In this 7-minute video, James Randi announces the annual “Pigasus Awards,” which are described in detail, along with the requirements for winning, at the James Randi Educational Foundation. I won’t divulge the winners in print, except for the “Refusal to Face Reality” award won by the infamous Dr. Oz. Oz has now set a record, […]
UPDATE: Jaweed Kaleem, religion editor of the HuffPo, also has a piece on Tutu’s Templeton, with this note: The prize, which was created by the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, is not without its critics. When it was given to British cosmologist Martin Rees in 2011, for example, Jerry Coyne, a professor in […]
UPDATE: Here are my nephew’s predictions for what will will the Oscars (major categories only). He proffers these reluctantly (see below for his feelings on The Academy Awards), but he usually gets them all right: Picture: Argo Director: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee […]
The picture shown in this morning’s post is, as someone finally guessed, the dome of the Stadshuset, the City Hall of Stockholm (built 1911-1923). Besides having its civic functions, it’s also where the dinners honoring the Nobel Laureates are held each December. Here’s the building, which is gorgeously festooned inside with murals and mosaics: If […]
I’m just back from a national park in eastern Portugal, where it’s remote, unpopulated, and eerily beautiful. I saw the national bird of Portugal, the azure-winged magpie (Cyanopica cyanus) as well as a group of griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus). The vulture breeds only on vertical rocky cliffs, and we spotted a group of four—or rather my companion […]
According to the BBC Science & Environment site, the 20012 Ig®Nobel Prizes were recently awarded (IgNobel site here). As you may know, these are satirical prizes that honor the most bizarre-sounding research of the year: Thursday’s Ig Nobel ceremony at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre was the 22nd since the American science humour magazine, Annals of Improbable […]
What more is there to say than that the Head Tibetan Buddhist nabbed 1.7 miliion bucks? Although he’s not a scientist, his Templeton Award blurb cites his science-friendly attitudes: For decades, Tenzin Gyatso, 76, the 14th Dalai Lama – a lineage believed by followers to be the reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist leader who epitomized […]
As you know, Christopher Hitchens took time off from his chemotherapy to attend the Atheist Alliance of America convention in Houston, Texas to receive the Richard Dawkins Award for promoting freethought and atheism. Here, hot off YouTube, are the three videos of Richard announcing the award and Hitchens’s response. Together they’re about 25 minutes long. […]
And in other boring news, the 2011 “Nobel Prize” in Economics (it’s not really a Nobel, it’s “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” goes to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy”. I’ve always thought this Johnny-come-lately prize was somewhat […]
Yesterday’s New York Times has a piece on Christopher Hitchens, his receipt of the Dawkins award at the atheist meetings in Houston, Texas, and a report on his work and his health. It turns out that Hitchens is in Houston anyway, undergoing chemotherapy at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where “he has turned his […]
