Growing up in the Universe

Excellent! Finally! Richard Dawkins' 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture will soon be made available on DVD:

22/7 - ish

Happy Pi day.

Dawkins in geek slur shocker

Today's Independent has an amusing Q&A with Richard Dawkins, many of the questions, and answers, had me smiling.

But I've got to take issue with the following:

How did a science geek like you get such an attractive wife? GARY HAMMOND, London

I suggest you go to salon.com, type "The Sexiest Man Living" in the search box and eat your words. But seriously (of course you knew there had to be a "but seriously"), science has an image problem with young people, and phrases like "science geek" don't help. Isn't it a bit like "kraut" or "dago"?

No, geek has an image problem, applying geek to a fan of all things science isn't the problem.

Richard Dawkins Foundation Introduction

The introduction video for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason has made its way on to YouTube:

The God Delusion

On Saturday I managed to get hold of a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I'm only a couple of chapters in at the moment and so far it's a good read.

Because of the release of the book he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight last Friday. I managed to miss it but, as usual, YouTube comes to the rescue:

Note that the interview is also currently available on the BBC website — I've been unable to watch it there today because the stream is very choppy.

Quote of the week

From an article in The Guardian:

Last night, the Royal Society gave a public platform to Steve Jones, the award-winning geneticist and author, to deliver a lecture entitled Why Creationism Is Wrong and Evolution Is Right. Professor Jones said that suggesting that creationism and evolution be given equal weight in education was "to me, rather like starting genetics lectures by discussing the theory that babies are brought by storks."

Daily Mail in Theory Cock-Up Shock

It shouldn't and, to be honest, doesn't surprise me to find out that the hacks over at the Daily Mail don't have the first clue about what a theory actually is when talking about science.

A story there today, Pupils 'confused by science lessons in creationism' gets it very wrong in the wording of a poll associated with the story:

Should creationism be taught as truth or theory?

• It should be truth
• It's all theory

I think that's got to be the most biased set of answers I've ever seen from a poll but, in this case, it would appear that it's more to do with ignorance on the part of the person setting it as opposed to it being down to a deliberate attempt to get the answer they want.

Is it any wonder that the readership of the paper then make comments such as

The fact is nobody knows anything because theories are just thoughts or ideas and nothing more...Monkeys are cute and will never be humans.

Evolution theories change every other week because they haven't a clue really. Remember the big bang?

I really do not see what the Royal Society are getting all steamed up about! They admit that Darwin's theroy is just that - a theory.

And so on, that's just a random sample. Thankfully there are a couple of comments made against that story that actually point out what "theory" actually means.

Thin end of the wedge

From this article on the BBC:

Creationist theories about how the world was made are to be debated in GCSE science lessons in mainstream secondary schools in England.

The subject has been included in a new syllabus for biology produced by the OCR exam board, due out in September.

It would appear that the thin end of the wedge is finally going to find itself in mainstream UK classrooms.

Although there are some sensible points raised in the article it's sad to see it start out with the phrase "creationist theories". I think the author of the article needs to go and learn what a theory is.

Doing the Selfish Time Warp

I got a very curious email from Amazon today:

Dear Amazon.co.uk Customer,

As someone who has purchased books by Richard Dawkins, you might like to know that "The Selfish Gene" will be released soon. You can pre-order your copy for just GBP 7.49 ( 50% off the RRP) by following the link below.

The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins

Release Date:March 16, 2006

List Price: GBP 14.99 Our Price: GBP 7.49 You Save: GBP 7.50 (50%)

A URL was also included that pointed here.

I can't remember how long I've had my copy of TSG but the book itself was first published in 1976.

I guess it's supposed to be some sort of 30th anniversary edition or something but the wording of the email seems plain silly.