From Big Bang to Us.

I haven’t done a science related post in a while, if memory serves me well, so today I thought I’d share this great YouTube series on the history of the universe with you. There is much in it that many of you will already be familiar with, but it is nonetheless an excellent, simple explanation of many complex ideas. A valuable refresher and an excellent introduction for the beginner.

From potholer54’s YouTube site:

WE NEED YOU! — I am looking for people who can “seed” the Made Easy series, either hosting it on their websites, mailing DVDs to schools or to other ‘seeds’, or spreading through BitTorrents. If you can help spread a bit of science and counter the rolling tide of creationist ignorance, please get in touch. Message me with a description of what you can do. Thanks!

The ‘Made Easy’ series is designed to explain the evidence that shows how we got here, from the Big bang to human migration out of Africa. A better quality version will soon be available for free download from a website — details to be announced. I will be happy to send DVDs free of charge to schools after the series is finished.

The ‘Made Easy’ series of videos can be freely copied and distributed for educational purposes, but cannot be used for commercial gain in whole or in part. They cannot be altered, transformed or added to. If you use repost these videos you must attribute them to ‘Potholer54 on YouTube.”

Name: Potholer.

I’ve been a journalist for 20 years, 14 years as a science correspondent. My degree is in geology, but while working for a science magazine and several science programs I had to tackle a number of different fields, from quantum physics to microbiology. My particular talent was my ignorance. By not understanding half of what I was assigned to cover, I had to reduce scientific discoveries from the complex to the simple. If I wrote it in a way that I could understand it, then my readers could understand it.

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Richard Dawkins TVOntario.

Part one of an excellent interview with Richard Dawkins.

I haven’t done this for a while, because I’m not all that sure that video content goes down too well with my regular readers, but this is a good one. Take a moment. You might like it. 😉

(The parting in his hair does worry me, though.)

Let’s Pimp Again…

Carrying on from here, few more of my favourite blogs…

1. Rambling On. Lottie and her very precise Virtual Bitchslaps (and more!).
2. Hayley’s Online Soapbox. A very refreshingly sceptical and investigative approach to the “paranormal.
3. Andrew’s Tech Blog. Newly discovered. A wealth of techie info from a very nice guy whose brains I want to pick 🙂
4. Richard Dawkins’s “In the News” Section. News stories with on science, atheism and religion.
5. Wired Science. Science blog network from Wired.
6. On the Road Again. My stand-up mate, John.

[Please be aware that not being included in the list does not necessarily mean your blog falls into the “badly written blogs that claim to speak with authority on subjects they quite clearly know nothing about” category.]

Pimp.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but what with my “creative endeavours” and whatnot, I just haven’t got round to it.

Until now.

The blogoshere is growing on a minute by minute basis. It’s estimated, in fact, to be growing so fast that by 2020 it will have broken free of its technological confines and turned the world and everything in it to a fish-paste-like mush… or was that nanobots? Either way, it’s a force to be reckoned with — and as our blogging skills increase I’m sure the trend for so-called “real journalists” to start sweating a bit and worrying about their job security will also continue to grow. Exponentially.

But, let’s face it, there’s a whole heap of dross out there. Silly, personal websites I have no objection to. They serve a purpose for the individual concerned and more power to them. What I don’t like, however, are the badly written blogs that claim to speak with authority on subjects they quite clearly know nothing about.

With this in mind, I thought I’d take a few moments to introduce you to some of my fellow bloggers who don’t fit into this category. These are the blogs I read on a daily basis. And they are a bit good.

See what you think.

1. The Odd Blog. Mike’s mix of Internutter de-masking and commentary.
2. PD Smith. Science writer par exellence.
3. The Will Rhodes Portmanteau. Will’s political blog.
4. Nectarville. Bekki’s blog. Slow down, girl!
5. Pharyngula. “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”
6. KurzweilAI.net. Science and futurism.

… that’s all for now, but more will follow soon.

[Edit: Please be aware that not being included in the list does not necessarily mean your blog falls into the “badly written blogs that claim to speak with authority on subjects they quite clearly know nothing about” category.]

Ponderings of the Brain-Dead.

Well, after digesting my lunch with a quiet read of Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works, I’m not wholly convinced that it any longer does. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fascinating, informative and witty book — and by and large, I can grasp it. The whole “computational theory of mind”-thing feels, in fact, rather natural to me (but, then, I did spend my mid-teens poking away at the squishy keyboard of my ZX81.) What I find a little difficult to cope with are the arguments against it — especially Searle’s utterly ridiculous Chinese Room thought experiment (note to potential commenters: don’t even think of telling me it isn’t — you’ll only make me angry and, in the words of David Banner, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry ;-))

But that isn’t what I want to blog about today. In spite of feeling a little lacking in metal capacity, I want to bring my faithful readers up to speed with the progress of the chapter outlines for Children of the Revolution and generally… well, discuss a few of my thoughts on attitudes to “disability” in education.

The further I’ve progressed with my outlines (which are almost complete), the more I’ve seen that the integration system I experienced in the ’70s and ’80s failed on so many levels that it was, frankly, utterly ridiculous to ever call it a success (which, in my case, I’d always considered it to be.) It was new, of course, “experimental” in a most literal way (I made a bloody cute Guinea Pig, if I do say so myself!) — but that doesn’t alter the fact whilst my experience was definitely one of the better ones, it was badly applied at the outset, clearly underfunded as time progressed and enthusiasm waned, and unlikely to succeed when underlying problems in maintainstrean education (such as over-large class sizes) were not even being addressed. Examples of the failings in my particular case were:

1) I had recurring problems throughout my education with desk-height/positioning in relation to my wheelchair. Two or three teachers tried to address it, but by and large with little success (it became a more difficult problem to fix in secondary school — having to move from classroom to classroom — so I just kept quiet and made do.)
2) In sixth form college, I was assigned an auxiliary assistant. A lovely lady who became a friend. Unfortunately, “they” only employed her to work half-days. (With no one else covering the times she wasn’t there.)
3) In 1984, I was still meeting careers advisors who were happy to suggest that my career options included weaving wicker baskets. Which was just what I was studying Physics, Computing and Mathematics for!

I could go on. The more I revisit those times, the more I find in among the laughter and tears a greater sense that this novel needs to be written. I know I’ve said that before, but it remains true. It’s valid from a social history point of view but I also believe it’s valid in the contemporary sense — because I don’t see all that much evidence of improvement. Children, whatever their needs, are still being failed by our education system. And after thirty years of “integration”, that’s bloody unforgivable.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this.