Winter’s Haven

Why, you ask, are Creation scientists not truly scientists? Item one: provided that it doesn’t appear to contradict their holy books, Creation scientists couldn’t care less about how the natural world works. The creationist I recently encountered certainly exhibited that mindset. He of course, was merely a random engineering student.
To see how professional Creation [...]

Apparently, some people really can’t tell the difference between a donut and a coffee mug, although I doubt this particular crackpot is any sort of professional topologist.
Hat tip to The Quantum Ponitiff for finding this hilarious video (or should that be a mitre tip?).

[Video from YouTube illustrating a crackpot "the earth is growing" theory, [...]

By day he’s a physicist at Caltech, but Sean’s posts at Cosmic Variance include some of the clearest and most level-headed discussion of epistemology to be found anywhere (regardless of academic department).
In a recent post, he carefully explains why it is unreasonable, in light of our best physical theories, to believe in telekinesis and other [...]

I found this comic via Hemant.

That hypothetical situation sure showed what an intellectually dishonest fellow that fictional atheist was! I have no idea whether this comic is trying to make some sort of point, or what that point might be.
The only reason I’m posting this is because I’ve long dreamed of launching an array of [...]

I quote:

We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of The Astrological Magazine will cease with the December 2007 issue.

There is (poetic) justice in the universe after all!
Hat tip to the Bad Astronomer for finding this.

The Bad Astronomer condemns Ron Paul for reasons which are… politically misguided. Namely, Paul is a creationist.
I think I speak for a lot of atheists libertarians when I say that, yes, Ron Paul’s views on evolution/creationism are awful, but in spite of that I’d still be fairly overjoyed to see him in the Oval Office. [...]

Some people think that scientists doing theoretical work can use mathematics to prove things about the real world a priori of any empirical investigation. This is wrong. Allow me to explain.
It is true that the results of pure mathematics do follow from whatever axioms one starts with a priori of any empirical observations. Indeed, empirical [...]

The Economist brings us an article about some very cool biologically inspired architecture.

PZ points out a video showing a squid giving birth to hundreds of tiny offspring. Truly wonderous.

In case you missed it, there was a terrorist incident at Los Angeles International airport last week. Care to guess what notorious group was responsible?

As should be [...]

There has been far too much religion and politics on this blog lately. Here are a few sciency links to freshen things up.

Several groups have found different ways to use the Casimir effect to levitate objects. The New Scientist has a nice summary; specific papers can be found on arXiv.org.

Mike Dunford, The Questionable Authority, gives [...]

A paper, “Determination of Inter-Phase Line Tension in Langmuir Films”, which I wrote with Lu Zou and our many colleagues will be in the next issue of Physical Reviews E! You can grab a non-gated copy here or from arXiv.org.