Science

We've been visited by a creationist. Feel free to join the debate on whether there were dinosaurs in Noah's Ark, and if scientists made up the theory of evolution.

See the comments on Jesus and a baby dinosaur.

If you watched BBC Four's Storyville, Meet the Climate Sceptics, last week, you may have been exasperated by the arguments put forward by leading climate change deniers Lord Christopher Monckton and Telegraph columnist James Delingpole. Monckton has been to the USA and Australia to talk to the climate change deniers on TV and at public meetings, where he's been received with huge enthusiasm. Delingpole has also been to the USA, where he's appeared on right-wing TV host Glenn Beck's programme, rubbishing the science behind climate change. His scientific ignorance, as displayed on another BBC Four programme recently, Horizon - Science Under Attack, doesn't inhibit him. He had the cheek to argue with Nobel prizewinner Sir Paul Nurse, President of The Royal Society, that he was wrong about climate change. These two ignoramuses, and others like them, attract a lot of attention in climate change sceptic circles because neither they nor their audiences understand the science of climate change, and they don't want to understand it. Unfortunately, scientific ignorance is widespread, even among those who'd like to believe that the sceptics are wrong. For many, it's just too difficult. This is why a video by US high school science teacher Greg Craven is so clever. You don't need to understand the science. Craven offers a simpler argument about acceptable risk; which is the greater risk, economic damage or global disaster? Watch his YouTube video, and make up your own mind.

The discussion about creationism in school science lessons on BBC Radio Suffolk is now online.

It's on James Hazell's programme, 26th October, about 35 minutes in. You have 7 days to listen.

I was on BBC Radio Suffolk today, talking about the MORI poll that shows 54% of Britons think creationism & ID should be taught in school science lessons.

You can listen again via the website. It's on the James Hazell programme, from about 10.10am. The other contributor was Prof. Michael Reiss, who resigned from his role as the Royal Society's director of Education over the issue.

Listen to the phone-in after the interviews.

Richard Dawkins has struck a book deal with Transworld, part of the Random House group, with a title aimed at teenagers, due out in autumn 2011:

Aimed at the adult and young adult market, the book addresses big questions about the natural world, including What is a Rainbow? Why are there Seasons? and Who Was the First Man and the First Woman? Each question is answered first by myth and legend, and then by lucid scientific explanation.

The BBC’s online magazine asks “What do you get if you divide science by God?”, which is possibly one of the daftest questions imaginable. In an article about “the meaning of physics”, Mark Vernon reports:

The Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to "affirming life's spiritual dimension", has been won by French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science.

Seed magazine’s website has a video of 4.6 billion years of the earth’s history condensed into a minute. The evolution of humankind is a barely discernible blip.