GENIE!

WOW.....

So, like, we had a really big crowd for Dr. Scott's talk on Wednesday evening:



As it turned out, I was sort of drafted at the last minute to tape Dr. Scott's talk (with her permission!) since I had brought my little Flip video recorder. All praise to the Generator Of Diversity, Madhu was able to loan me a tripod, or else I really wouldn't have been able to enjoy the talk. I couldn't video the whole deal with the Flip's limited hard drive, but Madhu also recorded the audio, which we hope to podcast.



Who knows? We may be able to combine the audio, what video I have and the Power Point and make a pretty slick little deal. But, seriously, while I love my Flip, the resolution is pretty low and I am starting to wonder what it's going to take for me or some other local science geek to invest in a better video setup for these kinds of events. I'd like to come up with some one-size-fits-all technology that would connect to any presenter's laptop, automatically stream the images of their Power Point, and record their audio to hard disk. Any thoughts, gentle reader?

Here's a brief (and probably incomplete) outline of Dr. Scott's talk:

1) Introductory remarks, the image of 'monkey to man', through presentation of the evidence for descent with modification (Darwin's original phrase), which is to say, evolution from a common ancestor

2) Exploration of the nature of science, drawing on an idea of the physicist James Trefil:



(click on the picture to read the introductory chapter of Dr. Scott's book 'Evolution and Creationism' )


3) The 'Pillars of Creationism'

4) The Creation-Evolution Continuum

5) A brief discussion of the role played by NCSE in defending the teaching of evolution.

Anyway, in a few days I'll start releasing segments of the talk here as YouTube thingies.