Dawkins, Atwood and More – On Darwin!

As you may know I’m a Margaret Atwood fan (read my immoderately breathless account here), and I also think that Richard Dawkins is an excellent scientist and science communicator. On the other hand, as you also know from earlier discussions, I don’t think that his take-no-prisoners approach to the science and religion discussion is the best way forward. Anyway, I found this marvelous Newsnight special from last month. A celebration of Darwin and his work. It has lots of discussion about Darwin then and now, cultural and scientific impact, the ongoing debates, a new staging of a play, a recent film, and participating is Atwood, Dawkins, and the Rev. Richard Coles and the poet Ruth Padel (who is also a descendant of Darwin.) It is in four parts and […] Click to continue reading this post

Odd Duck

odd_duckA tad blurry but a favourite photo from the new season so far. For a few days there it was all wet and soggy here in LA and it was wonderful, as I explained a few posts ago. I was in McArthur park (well, at the edge, waiting for a bus) for a little while and saw this scene. A sea of pigeons (there were way more than I captured here) and a single duck among them. […] Click to continue reading this post