An Interview With Jerry Coyne

I have been eyeing Jerry Coyne's book "Why Evolution Is True" for some time now, but for a severe lack of free time in my schedule it has not ended up on my reading list.
In the meantime American Scientist is running a nice interview with him, and it is worth reading to see what prompted Jerry to write his book in the first place.

First of all, I only teach evolution. I've been teaching it for my whole career, which I guess is coming on 25 years now, and I realized when I started
teaching that nobody ever taught the evidence for evolution, which is
wide-ranging and cool. And I looked in the textbooks, and they didn't have it
either. And yet when you read Darwin, the thing that's most fascinating is the
evidence he musters in support of it. In talking with professional biologists
and evolutionists, they didn't ever learn why people thought evolution was true,
because you're not taught that in class. But I thought that that should be
passed on to the students because of the second reason I wrote the book, which
is the pervasiveness of creationism in this country. I wanted to educate the
students so they know that evolution really happened, so they don't really doubt
that, but also to arm them against the forces of irrationality that were going
to be impinging on them and society.

Read the entire inteview here.

Top 10 Family Camping In Florida

I love getting out in the wild, but it's not an easy task with kids. Florida presents a whole bunch of new challenges: snakes, alligators, wetlands and bugs.
I always welcome a good list of suggestions for a family outing, and St. Petersburg Times' Web Site, has just such a list:

Top 10 family camping spots in Florida

Very useful, since some of the places are not well known outside of the Sunshine State.

Icons! Icons!!! for all...

I can't pass by a resource like that without making a note. This is lifted out of the downloadsquad.com post and points to a list of some great and beautiful icon sets:

50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008

These come handy often, just for your own enjoyment, some desktop personalization, or to spice up a Web project.

The Volcano Goes... Kaboom!!!

This one is all over the blogosphere, and rightly so, since it is too cool too miss.

The volcano, erupting under the sea in the South Pacific gave the scientist an incredible show. Check out the pictures on the Boston Glob web site: Undersea eruptions near Tonga

Amazing!!!

Want same laughs... read on...

... just make sure you are not easily offended in your beliefs. The "50 Reasons I Reject Evolution" is a hilarious take on the debate between evolutionary biologists and creationists/ID-ers. I have to say, I could not agree more.

Another Reason Why Healthcare Is (Sooo) Expensive In the U.S.

I have been following the Science-Based Medicine Blog for some time now, since the quality of the articles is outstanding, the topics are well researched, and the contributors are all on top of their fields of expertise.
Today, there is an interesting entry (Wyeth vs. Levine: Should Drug Label Standards Be Determined By Juries?) about a recent case heard by the US Supreme Court, and its outcome. In today's economic climate, while the new Washington Administration is paving the way to universal health care, are we still wondering why health care in this country is SOOO expensive? Call me crazy, but, as the author of the blog entry says, why are the lay people making medical decisions? Do I see "lawyers" and "$$$" all over???

Darwin Day 2009

Happy 200th Birthday Charles!!!

Following some of the news (Fox News: Darwin's Birthday Poll: Fewer Than 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution) today, it is hard to believe that it is 200 years today when Charles Darwin was born. How is it possible that only 39 percent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution, at the same time living in the most (or one of the most) technologically and scientifically advanced societies? Where does it take us and our children? I think it is time to re-read "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan, which gives us one of the best explanations of our behaviour and attitudes towards science and rationality.

Florida Hiking

... hiking, you say... probably not what you associate with Florida: no real mountains here, but it is a beautiful neck of the woods. Since my son is only four, hiking destinations have to be selected carefully, but last week we managed to pull of a nice trip to Hillsborough Rivier State Park in Central Florida (about 20 miles north of Tampa). It's a great place with trails of various length. I posted some pictures in my Gallery.

Changes... changes...

It's been a slow few months for me in the blogosphere, due to crazy workload. Real work just keeps piling up, with some interesting developments (I became a project management convert - it really works!!!), and my side project (no less real, be assured) and swamping me as well. I have some rants coming up and I should get a bit more active :-)

Building an Ultimate Linux Home Server - Part 1

Want to have a free (or cheap) home server, for file sharing and other useful tasks? Check out the guide at 32Packets:

How to build the Ultimate Linux Home Server - Part 1

I hope they keep the next instalments coming, since using Linux as a home server is one of the best ways to put Linux to work at your home.