Blue Collar Scientist

Some of the members of the brand-new Science and Skepticism in Anchorage group descended upon a local restaurant for food, drink, and talk last Friday, and we had a great time. The discussion was stimulating and wide-ranging - at my end of the long table, we talked about

• asymmetrically-drawn pterosaurs;
• dinosaur skulls;
• Apple Newton vs. Apple iPhone (and yes, this did involve the sighting of a Newton in the wild!);
• the validity of Homo floresiensis as a taxon (consensus: we think it is valid);
• how a Mac with a drawing tablet would be really cool for some of us (it isn’t clear to me, but then, I lack imagination);

and a bunch of other stuff. Someone there, who hadn’t read it, asked me about my blog post about the supposed Sumerian observation of an asteroid impact. I gave a description of the problems with the impact hypothesis, as well as an explanation of why I felt several of the details were implausible in the extreme, and then was asked to sum up my views in one sentence or less. I replied by saying “I doubt it very much.”

So I got a big laugh today when I saw that The Greenbelt linked here drawing attention to that post, saying:

…Blue Collar Scientist’s look at a new book claiming that Sumerians observed an asteroid impact on Earth (hint: he doubts it very much).

Yes, that is exactly how I talk….

SSA has also embarked on a modest project. Scott and Zach, the two dinosaur experts in the group, have agreed to cook up a reading list on dinosaurs that will allow the interested layperson to get a good understanding of the subject. I’ve been picking up books on dinosaurs for a few years now, looking for a good title, and never quite sure whether I’ve got one, because I don’t have enough knowledge to evaluate my sources. So this will surely help me, at least. We’re going to set it up as a static webpage or PDF or something and host it for the world to use.

Next, I’m going to try to figure out how to get our entomologist to make a similarly-spirited contribution. :-)

Our next formal event will be in a few weeks, unless one of our members sets up something before then - which I encourage.

I just wanted to remind all my local readers that Science and Skepticism in Anchorage is having dinner together on Friday, at 7:00, at Twin Dragon Mongolian Bar-B-Que. I’ve reserved one of the back rooms. Reservations are under my name if you have trouble finding us.

Please RSVP to me if you are planning to come! We still have space, but seating could fill up fast.

The restaurant’s at 612 E 15th Ave (on the corner of 15th and Gambell), phone is 276-7535.

Last Thursday, I attended the Anchorage Science/Skeptics meetup as planned, and it was a ripping success! So much so that we’ve decided to do it again and again, and have set up a Google group for event announcements and member discussions.

Image courtesy the unknown barista who agreed to take the shot with Zach’s camera.

We had 14 people there at the peak, and at least three different conversations going on at any given time. Several people in attendance had heard about it from the announcement on Pharyngula, and a couple each from the announcement on Skepchick and Bad Astronomy.

Zach has already written up a review, so here are my highlights from the event:

• Zach and Scott Elyard told the story of the T. Rex skull cast that they worked on at the Alaska Museum of Natural History. And what an epic it was.
• Two people in the local media attended and determined they knew each other as colleagues.
• Ceci, who had read of PZ Myers’ expulsion from Expelled not long before our event started, was fairly bursting at the seams and made sure to tell us all to go read Pharyngula when we got home.
• Greg, Scott Rhode, Kent, and I discussed the difficulties of experimental design in psychology - a topic I’m barely educated in and yet strangely still opinionated about.
• Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation was shown in all its 50-lb, glossy-paged glory, complete with photos of fishing lures represented as living insects.
• Paleoart was not only shown, but produced, right there at the event!

I was down at one end of our long table, so I wasn’t able to track whatever was happening at the other end. We had that many people - we shoved together a bunch of tables into something approximately as long as an aircraft carrier, and then filled all the seats and then some.

We had a discussion of whether or not to do this again, and the consensus was yes, definitely. I was placed in charge of setting up a mailing list for event announcements and discussions amongst members. I unilaterally chose the name Science and Skepticism in Anchorage¹ for the name of our little dis-organization, and as mentioned above I’ve set up a mailing list for us. Check it out and sign up if you’d like.

Based on our discussions, we’re planning to hold an event about every three weeks or so, on different days of the week so that everyone interested gets a chance to attend at least some events. We will also cycle between coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and probably even my living room, so that we don’t get stale staring at the same walls, or bogged down with the same kind of venue each time. There are also plans to conduct an occasional Barcamp type event, a mini-conference with our members giving short presentations on topics of interest.

So, if you want to get involved, head on over to our Google group and sign up!

1. The name is intelligently designed to avoid an unfortunate acronym of the sort that a local used car dealer is saddled with. [↩]

Last night I drove up to the Eagle River Nature Center and gave the talk on Exoplanets to another packed house. The jokes in the talk worked better at this second presentation of the subject, but I felt overall that I was less polished and well rehearsed this time out.

Last night was my last public astronomy-related program in Alaska for this season. There’s an outside chance that I’d be asked to cover for someone else’s program if they had to cancel, because the ERNC season doesn’t end until next month, but this was probably it. I do still have several activities to do in some schools before summer, but those aren’t open to the public, so I think I’m off the hook until October. Don’t get me wrong - I really love doing this. But it is a lot of work.

Tonight at seven I’ll be giving the astronomy program at the Eagle River Nature Center - out at the end of Eagle River Road in, ummm, Eagle River, of all places. I’ll be talking about exoplanets, and the prospects for life elsewhere in the universe. I mentioned this event earlier this week, but to tell you the truth, I wrote that posting a few months ago when I was first booked for the date, and before I had completed the program. It was scheduled to just appear at the right time thanks to the complexities of Wordpress’ future posting features.

So a more accurate description of the content can be found here, and some post-program coverage, including a link to a review, can be found here. But if you read this stuff, be aware, I’m not at CCSC tonight - I’m at the Eagle River Nature Center at 7:00 PM. See ya there!

If you are interested in science, the skeptical movement, or rational thinking; if you read and enjoy Pharyngula (see also here), the Bad Astronomy Blog, or Skepchick; and if you want to meet other such people, here’s all you have to do:

Go to the coffee shop at Barnes and Noble, tonight, Thursday, March 20, at 7:00 PM.

This meetup is co-sponsored by Zach Miller of the blog When Pigs Fly Returns, Scott Elyard of Coherent Lighthouse, and by yours truly.

If you don’t know any of us, just look for the MacBook with the JREF sticker on it:

The meeting will be informal and social, but we’ve got a couple activities on deck. According to Zach:

Scott is going to show everybody how to draw Euparkeria and I’m going to teach people how pterosaurs folded their wings. Jeff (the BCS) will be giving the keynote speech, and I’ve heard that…whisper it softly…he’s made of cheese.

Zach must have at least some of his tongue in his cheek, for Scott was last seen complaining about his drawing of Euparkeria, and I do not actually have a speech prepared (although it is possible I am made of cheese - it seems we could somehow experimentally verify this at the meetup). I do look forward to a pterosaur demonstration from Zach and some dinosaur art from both Zach and Scott. I will have a couple videos to play regarding Mythbusters. And if I remember, I’ll bring my Atlas of Creation so we can all see the gorgeous pictures of fishing lures that they used in place of living insects.

We will also be discussing the next meetup - we’ll probably be doing this biweekly or monthly - and soliciting opinions on whether we want to pick a regular venue. But mainly, we’re there to have good conversation and a good time.

In a few days, I’ll be at the Eagle River Nature Center to talk about exoplanets - planets orbiting stars other than our sun. The talk is at 7:00 PM on March 21.

I’ll be covering some pretty interesting topics:

• how they are detectable - this will involve my semi-famous “swinging of the heavy ball” demonstration
• why we’ve found a lot of big, short-period planets, and fewer earth-sized, long period ones
• how we find them - what kind of telescopes and instruments are used
• who is finding them - including some amateur astronomers who have made these discoveries
• how many there are
• what we’re likely to find in the future

Come on out and join us!

Alaska paleoartist and blogger Scott Elyard of Coherent Lighthouse has posted some comments about my talk Thursday night. What with the necessities of setting up for the talk, talking to some of the people attending, and the legitimate stresses of debuting a new program, I only got to talk to Scott briefly, but I did notice that he was packing a Mac (probably one more high-powered than my own, I’d guess) and a serious-looking Nikon DSLR. Sadly, his photographs of the event apparently didn’t turn out so well:

I do have to report that a 60 mm Macro lens does not make a good general-purpose lens–something I aim to rectify for the future, but for now it means my photos turned out pretty blurry. I’m not often good at photographing in conditions where I have no control over lighting, or, even … if the subject happens to actually move on its own accord.

I’m sure the real problem was that the lights were down. I’m kinda known for showing the pretty pictures, so the house tends to bring the lights to the absolute threshold of safety when I’m presenting.

And it’s a fair cop - I do tend to move about. I am prone to wandering to and fro in front of the audience, as though I were trying to hypnotize them with my pendulum-like motions, rather than dazzle them with what one of my students calls my “mad public speaking skillz.” As far as I’m concerned, a lectern with a snake-mounted microphone is some kind of torture device, so I eschew them where possible.

The upcoming meetup for science buffs and skeptical thinkers - to be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, March 20, in the cafe at Barnes & Noble on Northern Lights in Anchorage - has received some very high profile publicity, and I’d like to thank everyone for helping out.

PZ Myers has given his blessing on Pharyngula, the 500 pound gorilla octopus of science blogs, although someone pointed out to me that it looks like we have made him sad by not inviting him to attend personally. Actually, if you read carefully, the sadness is because we didn’t invite him and offer to pay his way. Maybe PZ should be told that the beginning of breakup is not an attractive season to visit Alaska. As I write, I’ve had about 150 hits referred from PZ’s blog or its mirrors.

The Bad Astronomer has also blogged about it, which has the effect of getting the announcement into the USA Today Alaska-edition feed, which I know a lot of local people read. The BA has driven about 75 hits to our announcement, combining the traffic from his blog and the USA Today feed. Also, I have finally figured out what a “BA-Blogee” is, and it is the same thing as what I styled a Bad Astronomy Buddy. I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to grok this prior to now, but I assure you, from here on out I will refer to BA fans (including myself) with the officially sanctioned nomenclature. (Did you actually get that through the IAU General Assembly, Phil?)

The Shepchick blog has done an over-the-top job of promoting us, too. Whereas I expected Rebecca to add our event to the Skepchick calendar and move on to more interesting things, what she actually did was add us to the calendar and then write a great post with a pertinent and eye-catching headline. When I saw it I got all excited - “cool,” I thought, “I get to go to a GEEK MEETUP!” - then I realized I was the guy organizing it and began to doubt my qualifications as a rational thinker. And so we’ve had about 60 hits from the Skepchicks blog.

So, that’s about 285 unique hits from these three bloggers, and Anchorage folks who didn’t know about us before learned about us from all three of these sites. So thanks a bunch, guys! Now I’m wondering what to expect. A few people have e-mailed me or commented that they are going to attend, or try to; but I wonder what percentage of the traffic that isn’t resulting in e-mails or blog comments are (a) Alaskans, who (b) are planning to attend? If it is even 10%, we’re going to have a lot more people than I anticipated. Which would be really cool. I expect the promotion conducted at my talk on exoplanets will get a few people out to join us as well.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this, so don’t be surprised to see me promote it a couple more times over the next week.

Just a friendly reminder that you can hear my talk about exoplanets - planets in orbit around other stars - tonight (Thursday, March 13) at the Campbell Creek Science Center in Anchorage. Check here for details.

I’m going to talk about the history of exoplanets - including ancient speculation and the sad fate of Giordano Bruno - the state of knowledge about exoplanets today, information about how exoplanets form, and at the end a whirlwind explanation of why I think life must exist elsewhere in the universe. I promise it won’t be boring. Come on out and see the show!