The Randi Prayer

The beautiful Randi Prayer, by Crispian Jago of Science, Reason and Critical Thinking....

Our Conjuror

Who art in Florida

Amazing be thy name

Thy Million-Dollar Challenge

Will not be done

Give us this day

Empirical evidence

And debunk our irrationality

As we debunk those who make unsubstantiated claims to us

And lead us not into woo woo

But deliver us from credulity

For thine is the rationality

The logic and the reason

Until unequivocal evidence proves otherwise

Skeptics in the Pizzeria

The next - and for Angela and I, final - Durban Skeptics in the Pizzeria is scheduled for Thursday, June 17th from 18:30 till late at Pizzetta. (It'll be our final one because we're moving to Joburg at the end of the month). Come join us!

A map:


View Larger Map

Picture: Zapiro's follow-up

In all the hullabaloo over Draw Mohammad Day, I forgot to point to cartoonist Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro's follow-up cartoon. You'll recall that this cartoon of Zapiro's - in my view one of the best drawn for Draw Mo Day - caused quite a stir, and Shapiro even received death threats. Anyway, Zapiro followed-up with the following (click for a bigger version):

African science blogrolling for June

The updated African science and skepticism blog roll for June... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML). Note: I remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
• Amanuensis
  
• ASSAf Blog
• Botswana Skeptic 
• Bomoko and other nonsense words
  
• Communicating Science, the African Way
  
• Defollyant's AntiBlog
  
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan’s Corner
• Expensive Beliefs
• Fluxosaurus's Blog **new**
• Geekery
• Grumpy Old Man
• Health Frog  
• Hello Universe, This is Nessie
  
• Ionian Enchantment
• Limbic Nutrition
• Lenny Says 
• McBrolloks
• Meh Blog
  
• Nathan Bond's TART Remarks
  
• Orion Spur
  
• Other Things Amanzi
• Pickled Bushman
• Psychohistorian
  
• Reason Check
  
• Retroid Raving
• Roy Jobson
• Science Blog **new**
• Scorched
• Skeptic South Africa
• Stop Danie Krügel
• Sumbandlila Mission Blog
  
• Synapses
• Tauriq Moosa
• The Joys of Atheism
  
• The Science Of Sport
• The Skeptic Black Sheep
• The Skeptic Detective

Video: Saving Africa's Witch Children

Update: I see the video I embedded has been removed. There is, *cough*cough*, a torrent available...

A documentary (embedded below, or click here) on one of the greatest tragedies of our time: witch hunts in Africa. The only appropriate response is burning indignation. (Note: you can download this video by following the link and creating an account with Vimeo).


Saving Africa's Witch Children from Africa's Witch Children on Vimeo.

See also my posts: "Human Sacrifice in Uganda" and "Witch Trials in Africa".

Technology Quarterly

The Economist released the latest edition of their wonderful Technology Quarterly a while back. Here are my very belated picks:

• MIT biomechanic Hugh Herr (fascinating profile and overview of his work).
• Sexing chickens (a new biochemical method to determine the sex of chickens - alas, the end of the human chicken sexers is in sight).
• The Net Generation (on whether it's useful or meaningful to talk about a new generation of "digital natives").
• Translating the web (machine translation and human translators working together. Related: this)

Video: Michael Spencer defends skepticism and science

Journalist Michael Spencer, author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, has an excellent TEDTalk out (embedded below or click here). It's a defense of science and rationality delivered with passion, verve, humor and a touch - appropriately - of anger. Highly recommended.

Redesign...

I redesigned the look of my blog a while back using Blogger's nifty new Template Designer feature. My design skills, I freely admit, are far from impressive, so please do let me know what you think. I'm especially interested in whether the background is too 'busy' and distracts from the content.