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“The best statistical graphic ever drawn“, is how statistician Edward Tufte described this chart in his authoritative work ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’. The chart, or statistical graphic, is also a map. And a strange one at that. It depicts the advance into (1812) and ...
There's just enough time for one final Poetry Sunday in 2007, and this one will feature another famous American poet with skeptical leanings: Robert Frost, the New Englander and national Poet Laureate whose work has become so iconic of the American experience. Frost's views on God are complex ...
Double-Blind Tests In a post back in October, I dissected the claims of a spam e-mail that landed in my inbox to promote the "Detox Box", an expensive piece of snake oil claimed to be able to cure any disease through the power of pseudoscience. As is usual in these matters, an offended true ...
In today's post on atheist morality, I'll consider the permissibility of two types of human cloning, therapeutic and reproductive. Both types involve implanting a person's genes into an egg cell and stimulating it to grow. If the resulting embryo is allowed to grow to maturity and be born as a ...
The Zombie Saints According to all three of the New Testament's Synoptic gospels, miracles attended Jesus' death: a mysterious midday darkness over all the land and the veil of the Jewish temple torn in half. (The Gospel of John omits these miracles, differing with the Synoptics in this point as ...
About two weeks ago, I posted about Peter Semmelhack and his amazing new start-up company BUG Labs. For a special client engagement, I had the unique opportunity to hear him speak live in-person in New York City and walked away quite a bit impressed with his vision for the future of open-source ...
Over the past few years, one of the most interesting innovations in the airline industry has been the growth & expansion of the "business class only" travel segment for service between international cities such as New York and London. Companies like Eos, SilverJet and MAXJet were early pioneers ...
At the airport this holiday season, I did a double-take when I saw the covers of TIME and The Economist juxtaposed together at newspaper kiosks. Russia and China, it appears, will be spearheading change and innovation throughout the world in 2008. That can either be an exhilarating thought - or ...
Not only does the British monarchy have an official website -- they also have a brand new YouTube channel ("The Royal Channel"), launched in October. In just a few months, the channel has already lined up nearly 10,000 subscribers. Currently, the featured video on The Royal Channel is the ...
Lately, there have been some encouraging signs that believers of conscience are more willing to stand up to the religious right than they once were. But this effort, though well-intentioned, is not the right way to do it. It's time for a ceasefire in the Christmas culture wars. ...We invite ...
There are three Christmas Islands in the world. One is a small community on mainland Nova Scotia (Canada) named after a nearby island, which is presently called Ghost Island but at some point was named after its sole occupant, a native man whose surname was Christmas. Another is a 135 sq. km ...
All was not well in Europe in 1870, the year the Franco-Prussian war would lead to a united German Empire and a humiliated France; one could call it the first of three European civil wars, the other two being World Wars One and Two. This French satirical cartoon map (‘Carte drôlatique d’Europe ...
Today is - at least to my northern hemisphere readers - the winter solstice, shortest day of the year. For three months now, we've seen the sun set and the night fall progressively earlier each day. But this date marks the terminus of that trend, and though the heart of winter still lies ahead ...
Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! And again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur (…) So begins one of the Lyrical Ballads, a collaboration between the English romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and ...
Back in March, I commented on a Beliefnet debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan. In part 4 of that debate, Andrew Sullivan made what I thought was an astonishing concession: But I can say that [this experience] represented for me a revelation of God's love and forgiveness, the ...