Books
Books that I have written.
Media Appearances
Podcasts and Videos in which I have appeared or which I have created.
pyndamics3
Dynamical systems simulation in Python. Includes both continuous and stochastic simulation.
Stats for Everyone
An introductory stats book from a Bayesian perspective, including Python software.
I am a Scientist, Skeptic, and Professor at Bryant University. My goal is to make technical subject matters widely accessible and to use my analytical and computational skills to assist anyone with their science-related problems.
Blog
Climate and the Moon
In a prior post I criticize an article on climate which states that current climate models ignore the effect of conduction (i.e. direct contact) and convection, and focus exclusively …
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Knowledge and Belief
I was just directed to this announcement concerning an NSF survey on science literacy. The bottom line is that the NSF is deciding to change the wording of two questions …
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Science and Attitudes Toward Criticism
So this morning I got a strong criticism of my post, “The Not-so-Hidden Flaw in this Climate Argument”, which itself is a criticism of someone else’s criticism of a …
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Reaping the benefits of science while hostile to science
So I read with some interest an article by Adam Frank espousing the idea of removing the benefits of science from those who deny science. He starts with examples like …
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"Frivolous" research in science
My blog has been languishing for a bit, so I hope to bring it back and be a bit more active.
Someone recently made a comment that they thought that …
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Energy Bracelet Experience
I’ve spoken before about the energy balance bracelets and how they don’t work. I just had an experience at a local flower show where I ran into a …
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Religion, Scripture, and the Source of Morality
It is a common argument now from the so-called new atheists that we don’t get our morality from scripture. I am not sure that many religious people, even biblical …
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Wonders in Science
This is one of the Hubble deep field images:
It is important to note that every little bright smudge on this image is a galaxy with billions of stars. This …
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A Reasonable Perspective on Global Warming
I’ve read a lot about global warming, taught issues about climate in my classes, and have a decent (but not expert) understanding of the physics involved. Among my colleagues …
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Does Watson Think?
There has been a lot in the news about Watson. One article on CNN says “Watson doesn't really ‘think’ anything, and it struggles with simple questions that most humans can …
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Creationism and Strawmen
I can’t tell you how much I cringe when I hear people say, “I just can’t imagine how we developed our complexity through random chance” and similar things …
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Wonders in Science
There is a tendency for scientists to be killjoys, raining on everyone parade, poo-pooing cherished beliefs and activities from acupuncture, religion, ufo’s, and homeopathy. Where is the wonder, the …
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20 Years of Being an Atheist Ends Today
It was 20 years ago when I made the conscious decision to be an atheist. I had been agnostic before, and then made a decision that it was no longer …
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The Role of Humanity into the Future
Yet again, IBM is creating AI to best humans in a task that has been, perhaps, a symbol of uniquely human activity: Jeopardy! The system, Watson, is doing quite well …
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Bill O'Reilly, Tides, and the God of the Gaps
The following link is a Bill O’Reilly interview with David Silverman, President of American Atheists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEgkViLbTk&t=1m40s
I love the look of …
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Why I Can't Support the Darwin Day Resolution
So I received a tweet asking for support for the Darwin Day Resolution.
The full text of the resolution is here:
Expressing support for designation of February 12, 2011, as …
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The world is flat!
So, I was listening to a Cosmos episode when Carl Sagan described the method that Eratosthenes used to calculate the circumference of the Earth. He stated that, on a flat …
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A modest proposal about uncertainty
Joan Roughgarden in Beyond Belief made a very astute observation of a problem, and then proposed a lousy solution to it. The problem she was addressing had to do with …
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The Economics of Religion: More good than harm?
There are some that argue that religion should be eliminated because of all of the harm it does, such as the suicide bombings, honor killings, the Inquisition, etc... This includes …
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Rounds in Australian Open
In a previous post, I included predictions for Round 1 of the Australian Open. I am posting the next Rounds' predictions here.
Round 2
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Round 3 - Given …
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Predictions for the Australian Open
I am not really into sports, but a student of mine is doing a project on developing an automated system for predicting professional tennis matches. We are posting his system's …
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