by cameron | Jan 8, 2009 | science
The last eruption was 640,000 years ago. The eruptions seem to occur about every 680,000 years, give or take. So Yellowstone is about due.
(SciGuy: Is Yellowstone about to blow?)
I remember the above stat from when I read Bill Bryson’s “A Short History Of Nearly Everything” (a most excellent book btw).
According to SciGuy, just after Christmas there was a flurry of earthquakes beneath Yellowstone Lake. Could this be the big one?
If so, and you live in the US, I hope you’re on one of the coasts, as this map estimates the ash beds for the last three major eruptions:
by cameron | Jan 8, 2009 | media 2.0, science
2009 is going to be a bloodbath.
Even if we have the shallowest recession and advertising comes back as it inevitably does, more of it will go to the web. I think that’s it for newspapers. What we saw happen to the Christian Science Monitor [the international paper shifted its daily news operation online] is going to happen three or four dozen times (globally) in the next year. The 500-year-old accident of economics occasioned by the printing press – high upfront cost and filtering happening at the source of publication – is over.
Digital guru Clay Shirky’s media forecast and predictions for 2009 | Media | The Guardian
by cameron | Jan 8, 2009 | Podcast, science
Well folks… it’s 2009 and I’m going through the archives, still trying to piece together the missing shows. I’m re-discovering lots of old shows myself and thinking “wow, I should listen to that one again”. And so, while I’m busy trying to fix stuff, I thought I’d plug a few of the old shows that you may have missed or may need to listen to again.
In August 2007 I had Dr John Demartini on my show for the first time. He’s a motivational speaker and author from the USA who is different from the usual folks. He actually seems be about more than just ‘rah rah’ and PMA. His ideas have some grounding in science. I think I need to listen to this episode on a more regular basis myself. Hope you enjoy it (again).
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If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
by cameron | Dec 17, 2008 | science
I’m still totally geeked out by the Antikythera Mechanism. This video shows how it worked using an amazing replica. I want.
by cameron | Sep 18, 2008 | Christianity, Podcast, science vs religion
My guest on #344 is Ben Witherington III, an evangelical Biblical scholar and lecturer on New Testament Studies, who is currently Professor on the New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
In our discussion, Prof. Witherington makes a case for the historicity of the New Testament and for the existence of Jesus. While he seems to agree with me on certain facts (eg that Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are anonymous documents and that Paul was not an eyewitness), he makes the argument that they can be treated as eyewitness testimonies.
During the show, you’ll notice a couple of times when Ben caught me off-guard and I’ve added my later thoughts into the show, after I had a chance to read up on his claims. I’ve put some links to further information on those issues below:
1st Century Historians Who Strangely Don’t Mention Jesus
The Acts of Pilate
Who Wrote The Gospel Of John?
If you haven’t heard my previous show with Robert M Price (who argues that Jesus is a mythological character), then you can find it here.
Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
by cameron | Aug 29, 2008 | Australian politics, Christianity, environment, science
From the “Houston We Have A Problem” department… Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on radio today:
“For me, it’s ultimately the order of the cosmos or what I describe as the creation.
“You can’t simply have, in my own judgment, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time.
“If you were simply reducing that to mathematically probabilities I’ve got to say it probably wouldn’t have happened.
“So I think there is an intelligent mind at work.”
So basically we have a Prime Minister who doesn’t understand 5th grade science using the term “mathematical probabilities” to defend his belief in God. I would love to know what he thinks the “mathematical probabilities” are for God? Who designed the designer? Even my kids worked that out independently at about age 6. “But Dad, if God made everything, who made God?” I should put my kids (who are now 7) in front of Rudd for ten minutes. They’d sort him out.
So why is having a creationist Prime Minister a problem?
What mostly concerns me is that someone who cannot or does not accept rudimentary science (in this case, Big Bang theory and the laws of physics) is someone with a major intellectual blind spot. This is someone who refuses to accept evidence and rational thinking and instead prefers a primitive mythology. Can someone like that effectively govern a country in the 21st century? If he doesn’t accept evidence and rational thinking in this instance, how do we know in what other subjects he prefers to ignore evidence? Foreign affairs? The budget? Does he sit in meetings with Treasury, here them say “well if we do x and then y will happen to the economy” and reply “well I don’t believe that, I think it’ll just work because God wants it to”? Is his approach to foreign policy based on logic and reason or his interpretation of God’s will?
It’s profoundly disturbing to me to know that our most senior government official believes in superstition and supernatural causes for the world around him.
I’d be interested to see what the reaction would have been had he said “I believe the Rainbow Serpent created the world”. Why is one primitive mythology superior to another?
