Carnivalia, and an open thread

The Royal Society has opened an online archive of all their journals for nearly 350 years to the public for free until next year.

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1373

Beer image used in TV ad for church

A MIRACULOUS image of Jesus Christ in the froth of an almost empty pint of beer will be used as an advert to encourage more Britons to go to church this Christmas.
...

That might work in Australia.

Philip Brooks: Sweet! Thanks for the tip.

It being a lots-of-allergens-in-the-mist day, I am bleary-eyed. I read it as "Carnivore of Education" and thought, oh, damn, the creationists are at it again...

In the run-up to Talk Like A Pirate Day, I asked people on the Elmhurst Solutions science forums if they could think of any pirate science, ie anything discovered or invented by pirates which would count as science or technology by the standards of their own era at least. We weren't doing very well (I'd only got as far as proposing that Francis Drake qualified as a pirate if not necessarily as an innovator other than in military tactics) until someone suggested William Dampier. Wikipedia doesn't really give enough scientific details though.

Hah! The Arena Deal in Sacramento imploded yesterday!

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/23098.html

It's Festivus in September.

I'm sick of people suggesting that certain kinds of statements are metaphysical, not able to be tested, and that therefore science has nothing to say about them.

That's just stupid. The logic that science is founded on has plenty to say about them - and if a thing cannot be tested even in principle, it has no potential consequences. None at all. It makes absolutely no difference whether the statement is considered to be true or false; it makes absolutely no difference whether the negation of the statement is considered to be true or false. It is quite literally meaningless.

Holding up meaningless statements as arguments is obviously incorrect. Claiming to be able to derive conclusions from those statements is incorrect. This is so terribly obvious that the vast majority of people seem to be unable to grasp it, yet it is nevertheless true.

Also, this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5347564.stm

It's nice to see that at least a few people in the Senate have some guts. Now we'll just have to see whether Congress can overturn Bush's veto on this matter.

until someone suggested William Dampier. Wikipedia doesn't really give enough scientific details though.

Arrr, ye swabs! Here be some loot:

   http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/sunshine/235/mdampier.htm

On the 27th of august, 1685, Admiral Burney on his Chronological History of the discoveries in the South Sea . (London, 1803-7) says of Dampier and his work " it is not easy to name another sailor who has supplied such valuable information to the world; he had a passion for reporting exactly as he saw it, with a delicate and perfect style; he felt an unending curiosity that made his accounts have a unique delicate touch. All the scientists of the era expressed the great admiration they felt for him. [...] he was respected in his time and is compared today to scientists like Darwin and Humbolt, they made good use of all his works, Humbolt generously commented that scholars and European and travelers like Comdamine, Juan and Ulloa took their titles from the observations made by this English buccaneer.

While Gutenberg has some of Dampier's works, this links to facsimile archives:

   http://delta.ulib.org/zoom/creator.html?id=1470

Most especially Dampier's Voyages and Descriptions

   http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?doc=34673

Voyages and descriptions : in three parts, viz. 1. A Supplement of the Voyage round the world, describing the countreys of Tonquin, Achin, Malacca, &c., their product, inhabitants, manners, trade, policy, &c. 2. Two voyages to Campeachy, with a description of the coasts, product, inhabitants, logwood-cutting, trade, &c. of Jucatan, Campeachy, New-Spain, &c. 3. A discourse of trade-winds, breezes, storms, seasons of the year, tides and currents of the torrid zone throughout the world; with an account of Natal in Africk

And a nice summary of A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier is here:

   http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0802714250-2

And as ye scurvy dogs can plainly see, "Dampier" is just before "Darwin" in the Galapagos:

   http://www.galapagos.to/BOOKS.HTM#DampierR

Of all the blogs I read, you'd be most likely to know: Is "evolutionary tract", in the sense of an evolutionary pathway or branch (as opposed to a book on evolution), a malapropped "evolutionary track", perhaps by malcognition with "revolutionary tract", or does it actually mean something real? If so, how does it differ from "evolutionary path"?

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier

Yes, that's the book which had been read by the person suggesting him.

David Horton says

And most of all we need to standup and say 'Yes, I am an atheist, and proud of it'.

Andrew Brown writes in The Grauniad

What is it about the jeering, smug atheism so well represented on the internet, as well as in Dawkins' books, that makes me so very angry?

I think it's because it's right.