Well, that was refreshing! Thanks.

Douglas Adams said something along the lines of ‘If you have a beautiful garden, you don’t need to pretend that ou have fairies living at the bottom of it’.

Look through any telescope on a clear night and you’ll see we have a very beautiful garden indeed.

*cannot resist*

By True History, of course, I mean the record we have of things that happened long before humans started writing things down: before humans even existed in some cases.

History is the study of the Past, with special attention to the written record of the activities of human beings over time.

When discussing an era, ask this question: “Did humans exist?” If answer=no then it ain’t history.

Fascinating, interesting, and essential for our understanding of how things came to be, but not history. Besides which, history only gets interesting in around 1600, everything before that is prequel.

Meh, end quibbling.

The Discovery Institute’s Wedge Strategy serves as an excellent example of how pseudoscience is used as a religiopolitical tool; if you can dislodge such a fundamental cornerstone to our understanding of the universe as the Galileo model or evolution, you can re-establish organised religion as a controlling power.

Which is palpably what they’re trying to do.

Just goes to prove my oft repeated point. Everything’s political.

To be additionally picky, if the history of life is just a fiddly insignificant epilogue to True History, then True History is 25% epilogue – life has existed for in the region of 3.7 billion years of the 13.7 billion years that there have been.

Other than that, always great to see both Darwin Year and the International Year of Astronomy getting some props!

In my job, I have worked with lots of conference organisers. For different reasons, the two that stand out are the BA Festival of Science and the International Physics Olympiad. The first is so brilliant because of its accessibility — science is for everyone, and it also shows that scientists are normal human beings. The second is great ‘cos it gives the geeky kids a chance to perform in an intellectual race — which may be humbling for them.

In recent days, bloggers have commented on the number of MPs who have no work experience outside of politics. It is a fair debate, but nobody questions why so few MPs have a knowledge of science or engineering. The UK relies on a knowledge and skill based economy, so we need our representatives to reflect it.

@Charlieman. I agree on that, and actually (sort of) covered it in my Xmas day post here, Sir Isaac Newton was an MP, elected in a multi-member constituency.

I’m of the opinion that scrapping multi-member seats as Labour did in 1947 was a significant contribution to the profesionalisation of politics, whereas multi-member seats being brought back, using the voting system some of them used to use (ie STV) would mean you could have a better mix of talents.

But to be fair, there are a number of MPs, from across the parties, that have a lot of tech knowledge—before Tom Watson got a blog, he used to do a daily update to his website using FTP, and Clegg’s predecessor at Sheffield Hallum is now fairly senior at Cisco.

@Debi: comment 6 to legitimately bring voting systems into the discussion. That’s a record, even for me.

Ancient anecdote from David Penhaligon: During the 1970s, post oil crisis but still expensive oil, Penhaligon had a chat with Jo Grimond about the price of fuel. Grimond’s reply was that if petrol is scarce, use diesel instead.

Sorry, MatGB, but changing the electoral system is not the answer. Professional politicians will move elsewhere,

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a scientifically-based heliocentric cosmology , not Galileo .Your remarks about an
established dogma of geo-centrism are simplistic then .The quarrel was between evidence and authority and that itself is a far subtler distinction than a Scientist would understand . The Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht draws scientific socialism , the use of art and the Life of Galileo of together in his play of the same name .It’s a play about how knowledge can be placed into existing structures and become as the old . A shock is also required for the new to have an effect. This would be worth reading and understanding . “Galileo’s use as a socialist symbol” . home work for you all .
I like evolution and in the last few years have acquired an uncertain faith with no conflict . Richard Dawkins rehashed the old war as well as ancient formal problems that I for the most part encountered in Bertrand Russels “ Why I am not a Christian “ many many years ago. Russell himself was following JS Mill so I can only attribute the popularity of this book to the youth of the readers .
I have always laughed at short period Creationism but there is place for discussion of what Creation really means . It refers to a purposeful universe for which one must posit a purpose giver then as Einstein did , this is called Deism an act of creation in some sense as beyond us as Shakespeare was beyond Ophelia . As a poetic vision the creation myth is for its own time but also for all time . This philosophical discussion has no place in science classes of course and as fop short period creationism it has no place in this century .
Science has a weak claim to much place in moral choices. As most of politics is entwined with moral questions I am not able to see what scientists would add . Moral Philosophers perhaps , historians , poets , businessmen soldiers , these have amore than equal claim . Scientists just boil frogs and prod things