both international and local speakers – philosophers, scientists, writers, comedians, and more – who will all be discussing various topics surrounding atheism or non-belief in religion. My good friend Kylie Sturgess (along with Australian comedian Lawrence Leung) will be MC-ing it. What, you’ve never heard of it? How curious.
Anyway, whether or not you’ve heard of it is beside the point – all you need to know it that it exists: because various Christian organisations have come together to organise a series of events - the Reason for Faith Festival - as a counter to the 2012 GAC’s presence, on various aspects of religion, faith, spirituality and disbelief in the weeks afterwards.
One such event, on Monday, April 16th (the day after the GAC), is a screening of part of a documentary called “Test of Faith”, followed by a panel discussion centred around the interaction of science and religious/Christian belief, discussing questions such as:
What are the limits of science?
Can theistic belief be rational?
Does evolution preclude theistic belief?
Are science and religion in conflict?
The panelists include:
Professor Graham Oppy, an atheist philosopher from Monash University
Emeritus Professor John Pilbrow, former President of the Australian Institute of Physics
Associate Professor Alan Gijsbers, a neuroscientist and specialist in Addiction Medicine at RMH
Dr Bruce Yabsley, a high-energy particle physicist, involved with the Large Hardon Collider
Besides Graham Oppy, all of the other members of the panel are Christian scientists2 – and academically esteemed ones, too. They’re big names! I’m just an undergraduate science student, with views on the relationship between religion and science uninformed by graduate study and many years in academia.
I feel rather inadequate.
But anyway, it should be fun and hopefully somewhat educational. My thoughts and ideas on science and religion are complex, so I’ll probably need to write them down on here sometime to get them in order before the event. I might more/less sympathetic to the theistic scientist’s position than you might think! Stay tuned!
Of course, if you’re in Melbourne around the time of the GAC, please come along if you can. A good audience is a diverse audience and I have a feeling that the organisers of the festival have been advertising primarily through theistic communities and channels. Skeptics need to get in on this!
EVENT DETAILS
What: Test of Faith – Screening and Panel
When: April 16th, 7pm until 9pm
Where: State Library of Victoria, Village Roadshow Theatrette (Melbourne)
Cost: $10 per person (no prior registration required – just turn up on the night)
I’m described on the event’s page as being “editor of ‘The Pseudo Scientists’ podcast, founding member of Young Australian Skeptics”. Probably the most impressive things they could say about a person such as I, really. ↩
Scientists who happen to be Christians, not members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. ↩
If that title doesn’t draw you in, I don’t know what will, honestly. It’s not misleading, either.
The lovely folks over at TBA - Ben Vernel, Tess Armstrong and Andy Balloch – were kind enough to inviteme on their excellent podcast to discuss all things science… and quite a few things not-science. I share some amazing science-themed pick-up lines (which I’ve never, ever used, I promise you), Tess asks me about random topics, Ben just sits there being a bit of an hilarious creep, and Andy finds the science (?) in videogames. Other stuff happens too, of course, so listen below (or on iTunes) to find out.
I received an email the other day from Dan Ryder, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, notifying me about a debate/blog back-and-forth he’s been having with notable Australian young-Earth creationist John Mackay (from creationresearch.net). It’s actually a wonderful example of how such debates, if you were thinking of partaking in one in the future, are likely to go: Mackay behaves in a fairly typical way, denying large chunks of established scientific knowledge when it suits him, refusing to rigorously define his terms (like “kind”), and just generally missing the point. Here’s a great example.
As the debate is laid out in a blog format, with Ryder and Mackay responding to each other’s posts in a more-or-less sequential way, it’d be useful to jump right in at the start and check out both guys’opening arguments. You can then use the “previous/next” navigation links at the top of each post to view the posts in order.
Have fun! May you learn of the somewhat-futile nature of debating creationists. Hopefully the blog also serves as a Google trap for people on the fence about creationism, exposing how silly its proponents can look.
Homologous Legs is the blog of Jack Scanlan, an Australian biology student who has a serious problem with creationists, intelligent design proponents and anyone else who misrepresents evolutionary biology or science in general.
He uses this blog to post news about the intelligent design/evolution "war", science communication in biology and chemistry, and mostly coherent thoughts from his scattered, music-loving brain.
