My Dad and I, taking the concept of a “graduation photo” very seriously.

Yep, I’ve got a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Genetics (and also Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, but you’ll never see it on my transcript)! I’m starting a Master of Science (Genetics) at the University of Melbourne and the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute in February! My research project, which I’ll probably be discussing a little bit of detail over on the Young Australian Skeptics blog in the coming months, is all about functionally analysing an unknown gene family in Drosophila melanogaster that may have links to insecticide resistance and metabolic arms-races against bacteria and fungi!

Bring on the proper science!

A little under 12 hours ago, the Young Australian Skeptics blog relaunched with a gorgeous new website, new articles, and a new writing team, all under the direction of yours truly, its new head editor! There’s a dedicated podcast page now, which is fantastic, as well as a page about the YAS’s book, which was also sorely needed.  I spent over six feverish months working on recreating the site with my good friends Catherine and Joel, and it’s great to see the site finally out there for the Internet public to enjoy!

Here’s the spiel from the About page:

The Young Australian Skeptics is a group blog run by a team of young science communicators, students and professionals, focused on the crossroads of science and critical thinking with religion, education, technology, politics, medicine, law and wider society  —  in essence, scientific skepticism and its cultural impact.

With opinion pieces, educational articles, news, satire, entertainment and personal writing, we aim to challenge conventional thinking about the place for young people in serious and substantive online conversation and provide a place where young voices can be heard and their perspectives discussed. All in an Australian context, of course.

The Young Australian Skeptics was founded by Elliot Birch in 2008 as an experimental community-​​style blog, and was relaunched as its current incarnation in 2012 by Jack Scanlan. It currently has a 16-​​member writing team, 4 of whom also serve as editors and site administrators. Other writers occasionally contribute guest articles.

It has spawned The Pseudo Scientists, its popular weekly podcast featuring some of the blog’s Melbourne-​​based writers and editors, and The Skeptical Blog Anthology, a print collection of reader-​​nominated online articles and essays edited by Kylie Sturgess, featuring many prominent skeptical figures, such as astronomer and former JREF President Phil Plait, The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe’s Evan Bernstein and Skeptic Magazine’s Daniel Loxton.

To contact the Young Australian Skeptics, please visit our Contact page.

Make sure you check the site out!

Of course, my work isn’t over. As head editor, I’ll be constantly overseeing the site, which includes checking new articles (at least until the writers learn their way around the backend of the blog) and comment moderation. I’ll also have to write articles myself! Sadly, this means I’ll have very little time to write for ol’ Homologous Legs - at least with my “usual” ID/evolution stuff, which will probably be moving to the YAS, considering it’s all very relevant to science communication and skepticism. Anything I write here will probably be a bit more personal-ish, perhaps? Non-science related? I’ve had a few interesting thoughts about the concept of gender recently that I’ll need to get out eventually. Stuff like that, you know.

S0, this blog’s going to be quiet-ish for a while. But it’s not like it was super-busy recently anyway, right?

I must apologise for my absence – I’ve been busy for a number of months now, and to be quite honest, the intelligent design community has been rather lackluster in its pronouncements of late…

What have I been busy with? Well, I’m in the middle of my final undergraduate exam period ever (my Genetic Analysis exam was today, so I’ve got vectors, cDNA libraries and live cell tracking on the brain), which should be over by the middle of the month. The other major thing in my life at the moment is the Young Australian Skeptics blog relaunch, which is probably going to happen very soon. Look, we even have new business cards and everything!

Seriously, all this work has got my brain fried. I’m trying to set the YAS up as the go-to place for young skeptical and scientific-informed opinion in Australia (if not the word, but that might be pushing it, you think?), and it’s hard. Plus, add in the weekly podcasting…

Hopefully I’ll be posting semi-regularly on ol’ HL again soon. But that won’t be for a while, so… Why do you just keep an eye on youngausskeptics.com? You never know what might appear…

Compare that to:

Eh? Close enough, yeah, or am I going crazy?

Uh, yeah. Right. Sure. This is one of the issues I discuss in my Nature Education post (and don’t forget that I’ve discussed it on Homologous Legs before too), along with some other things.

Here’s a taste to get you in the mood:

Where to start? It’s unlikely that you’ve missed any of the extensive media coverage the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project has received over the past two weeks, after the international team of scientists responsible published 30 papers in high-profile journals detailing their efforts in mapping the activity of the human genome in over 100 cell types. Nearly every newspaper, online news site and vaguely science-y blog has written something about the accomplishment, with most focusing on what has become, unarguably, ENCODE’s most controversial “finding”: that over 80% of the genome is functional.

A good proportion of the biology community hit back at the claim, with the blogs of biochemist Larry Moran and evolutionary geneticist T. Ryan Gregory providing some of the more comprehensive critiques (which are spread across multiple posts on their blogs – have a look through their archives if you’re interested in the details). The consensus amongst the critics is that the leaders of ENCODE have a very loose definition of “functional”, under which it is likely most possible DNA sequences will fall, including those uncontroversially deemed “junk DNA”, simply due to the noise and imprecision inherent in various biological processes like transcription. Somecritics have even gone so far as to propose the Random Genome Project, a null hypothesis test for the “80% functional” claim essentially based around the question “What proportion of a randomly generated genome, on average, would be assigned function based on ENCODE’s criteria?” If the answer turned out to be around the 60-80% mark, it would cast serious doubts on the claim that most of our genome is functional.

I have good reason to think that there might be a response to this piece forthcoming from ENV in the next few days – like always, I’ll keep you all posted…

Standford University has a free, online writing course through Coursera called “Writing in the Sciences” starting on the 24th of September! It’s free! And online! And seems pretty cool! I’ve signed up (not sure how much time I’ll be able to devote to it, but we’ll see) and you should too, if you’re interested in improving your science writing skills – there’s always more to learn.

Speaking of science writing, Ed Yong has a great post up on his fabulous blog Not Exactly Rocket Science about “photosynthetic” aphids and the dream of photosynthetic humans. I previously touched this topic on Episode 58 of The Pseudo Scientists, but Ed goes into a bit more detail than I did. Plus, he’s a professional. Always go with the professional.

Speaking of The Pseudo Scientists, Episode 59 was released on Sunday! Belinda, Tom, I and special guest Ted Janet talk about the ENCODE project and junk DNA, nano-ink, transgenic camels and Ted’s time at The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012. If you’ve never listened to the show before, uh, make sure you do, I guess? I put a lot of work into it, so I’d be nice to have people listen. You know, if you want. It’s your time, after all. (Oh, what’s this, a handy link to the iTunes page, where you can subscribe to the podcast? Dear me.)

(Speaking of ENCODE, I have a new post for Nature Education’s Student Voices on ENCODE, junk DNA and intelligent design creationism coming out in the next couple of days – I’ll draw your attention to it when it goes up.)

Speaking of the Young Australian Skeptics, we’re having a sale for our book, the YAS’s Skeptical Blog Anthology (featuring yours truly, but also featuring Phil Plait, Evan Bernstein, Daniel Loxton, Barbara Drescher and more!), at the moment – enter the code PIRATA at checkout to receive 15% off! Offer closes September 21st, so hurry, I guess? It’s truly a great book, and sales help support both the YAS blog and the podcast, as well as our failing egos.

And because this wouldn’t be a Homologous Legs post without a reference to good ol’ St. Vincent, here’s a video from the first date on St. Vincent and David Byrne’s Love This Giant tour. You do want to see Annie Clark and David Byrne play the theramin together, don’t you? Thought so.

You can watch more of the videos from that show here! (I know, it’s Pitchfork, but what’cha gonna do?)

But I do have some quick things to leave you! One is the music video for “Who”, the first track off the new St. Vincent/David Byrne collab. album Love This Giant, which I think you’ll find both delightful and deliciously strange. The full album is out September 11th and you can preorder it here, but if you want to listen before you buy (a wise and enjoyable thing to do), NPR is streaming Love This Giant in its entirety for free! Good on them.

Another is the 57th episode of The Pseudo Scientists podcast, which came out last Friday. Sadly I was too busy to put up a post here about it, as I know some of you like to listen to the show through the audio player, but you can listen to it on what would have been a very similar post on the Young Australian Skeptics website (there’s an audio player there too). Rachael, Belinda and Tom go without me this week, talking about sperm, the life of Neil Armstrong and some cosmology, while Ted interviews – wait for it – freakin’ Eugenie Scott from the National Center for Science Education, making it her fourth appearance on the show! Wow. That’s a lot of appearances. The next episode (featuring yours truly!) will be out this Friday – I’ll try and put a proper post up if I can.

Lastly, two of my favourite bloggers/academics/people-related-to-biology, philosopher of science John Wilkins and biochemist Larry Moran, are having a discussion/debate/heated argument over the relationship between science and philosophy. Here’s the latest post on methodological naturalism from Larry – if that interests you, have a read of some of the earlier posts.

Well, that’s all I have time for at the moment. Hopefully I should be back blogging here regularly, but we’ll see if my schedule allows it…

The Pseudo Scientists – Episode 56

Subscribe: iTunes / Libsyn RSS

In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Belinda, Tom, Rachael and I wonder about the feasibility of DNA-based information storage, look at a new breakthrough in the development of a male reproductive pill and touch on an update to the Kinesio Tape story from Episode 51. Plus, Ted interviews James Randi, living skeptical legend, magician and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

(Note: The current President of the JREF is DJ Grothe, not James Randi as we say multiple times throughout the episode. We apologise unreservedly to the distress we may have caused DJ and his family, and are willing to pay any damages incurred.)

You can find out more about the James Randi Educational Foundation at their website.

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is part of US politician Todd Akin’s interesting comments about biological defence against rape on the Jaco Report.

If you have feedback for the show, get in touch via our Contact page or send us an email: youngausskeptics(at)gmail(dot)com.

To support the show (and get a great book, but that’s secondary, right?) you can purchase the Young Australian Skeptics’s Skeptical Blog Anthology – available paperback or ebook!

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.

State the negative to find out about the positive – that’s the method behind the Antiview project, run by Australian journalist Max Opray. It’s a fascinating series of interviews with priests, sportspeople, futurists, writers, and more, and I was lucky enough to be asked by Max to be a part of it. He posed some interesting negatively-framed questions… You want to know how I answered them, right?

Here’s a taste:

What don’t you enjoy about science?

Real science, good science, proper science, tends to take a long time.  I suppose I wish I could push a button and instantly have all the data I’m looking for and not have to go through near-endless cycles of putting small volumes of colourless liquid into small plastic tubes (which is what my field – molecular genetics – tends to devolve into sometimes).

The waiting is hard, the patience is hard. When you’re truly passionate about a question about the natural world, it eats away at you – and every moment you don’t have the answer can be a painful one.

Read the rest here.

This is all very exciting – the Young Australian Skeptics blog is being relaunched in late August, with your truly at the helm as Head Editor. With a new writing team, a new design and a new focus, we’re looking to breathe new life into the contributions of young people into the online skeptical movement.

In the near future, this blog will endeavour to fill an important niche in communicating scientific ideas, critical thinking and engagement with social and political issues relating to science, religion and education: presenting the views of young people, a demographic currently underrepresented in serious online conversations.

We’re aiming to strike a healthy mix of opinion, news, science communication pieces, personal writing and entertainment – and we’ll certainly have the team to do it! From high school students to young professionals, the new writing team will be filled with people from diverse backgrounds and with unique perspectives on a wide range of issues.

By fostering discussion, communication and debate around science, skepticism, religion, critical thinking and their impact on Australian society and the rest of the world, the Young Australian Skeptics will bring the next generation to the foreground.

 I’ll make sure to keep you all informed!

The Pseudo Scientists – Episode 54

In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Belinda, Richard, new panel member Tom Lang and I dive into the disparate worlds of the Curiosity Mars Rover landing and the 2012 London Olympics. Plus, Ted interviews Jay Novella, one of the hosts of the influential and renowned Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast, on the link between skepticism and atheism, how the SGU got started, and how to live life as a skeptic.

You can follow new panel member Tom Lang on Twitter at @Langemhigh!

Jay Novella’s podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, is available on iTunes and on its website – but you knew that already, right?

The video of the gymnast’s parents that Richard referred to in this episode can be seen here.

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is the Turbo Encabulator. Sadly, it’s a parody. But it’s an hilarious parody.

If you have feedback for the show, get in touch via our Contact page or send us an email: youngausskeptics(at)gmail(dot)com.

To support the show (and get a great book, but that’s secondary, right?) you can purchase the Young Australian Skeptics’s Skeptical Blog Anthology – available in paperback or ebook!

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.

—

Humans did this. Humanity did this. We put a car-sized robot called Curiosity onto Mars. We control this robot from Earth. It took this picture. You’re looking at a picture that it took, made available on the internet hours after it was taken.

That’s right.

A photo taken on a different planet, available for you to see mere hours later.

If you’re fortunate enough to own a smart phone, you might be using it to look at this picture. How marvellous is that? You have a piece of technology that you carry around in your pocket every day that lets you see photos that were taken on Mars hours after they were taken.

Look at this.

Take for granted, if you will, that this technology all exists; it didn’t 100 years ago (we barely had heavier-than-air flight, radio and photography, let alone effective computers or space travel). Take that for granted if you want. But please don’t scoff at the fact that there is now a robot on Mars that is taking photos, that you can view on the little computer in your pocket.

You’re looking at a place far further away from home than any human has ever been.

It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of Annie Clark, aka. St. Vincent, premiere indie songwriting darling, monstrous guitarist and general badass. So any news that she’s releasing new music is… er, something to my ears. Not going to say music. Was not going to say music.

Anyway, she’s collaborated with New Wave legend David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) on an album due out in September called Love This Giant, and if the first two tracks – the impossibly catchy “Who” and the impossibly funky “Weekend in the Dust” – are anything to go by, it’s going to be incredible. All the tracks have a friggin’ brass section in them, for goodness’ sake!

I’ve preordered Love This Giant (naturally) and highly suggest that you do that same right now.

In other news: I’ve changed the blog’s header image – do you like it? I’m just glad I don’t have to cringe anymore when I look at my own blog…

The Pseudo Scientists – Episode 53

In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Richard, Belinda and Rachael chat about the possible evolutionary roots of depression, the passing of Sally Ride, and research on how women’s brains age. Also, Ted interviews Carrie Poppy, Communications Director for the James Randi Educational Foundation, about her path to skepticism. Finally, Belinda has a sore throat (but it’s subtle, so you might not notice it).

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is the 4th Day Alliance’s advert for creationist teaching materials.

You can find Carrie Poppy’s podcast, Oh No, Ross and Carrie! at its website and on iTunes.

If you have feedback for the show, get in touch via our Contact page or send us an email: youngausskeptics(at)gmail(dot)com.

To support the show (and get a great book, but that’s secondary, right?) you can purchase the Young Australian Skeptics’s Skeptical Blog Anthology – available in paperback or ebook!

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.

The Discovery Institute has a strange relationship with online criticism. On one hand they hate it, because – naturally – it shows how wrong they are about most things. On the other, they love it, because they can derive thousands and thousands of blogged words enthusing their support base by showing that some scientists are actually taking their criticisms of “Darwinism” seriously, even if the other 99.95% of biologists have better things to do, like actual science and advancing our understanding of life and its place in the world. If a scientist critiques your position, that must mean she’s threatened by it, right?

But note that this doesn’t hold for criticism coming from students. I mean, who cares if some snotty-nosed kid, fresh out of high school (or even still in high school) thinks you’re wrong? They’re no scientist! Beat it, kid.

This can be seen quite obviously in the recent back-and-forth between Discovery Institute fellows Ann Gauger, Casey Luskin, Douglas Axe and, most obviously, the aforementioned Klinghoffer, and New Zealand PhD student Paul McBride, who criticised the DI’s new book Science and Human Origins in 6-part review on his blog. Klinghoffer refers to McBride as “a previously unknown New Zealand grad student”, “obscure”, having a “blog that no one before ever heard of”, his criticism as “one guy’s review on his personal website”, and – his words dripping with sarcasm – as a “hero and defender” of Darwinian thought. The phrase “grad student” is continuously mentioned, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. Yeah.

Turns out yours truly gets the same treatment, albeit in passing: apparently I’ve been “falling into ecstasies” over Carl Zimmer’s recent demolition act on Science and Human Origins‘s chromosome 2 fusion denial. Students need big, strong heroes to save them from the scary ID proponents who are trying get them to think for themselves! Luckily, Klinghoffer doesn’t out me as an “undergrad student” – but I feel he looks down on my continuing education with little more than a sneer.

(At this point, David Klinghoffer is most likely imagining me getting more and more upset that no one is paying attention to me.)

Nearly every other time I’ve been mentioned on Evolution News and Views, it’s been through posting on The Panda’s Thumb, where my status as a student is not mentioned and my age is never brought up. However, whenever they randomly stumble upon one of my numerous posts about them on Homologous Legs, suddenly I’m talked down to. This one’s a classic, from earlier this year:

Credit where credit is due. Probably, unlike some of his more senior colleagues in the world of academic Darwin defenders, gents like Francisco Ayala, Scalan [sic] won’t pretend to have read the book when he hasn’t, or pretend there’s nothing there to review. Yet we also expect that when he’s mature and full of years, if not wisdom like ENV, he’ll still be threatening to read Signature in the Cell.

Eh. Maybe I’m reading subtext that doesn’t exist.

(I paw at a tear welling in my eye.) 

It’s curious though, that the Discovery Institute is fine with deep thoughts from students – just only when they already agree with them. Regular ENV blogger Jonathan McLatchie has only just finished a Masters degree, and began blogging for the DI back in June 2010, when he was still an undergraduate student. No mentions were made of his age or his ability to critique the mainstream consensus of evolutionary biologists.

(My face is a hot, quivering mask of jealousy.)

I only rate a mention on ENV when I say something adorable or anything that can be spun into a rhetorical weapon. Never has a single, serious critique of ID that I’ve posted – both here and on The Panda’s Thumb - ever attracted any attention. My direct challenge to the DI last week was published before the post in which my seizure-inducing lust for Carl Zimmer was stated, so no doubt it was seen and subsequently ignored.

(I start eating ice cream directly from the tub.)

Moving on, the annual DI Summer Seminars are designed for students (in fact, McLatchie attended one in the last few years), but they only accept those who already believe the party line:

Admission Requirements: You must be currently enrolled in a college or university as a junior, senior, or graduate student. Required application materials include (1) a resume/cv, (2) a copy of your academic transcript, (3) a short statement of your interest in intelligent design and its perceived relationship to your career plans and field of study, and (4) either a letter of recommendation from a professor who knows your work and is friendly toward ID, or a phone interview with the seminar director.

Students are free to critically examine science and philosophy of science, but only when the Discovery Institute says it’s alright. No doubt if one of the students from this year’s Summer Seminars program started a pro-ID blog, ENV would be linking to it night and day, showing that even fledgling scientists know that “Darwinism” is flawed.

(“Bastards,” I whimper around my spoon. A mixture of chocolate sauce and melted ice cream leaks slowly down my chin. I don’t notice.)

But when a student of a similar age and education level writes hundreds of posts over years finding things wrong with your arguments? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

(I finish the ice cream, and with a sob, flop into my bed and start watching reruns of Friends while crying into my pillow. No one understands me!)

If anyone from the Discovery Institute is reading this – and I know you at the very least check posts that link to you – engage with something I’ve written. I suggest my posts on the “Bad Design Paradox” – simply because you’ve never acknowledged this contradiction in your pro-ID argumentation.

(I need a hug.)

I said “Yes!”, but I really wanted to say “Absosplendifferolutely!”, because I’m a dork.

After a few rounds of editing, the piece grew into a feature article for the online component of the magazine, and so… here it is! I present to you: “The elaborate evolutionary history of sex” for COSMOS Online – my first professional¹ piece of science writing!

Here’s a short taste:

“I think everybody thought ‘Okay, problem solved, we’ve got the gene, everything else is going to be obvious,’” says Jenny Graves, a mammalian geneticist at the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Science in Melbourne, Australia, who gave a plenary speech at the annual Genetics Society of AustralAsia conference, held 15-18 July 2012.

“But the minute you get out from placental mammals, you strike all sorts of other ways of doing sex determination. Each one is a really interesting evolutionary story,” she says.

In 2008, Graves and her colleagues showed that the SRY gene and the X and Y chromosome system of determining sex had evolved less than 166 million years ago, from an ancient bird-like system for determining sex. This was much more recent than previously thought: earlier hypotheses placed the evolution of the X and Y system at least as far back as 310 million years ago, at the divergence point of mammals, reptiles and birds.

Excuse me, I’ll just be subtly dancing with pride and happiness in the corner over there. Look away.

1. Read: paid/fancy-pants.

Carl Zimmer, well-known science writer, has been battling with DI fellow David Klinghoffer over the past few days over the evidence for a chromosome fusion event sometime in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens that resulted in our chromosome 2, internal telomeres, double centromeric sequences and all. I say battling, but it’s been more of an interrogation, with the interrogated party attaching “persuasion devices” to their own private parts themselves. Klinghoffer has been refusing to tell Zimmer the source of his claim that:

…telomeric DNA parked in the middle of chromosome 2 is not a unique phenomenon. Other mammals have it too, across their own genomes. Even if it were unique, there’s much less of it than you would expect from the amalgamation of two telomeres. Finally, it appears in a “degenerate,” “highly diverged” form that should not be the case if the joining happened in the recent past, circa 6 million years ago, as the Darwinian interpretation holds.

To cut a long-ish story short, he eventually revealed his hand, and it turns out he was, of course, quoting – not any number of papers on the topic (which is quite well-represented in the literature) – but Science and Human Origins, the in-house Discovery Institute book about primate evolution written by two non-evolutionary biologists and one non-scientist, which is apparently terrible.

Carl Zimmer has wasted no time tearing the argument in the book apart. It’s glorious. I highly recommend reading it all, but here’s the rhetorical meat:

After five days of stonewalling and name-calling, Klinghoffer points us to a passage from a book published by his employer, the Discovery Institute, written by someone else at the Discovery Institute. The passage he points us to cherry-picks another book and a 2002 paper. Reading the original sources quickly reveals that Luskin’s interpretation of those quotes is wrong. Luskin also nods to another Discovery Institute fellow, who makes a comment that is clearly contradicted by peer-reviewed research. Luskin has nothing to say about any of the research that has come out in the past ten years. Klinghoffer has nothing to say, either.

For Klinghoffer to say that you have to read the entire book to appreciate the weight of the evidence about human chromosome two is absurd. Klinghoffer himself made a specific claim, and the evidence he offers actually shows that he’s wrong. Unless the rest of the book provides better evidence concerning human chromosome two, it’s irrelevant to my question.

And if the rest of the book is as wrong as this passage, then I hardly see why it’s worth reading.

And that is why I ask for evidence.

It’s rather sunny and wonderful outside today, isn’t it? Or maybe that’s just me.

Yesterday our friends at Biologic Institute were being pestered on their Facebook page by science writer and Discover magazine blogger Carl Zimmer on the subject of Science and Human Origins. Facebook is really no place for a substantive debate — the format is such that it doesn’t repay the time you put in.

So I wrote to Zimmer to invite him to participate in a genuine and informative online debate here at ENV, pairing him against one of the authors of SHO and allowing him 2000 words total in which he could tear our arguments and evidence to shreds if he liked.

Carl wrote back promptly to say “No thanks,” having also written a blog post reproducing my (private) email to him – which pained me to no end, since my note contained a typo as Carl was meticulous to make clear to his readers. (I wrote “interesting” instead of “interested.”)

So you see what we’re up against. Carl hasn’t read the book and now, having ducked out of a proper debate, he can go on denouncing it without ever having read it. He’s perfectly willing to waste our time on Facebook, where the phrase “pecked to death by ducks” comes to mind. But how about gathering his thoughts after reading the book and then telling us what’s wrong with Science and Human Origins? No, that he will not do.

My head’s not in a great place right now, so I’ll keep it short: the intelligent design movement needs to put its supposedly substantial money where its over-talkative mouth is. Stop churning out books and publish some goddamn papers, guys. And not in your little circle-of-friends journal – in the big ones. Science. Nature. If you have what you think is some revolutionary information, put it out there. Overturn the status quo. Pull no punches. Upset the mainstream. Stop preaching to the choir and yelling at the popular kids from across the road. It’s not working.

Science is not afraid of change. It’s not afraid of being mistaken. But it doesn’t just roll over for anything – it needs evidence, hypotheses and a well-thought out position. So far, it seems to me, you’re lacking all three – but I’m happy to be proven wrong. All scientists are. Write a paper outlining the best evidence for intelligent design, and submit it to every major biology journal in the world. If you survive the critiques, well… congratulations, you’ll have changed the world of biology forever.

Are you coming to the table? We’re waiting.

The Pseudo Scientists – Episode 52

In this episode of The Pseudo Scientists, the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics, Belinda, Rachael, Richard and I discuss the chemical ghost of a 120 million year-old bird, a vaccine against obesity (and why it might not be such a good idea) and a fascinating exploding star. Plus, Belinda interviews astronomer Dr. Lisa Harvey-Smith about the Square Kilometre Array telescope.

This week’s “Houston, We Have A Problem” clip is Djehuty Ma’at-Ra of Dhealthstore.com explaining how to prevent yourself from dying a seaweedless death via mobile phone

You can find out more about Dr. Lisa Harvey-Smith at the CSIRO and her personal website.

For the picture of the exploding carbon star, visit the New Scientist article referenced in the episode.

For a range of references on the effectiveness of Kinesio tape, see the Wikipedia page for elastic therapeutic tape.

If you have feedback for the show, get in touch via our Contact page or send us an email: youngausskeptics(at)gmail(dot)com.

To support the show (and get a great book, but that’s secondary, right?) you can purchase the Young Australian Skeptics’s Skeptical Blog Anthology – available in paperback or ebook!

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.

Just for a bit of fun/semi-productive time usage, I thought I’d set down a somewhat definitive, unranked list of my favourite ever albums. Defining it was a lot harder than I thought, although I did make it slightly easier by forcing myself to only choose one album per artist – otherwise this list would be 50% Björk, and no-one wants that (except perhaps me, deep down). I’ve included a link to my favourite song off each album too, so you can get a taste of what I mean when I describe what I like about each one.

Bitte Orca – Dirty Projectors

In many ways, this album completely redefined what I thought good music could be. Complex rhythmic patterns, Dave Longstreth’s wholly unique lead vocal style blending in with the tight, female vocal harmonies, the crazy guitar work – it hit me for six (even though I hate cricket), and my musical tastes changed forever. While I love other Dirty Projectors albums too (their latest, Swing Lo Magellan is a killer), Bitte Orca will most likely always be my favourite. There’s just nothing else out there like it.

Selected track – “Cannibal Resource”

Come Away with Me – Norah Jones

There’s only one way to describe Come Away with Me: beautiful. I spent such a large amount of my childhood listening to its jazz and country infused songs that it became lodged in my mind, so much so that even though my musical tastes have radically changed since then, I can’t escape it. The audio production is perfect, with Norah’s voice drifting gently between soft jazz grooves and some of the best piano lines I’ve heard still to this day. It’s the ultimate dinner party album too. I could listen to it all day.

Selected track – “Come Away With Me”

Vespertine Live - Björk 

One Björk album?! I could only pick one Björk album?! Possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done, since, in my opinion, she has one of music’s strongest discographies. Homogenic was up there. So was the universally-praised Post. And, of course, the shimmering delight that is Vespertine. Those three albums comprise, in my opinion, the best consecutive run of three albums of any artist ever – but I could only pick one. So I went with Vespertine Live, a live recording from her tour of Vespertine in 2001. Is it a proper album? Sure, why not. But why did I pick it?

• The choir
• The orchestra
• Björk’s flawless, emotionally-charged vocals
• A stunning mix of songs from Vespertine and earlier albums
• Everything about it

Every time I listen to this album, I’m filled with a subdued rage that I didn’t attend this concert live. What a travesty.

Selected track – “Unison”

Mines – Menomena

What can I say, I’m drawn to unique music like… something that’s strongly drawn to something else. When it comes to eclectic indie rock, no one beats Menomena, and Mines exemplifies that. Their originality in production, composition and instrument use is unparalleled – best use of a baritone saxophone in rock, perhaps? Yes. Perhaps yes. The prominence of the bass guitar in their songs has been extremely inspiring when it comes to my own composition, too… Ahh, I just love this album so much.

Selected track – “TAOS”

Actor – St. Vincent

Like with Björk, choosing my favourite St. Vincent album was tough, albeit less so, considering the latter’s three, compared with the former’s 10+ (depending what you count). In the end, I went with the one I listened to first and the one that had the biggest impact on my musical taste, ala. Bitte Orca. Actor is the quintessential musical paradox – Annie Clark’s lyrics bristle with anger and strong emotion, but the production and composition sandwiches it between layers of strings, woodwinds and her own demure voice. Except, of course, when the guitar comes out and blasts away any shred of doubt you had about what she’s really trying to get across. I suppose then, the title is perfectly apt. Hmm. Yes. Good.

Selected track – “Marrow”

Veckatimest – Grizzly Bear

The first few times I listened to this album, I was traveling around the North Island of New Zealand on holiday with my family. Looking back, it seemed to be a perfect combination of scenery and music, as Veckatimest‘s reverb-drenched indie folk/rock/something compliments lush forests, foggy peaks and sparkling beaches like nothing else. While Grizzly Bear’s previous effort, Yellow House is also great, this album feels more solid and grounded – not feeling like it’s hiding behind the reverb and effects. And like so many of the other albums on this list, it really comes together a whole marvellously, each song bleeding into the other, thematically and musically, if not literally.

Selected track – “Two Weeks”

The Mysterious Production of Eggs – Andrew Bird

Another tough choice to be made with Andrew Bird’s discography, and in the end I chose the album with the greatest number of my favourite songs on it. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration - TMPoE is also quite a cohesive album, tied together by clear lyrical themes and the ever-present violin looping. And the songwriting? Delicious. I wish I could string together a song as well as ol’ Andrew can. One day, one day…

Selected track – “Measuring Cups”

Mutations – Beck

Is this a controversial choice? Perhaps. Looking at the critical status of Beck’s discography, the clear winner is Sea Change – even people who don’t like the rest of his music love that album. And looking at my own personal tastes, I thought the winner would be Midnite Vultures, a fantastic parody of sex-obsessed 80s and 90s pop. But I just couldn’t look past Mutations. There’s just something so… so Beck about all of it. It’s a representation of who he is as a musician and person – you have the sad songs, the obtuse songs, the crazy songs… and all without the swing-and-misses that scatter the latter part of his discography. All the songs are great here, and that’s why it wins.

Selected track – “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”

W H O K I L L – tUnE-yArDs

Lo-fi! Catchy! Damn catchy! Super catchy! There’s just something so satisfying about an album that is purposefully produced to feel lo-fi (albeit not as lo-fi as previous album BiRd-BrAiNs), while being exquisitely crafted and endlessly replayable. And did I mention catchy? While having one of the most versatile voices in indie music, tUnE-yArDs leader Merrill Garbus can also arrange the hell out of a song, leading to some of my favourites ever, such as “Bizness”, “Esso” and “You Yes You”. You’ll have to excuse me now, I have to dance to some sweet tunes.

Selected track – “Bizness”

Enjoy! - Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra

Is this cheating? Am I allowed to put an album of big band Björk covers on this list, considering I already have a Björk album chosen? Sure, why not. I make the rules. Plus, this isn’t really a Björk album per se – it’s a glorious reinterpretation of 10 of her best songs with the wonderment that is a brass section. Oh god, it’s so damn good. The cover of “Hyperballad” is the best cover of “Hyperballad” ever (and there are a lot). The cover of “Alarm Call” is tear-jerkingly brilliant. The cover of “Enjoy” might be finest piece of music ever recorded. This might be an unranked list, but Enjoy! could very well be my favourite album of all time. But don’t quote me on that – the other albums on this list could get jealous.

Selected track – “Hunter”

Runners up

Restricting myself to only 10 albums was hard, so naturally there were some that (regrettably) got squeezed out. So, also in no particular order:

Treats – Sleigh Bells
Panic - Caravan Palace
Bliss Release - Cloud Control
OK Computer – Radiohead
Widow City - The Fiery Furnaces
Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
Origin Of Symmetry - Muse
In Your Dreams – Gregory and the Hawk