ideonexus

Tag: science

  • Our Science Wedding

    Mad Scientist Groom and His Lovely Bride Atheist, agnostic, humanist, secularist, skeptic, empiricist, Ockhamist, and Patafarianist are all different flavors of the philosophy of life my wife and I share, but Vicky and I prefer the term “Spiritual Naturalist” to describe the deeply fulfilling sense of wonder we get from engaging the natural world around…

  • Why Scientists Can’t be Atheists

    I found the following quote from the former Vice President of Mensa International and president of the American Humanist Association and author of like a bazillion brilliant books very thought-provoking: Isaac Asimov I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you…

  • John Coleman, Global Warming, and the Price of a Gallon of Gas

    John Coleman, weatherman for KUSI in San Diego, has an unintentionally hilarious rant posted, Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas, where he blames Global Warming Theorists for the high cost of oil and what he seems to think is the impending destruction of civilization because of it. Mind you, it’s not…

  • Calorie-Counting Whoas

    Last night I did my regular routine of working the stationary bike to get my three aerobic exercise sessions in for the week (I do weight training the other three times). For one hour I kept my RPMs above 85, managing over 20 miles in one hour. I lost two pounds of water weight from…

  • My Personal Experience with Triassic Triops

    From my personal observations of my Triassic Triops: 03/14 Add distilled water to the tank. Added nutrient pack, which is like a tea bag. Nutrient pack floats. Accidentally popped it trying to get it to submerge. Particulate, sticks and twigs, are floating in water. 03/17 Added eggs. Eggs clump together on water’s surface. Triops Eggs…

  • An Endangered Cephalopod

    Can you spot the rare and magnificent endangered species in the photo below? Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus Photo by TGAW The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is not officially on the endangered species list; however, this extremely rare and biologically unique cephalopod inhabits a very small area in the coniferous Olympic rainforests west of Seattle, an…

  • ideonexus Now Powered by WordPress.org

    Spent yesterday setting up a wordpress.org blog and transferring everything I’ve written on wordpress.com over to it, AND IT WAS SO EASY!!! It’s about an afternoon’s worth of work. WordPress.com lets you export all your blog content to an XML file, which you have to cut down to several 2MB XML files and upload one…

  • Quoted in ABC Science

    I’m quoted in Fran Malloy’s ABC Science article Internet connectivity about social networking and it’s effects on culture: “A genuine science community is emerging online,” says science blogger Ryan Somma author of ‘ideonexus’. He argues that social networking also increases scientists’ accessibility to the public and accelerates the dissemination of new research. This is a…

  • Between a Rock and a Hardplace: Debating Cranks

    Chris Mooney has an important article online about how scientists debating fringe groups like Creationists and AGW deniers in many ways actually hurts our causes. Sure enough, one of the Expelled trailers features the following quotation from Oxford evolutionary biologist and atheism apostle Richard Dawkins: “If people think God is interesting, the onus is on…

  • NC Museum of Natural History: Mountains to the Sea

    Wildlife-Friendly Backyard At the museum’s center is a huge recreation of North Carolina’s many ecosystems, filled with both living and taxidermied animals. One of my favorite side displays was on how to build an eco-friendly yard that invites, feeds, and shelter’s wildlife. The Four Fundamentals of Wildlife-Friendly Landscapes: Offer a year-round food supply along with…

  • “Theoretically” is a Meaningless Word to Scientists

    It’s time we stopped using the word “theoretically,” the word is an oxymoron unto itself, at least in the way we use it: “Is it theoretically possible for science to someday create a real lightsaber? (source)” “Antimatter galaxies theoretically possible, but unlikely (source)” “Critics say the White House’s theoretical arguments may fly in the face…

  • Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate”

    The Blank Slate I love books that shake up my preconceptions, and reading Pinker’s book was like experiencing one big personal iconoclasm. The thoroughness with which he engaged gender, violence, intelligence, and other aspects of our social understandings unsettled my positions on much of the whole “Nature VS Nurture” debate. While it did not convince…