I’m starting to feel a little sorry for the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. They’ve undertaken the unenviable task of promoting “the scientific theory known as intelligent design”, while vigorously maintaining that “intelligent design”, properly understood, is not a sneaky way of promoting Biblical creationism. Now, I’m no great fan of […]
Archives for January 2006
Medicine on the March: “Yoghurt against HIV”
As I previously announced, I wasn’t planning to do any real blog posting this week – too much “serious” writing to do, plus a fair bit of “real” work at my day job. But every so often, something comes up that must be blogged about. Today’s blockbuster story is from the Jerusalem Post, and is […]
Crunch Week: A Pathetic Apology
It is so true as to be a cliché: the writer’s worst enemy is the blank sheet of paper. All the wonderful technology in the world hasn’t changed that; every time I set out to write something, the first thing that confronts me is a blank editor screen, which Microsoft has even graciously designed to […]
“Don’t Kiss the Dying Chicken” – News from the Frontiers of Public (and Private) Health
The Associated Press, among others, reported yesterday that one of the Turkish children who had contracted H5N1 “bird flu” apparently contracted the disease after hugging and kissing the dead and dying chickens in her backyard. My first reaction – probably your first reaction as well, but I’m brave enough to admit it in public – […]
History and Horse Sense: Searching for Ariel Sharon’s Legacy
Everyone and his horse is writing about Ariel Sharon’s legacy. After all, what else is there to write about at the moment? My high-school European History teacher used to say that true historians dealt only with stuff that happened fifty or more years in the past; everything more recent than that was considered mere “current […]