Classes

My classes are set now: I’m auditing John Warner’s course and taking the others from the top 4 below. I’m also sitting in on Humans and Animals Since Darwin with Bettyann Kevles. In particular, I think the Demos and Molvig classes will be really great.

Ole also mentioned the possibility of starting a reading group on popular science where we would read contemporary science writing, since he and I are both quite interested in that. I hope we can rustle up some more people and get that going. I think it might even be eligible for some financial support, although I’m not sure if we could buy the books with the money. Of course, I have an enormous backlog of popular science books from the remaindered shelf at Hastings in Oklahoma, which grows every time I visit. I count at least 20 on my bookshelf that are unread, plus a few legitimate history of science books. And I only buy the very most interesting ones… I feel like a cheapskate for not buying twice as many at those prices. Maybe I can do some sort of research paper based on reading an enormous number of these things. That would be convenient.

On a sadder note, Ed Larson canceled the talk he was supposed to give next week. Apparently he’s doing an interview with Jon Stewart instead. I guess all the ID stuff in the news made him too hot a commodity for a mere Yale colloquium. I was really looking forward to meeting him. But he’s been in the news lately, partially clarifying some of the questions I had for him:
Washington Post
LA Times
And there was a New York Times article that is now in the pay-for-access archives, where he discussed briefly his reasons for leaving the Discovery Institute (basically they were becoming too political for him, he says). I would have liked to ask him about his religious views, though.