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that that i predicted that this period would have a goat festival and and what i ve found seems to be connected to aphrodite as a goddess she was famous for getting everyone s goat in the ancient world it sounds good but now i m wondering if my framework is so flexible anything could fit and while i was writing this up it finally clicked that some features of himera astronomically link to aphrodite this shouldn t be news the word himera translates as desire and it s associated with aphrodite as far back as the theogony by hesiod in the 8th century bc fine but it indicates this thesis will not die 1 comment from ancient history archaeoastronomy life 24hr iphone bargain july 20 2009 if you have an iphone carina software are giving away skyvoyager for free today i can t remember the normal price but it s lots comments off on 24hr iphone bargain from astronomy vidi various things seen july 20 2009 this is another test of the new bookmarking script i m working on it it works then it should collect links during the week and then compile them into one post on a sunday many excluded from opportunity to get tickets for michael jackson memorial services crooked timber an view of how mumble mumble mumble s memorial highlights the digital divide in america the glamorgan gwent archaeological trust ltd ggat pioneer the use of new mobile phone technology at community excavation the glamorgan gwent archaeological trust have been introducing qr codes at their public excavation as camera phones and internet connections become more mundane these will become more common conceptual trends and current topics here s an interesting publishing model combining sales of a limited number of hard copies with free pdf access i m not sure about this i think i prefer print on demand but the limited edition nature of the publication could be a good marketing ploy what helps you be a better writer commentators leave their tips on what help you write a small example of how our economy went terribly wrong philobiblon now i thought feeding the birds was a good thing natalie bennett on why you might want to rethink that comments off on vidi various things seen from vidi the truth about the moon july 19 2009 it was going to be theology today but it s still a boring post instead i ve got a conspiracy theory which i think will have a short shelf life this post left me inspired some people will try and tell you that the lunar landings were faked they ll pull out all sorts of spurious details like flapping flags lack of stars etc to claim the landings were a hoax they are wrong today i can reveal the secret nasa doesn t want you to know about the moon landings they landed because they had to the moon was the only place they could enact their nefarious plan a plan so awesome and stunning in its scale it is only now coming to light in 1969 nasa replaced the real earth with a fake earth read more 1 comment from antiscience vidi sunday thoughts july 19 2009 this is another test of the new bookmarking script i m working on it it works then it should collect links during the week and then compile them into one post on a sunday eugenie scott powerfully makes the case for science religion compatibility the intersection discover magazine this is an oddity as far as i can tell scott says that if science and religion clash you take the scientific explanation it s the god of the gaps argument that would seem an peculiar use of the word compatible to me svante pbo on religion afarensis anthropology evolution and science afarenis asks an incisive question why is it alwas phrased in terms of science fighting religion as if science is the aggressor and religion is the null hypothesis normblog i d have baked one norm on why critics of religion get it wrong when they criticise belief it s about practice which is based on belief umm no that can t be right also on how you can t have your cake and eat it comments off on vidi sunday thoughts from vidi science is interesting if you don t like it it s your problem not mine july 18 2009 tags communication i ll admit not everyone is interested in the world around them here s a site i like the hall of ma at i don t read it as much as i d like because my reading tends to be rss based still it means that when i do remember to visit their forum there s plenty of interesting stuff i ve just learned about the chocolate hills as well as being fascinating geology that thread also includes a bit of mockery it s an interesting place they ll have visitors who have found the exact aliens which built the pyramids every so often and they ll listen on the other hand i don t see them compromising on the need for evidence if you re wrong or making stuff up you will know about it the founder kat reese is an interesting person she contributed a chapter to the book archaeological fantasies not all of memoirs of a true believer is visible at google books but certainly there s enough she puts herself under the microscope and tells of her movement from alternative historical beliefs to more mainstream archaeology one of the key differences she sees between popular alternative archaeology authors and the academics is that the alternative authors see this as a political debate it s not about the science claims about the past are about people so they re often political however so to are claims in other pseudosciences you get pronouncements on health policy from the many and varied quacks shun evidence as a means for determining medical care i ve recently seen people complaining about the lcross impact on the moon who care deeply and passionately though not quite to the extent that they visited nasa s site on the lcross to find out what the mission is about nasa s research on the effects of the lcross impact is a problem if you don t know anything about lunar geology but you want to argue against them you could learn but that s time consuming it s much easier to argue that nasa simply don t know anything about the moon this is about standing up to authority which along the way means taking down science now here s the head spinning bit when deepak chopra makes his appeals to send him more money he doesn t do it because of mystic ookiness he does it based on appeals to quantum physics i m using the word based in a completely incorrect sense there chiropractors get stroppy about being next to other new age practitioners homeopaths don t refer to themselves as magicians they give each other degrees and not just any degrees but bscs oh yes the days when scientist could visit the lavatories in the arts block and smugly write arts degrees please take one next to the toilet paper dispenser are over if there s so much opposition to scientific reasoning why do cranks make their claims in pseudo scientific language even ken ham the man who pushes the line that the bible is inerrant promotes his science credentials on answers in genesis he s got a bachelor s degree from qit why on earth would you need a science degree if you say the answers can all be found through biblical study the answer is important for science communication people love science it s recognised as one of the best methods for learning about the world around you a lot of people find the world around them quite interesting added to that is testing of ideas and ability to weed out bad ideas that makes science attractive when nutritionists are pushing their pill supplements they re not interested in another way of knowing they re eager to equate themselves with science because that makes their work fact when people want to belittle evolution they don t refer to evolution s science base instead evolution is a religion or a faith position it suggests to me that political groups are aware gods cannot compete with science as explanations for a lot of the public if faith was as important as it s cracked up to be then calling evolution a religion wouldn t be a put down similarly global warming deniers don t say that science cannot be used to examine climate change instead they say various arguments are aren t scientific very few people dismiss an argument by calling it scientific because even if you don t like it science has a reputation for working out what is true that s why i think explicitly tagging politics onto science could detract in some way from the scientific message in kat reese s chapter she s open that what worked for her was the emphasis on verifiable facts and the difference in method between the scientific and the pseudo scientific archaeologists it s a great selling point if that s the case peddling religion as contributing to or being a partner in scientific findings is not only dishonest but also confusing the public about what science is religion can certainly be an inspiration but so can the works of shakespeare and no one argues that shakespeare is an essential partner in questions about the universe that doesn t make advocacy wrong janet stemwedel put it much better than me in saying scientists and academics as a whole are not all after the same thing that might include lobbying for a more ecologically responsible position or against religion infringing human rights but these are political aims mooney and kirshenbaum are appealing for people who have different political view to them to talk about something else the fact they don t see why this might be a problem shows a worrying lack of awareness of society personally i m not interested in whether you believe in a god or not i definitely don t feel any responsibility to de convert people i already have enough responsibilities my interest starts when someone claims their beliefs limit what i can do without any justification other than a vague feeling that is also politics rather than science so what can you do for science communication i think it can be helped by people sharing tactics but the requires accepting the diversity of scientists or public it could be helpful to share what works and what doesn t in different contexts on the other hand if you insist your political beliefs are in fact a comment on science you ll end up with a self destructive row which does no one any good that s my attempt to start moving to something positive i don t think someone s a failure just because they don t appeal to everyone if the long tail means anything we should be sharing and celebrating all the small successes as well as the a list except me if i am a success because whenever i get a traffic spike i always think bloody hell what have i gone and said now 5 comments from blogging religion science science is cultures july 17 2009 tags communication i was walking across a bridge one day and i saw a man standing on the edge about to jump off so i ran over and said stop don t do it why shouldn t i he said i said well there s so much to live for he said like what i said well are you religious or atheist he said religious i said me too are you christian or buddhist he said christian i said me too are you catholic or protestant he said protestant i said me too are you episcopalian or baptist he said baptist i said wow me too are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord he said baptist church of god i said me too are you original baptist church of god or are you reformed baptist church of god he said reformed baptist church of god i said me too are you reformed baptist church of god reformation of 1879 or reformed baptist church of god reformation of 1915 he said reformed baptist church of god reformation of 1915 i said die heretic scum and pushed him off emo phillips demonstrates no one is generically religious i had 2000 words on mooney and kirshenbaum s blogging typed up i was going to leave it for my own files then i was going to work it in a blog post since then there s been a bit of a meltdown on the intersection that means i m not going to pick through most of their contradictions there s plenty of other people doing that and at worst if i do it badly it s going to feed into the they re victims of the big blogger bullying pz in the national media argument delete as appropriate they re the two popular frames for the argument and being seen in one or the other pretty well railroads you into one siding or another i m aware frames are deeply unpopular with some science bloggers if you re not familiar with them they come from an opinion piece in science framing science by nisbett and mooney which argued that scientists should communicate their work in a social context or frame which resonated with the public to social scientists the idea that texts have social contexts is a mundane observation to scientists who entered the sciences because they were interested in science rather than culture this is perhaps less obvious at its most basic the message is know your audience which appears in more or else every book on presentation i ve read where framing science went further is that it seemed to assume that science was political and communication was advocacy my opinion was that science was political with a small p but that the culture in science was built around trying to minimise that effect to create a neutral product as far as i know there s no explicitly socialist law of gravity nisbett and mooney failed to either realise or convincingly accomodate how antithetical to some notions of science their proposal was either frames are nonsense or their methods were an example of doing frames badly spin on to 2009 and mooney and kirshenbaum are advocating a change in practice in some scientists that s perfectly reasonable no one i know thinks science communication is perfect one of their stated targets is to change the behaviour of scientists who are unsympathetic towards religious belief this isn t irrational they give reasons and come to a conclusion whether or not you agree with them isn t the problem if you do think the new atheists should turn down the volume then how do you go about it telling the people you want to persuade that they re bad people and their narrow mindedness is harming science isn t the method i d choose if i were to argue that the biggest benefit to science communication would be for pz myers to stop attacking religion to pick a totally random example then i d want to frame my message so that it resonated with people like pz myers i might argue that aggressive debate with a public which isn t used to evidence based debate as part of everyday life is polarising this is a problem if you occupy a small minority position because the problem is political rather than scientific and politics is about quantity rather than quality i d preface my argument with data to show it wasn t something i pulled out of the air this is because even if you think new atheists are dogmatic it s part of their self image that they aren t so data would play well with them if new atheists genuinely aren t dogmatic then they can examine the data anyway so it s win win of course if the data doesn t exist to support the proposition i might want to que...
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