Category Archives: Science

Women and sci-fi

June 27, 2008 – 7:53 pm

I came across this interesting post on how to get women more interested in sci-fi writing and film. I’m probably not the best chick to ask about this - all my favourite films are sci-fi films, as well as most of my favourite television series. I also have a large sci-fi/fantasy book collection. I think [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Books, Feminism, General, Literature | Comments (77)

Be nice to nerds, you may finish up working for one

March 22, 2008 – 6:53 am

A friend of mine over here reckons that Oxford is the place where nerds go when they die. All the glorious eccentricities, social tomfoolery and obscurantist interests once repressed (or hidden) come to the fore. This is when we’re not being political junkies, finding cures for cancer or engaging in ‘other academic interests’. His comment [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Feminism, Skeptics | Comments (13)

Must be something in the water…

March 20, 2008 – 2:51 am

More than once at rowing training our crew’s been told off for - however inadvertently - putting our hands or feet in the water. This is the Isis, which, however distantly, is part of the Thames. We’ve always found it a bit funny, as during a bumps race - unless you’re really good, and we’re [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Skeptics | Comments (9)

Mad World

October 22, 2007 – 11:33 am

It’s reasonably difficult to unite the disparate partisans of town and gown in Oxford, but this mob have figured out how to do it.
The chants of ‘Oxford University: Animal Abusers! Oxford University: Animal Killers!’ went up outside the Sheldonian on Saturday. People were graduating, although the Oxford student the protesters decided to target wasn’t a [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Skeptics | Comments (39)

Evil is live backwards

February 28, 2007 – 2:18 am

From time to time, people suggest to me that, in my line of work, I must see a fair few evil people. Not common or garden variety nasty, or plain crooked, but actively evil. The human equivalent of Old Nick, the sort who - if they went up in smoke - would leave a whiff [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law, Skeptics, Society | Comments (124)

Environmental innovation

February 11, 2007 – 12:29 pm

Regular Catallaxy commenter JC has a guest post up over at Club Troppo on innovative technological responses to environmental concerns - and among other things he flags one of Graeme Bird’s favourite planning ideas - the abolition of height restrictions on inner-city residential accommodation. He’s started a very lively thread among Troppodillians, so I thought [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Economics | Comments (116)

Have a writ sandwich, Hairshirt Hamilton

February 5, 2007 – 6:59 pm

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke:
In what is believed to be a world first, David Jones begins a legal case tomorrow in which it is suing the left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute and its executive director, Clive Hamilton, over claims the giant retailer’s advertising eroticised and sexually exploited children
The case, in the Federal Court [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law, Media | Comments (63)

The God Delusion

December 12, 2006 – 11:03 am

Richard Dawkins, the great Oxford zoologist and science writer, has been known to excite considerable antipathy in various quarters. This is not so much for his science writing, as for his public statements about religion and alternative medicine. In this he is a true skeptic: skeptics tend to dislike anything that makes unfalsifiable claims.
In The [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Religion, Skeptics | Comments (77)

At last, a really good reason to bash the ABC!

November 29, 2006 – 8:35 pm

As those of you familiar with my writing history would know, I’ve had a fair bit to do with the Australian Skeptics. And, as someone with a strong but amateur interest in science, I’m reasonably cheesed off that the ABC is pulling this stunt:
FANS of ABC television’s science program Catalyst may be in for a
surprise [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Skeptics | Comments (61)