War in prehistory

I blogged a while back about the Evolutionary Perspectives on War conference that happened earlier this year, and now I see science-writer John Horgan has a piece out in Scientific American covering some of the highlights of a very similar looking conference. A titbit:

As deep as scientists peer into human history and prehistory, they have found evidence of violence. That was the bad news from 17 researchers in anthropology and other fields at “The Evolution of Human Aggression: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts” conference, held at the University of Utah at the end of February. The good news is that much can be done to reduce lethal conflict in the world today. As participant Frans B. M. de Waal of Emory University put it, humans are not “destined to wage war forever.”

Blogging break at an end

The meatspace has taken over of late, but I'm sure you all will be overjoyed to hear that my unannounced blogging break is now officially over. I think it did me good but I'm very keen to start blogging again.

Dennett in South Africa

So I advertized Daniel Dennett's talk at UKZN the other day, but if you couldn't go, some good news: Dennett is giving a couple of more talks in South Africa in the next week. First he'll lecture at SciFest (in Grahamstown) on April 28th (program) on "How materialism transforms our understanding of consciousness", then he'll deliver the TB Davis Memorial Lecture on March 31st at the University of Cape Town on "What should you be free to teach your children about religion?" (press release) and, finally, on April 1st he's at Stellenbosch University with a talk entitled "From animal to person" (press release).

If you're in any of these towns -- go to these events! You will not be disappointed.

SA blog awards -- go vote

The finalists have been announced for the SA blog awards and, though I didn't make, there is good news: Angela of The Skeptic Detective did! She's up for the best SA Science and Technology blog. Please go vote for her! (Note: you need to submit your email address and then click on a confirmation email). Unfortunately, the Sci-Tech category is light on the Sci and heavy on the Tech, so Angela is the only science blog in sight, which is even more reason to vote for her...

Oh. And full disclosure: Angela is my girlfriend. So, I might be biased.

Carnival of the Africans -- call for submissions

It's almost time for the 8th Carnival of the Africans, the premier (and only...) carnival dedicated to African science and skepticism. And... it'll be hosted right here on Ionian Enchantment! Please check out the guidelines, and then send your submissions to me at ionian.enchantment@gmail.com.

Get writing folks, let's make this edition the best one yet!

Clay Shirky on newspapers and the web

Ok, so this is seriously off topic, but Clay Shirky's post about the impact of the web on newspapers, and the revolution in how we manage information more generally, is an absolute must read. Shirky argues, in brief, that there is nothing natural or inevitable about how journalism is current conducted -- it's simply a product of the economics of the printing press. And, rather disconcertingly, we simply don't know -- can't know -- what system will replace the current one. A snippet:

Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.

Dennett in Durbs

The great Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind, will be speaking at the University of KwaZulu Natal on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 17:20 for 17:30. The venue is at the Howard College campus (map) in the L5 Lecture Theater (map).

All are welcome!

Skeptics' Circle #107

The 107th -- podcast! -- edition of the Skeptics' Circle is out over at The Skeptics Field Guide. (The mp3 is here). Some eye-catching posts: Religion, Sets, and Politics on electronics and the supernatural, Whiskey Before Breakfast on stunning creationist ignorance, and Verbal Razors on yet more feng shui bollocks.