Evidence-based Masturbation (or, The Science of Porn)

This is the blog version of a talk I gave on August 13, 2011, at Skeptics on the Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival. 

‘Porn’, to quote journalism professor and anti-pornography activist Robert Jensen, ‘is what the end of the world looks like’. I must admit that, until I read this statement (from this book), I rather thought that the apocalypse would be more of the meteor-striking, sun-exploding, fiery-death kind. Instead, Jensen seems to think armageddon will come in an avalanche of breast enhancements, fake grunting, and peroxide.

Irrelevant Design

This was posted ages ago at The 21st Floor, but for completeness I’m going to put it here too.

Don’t get your flagellum in a knot, but here’s another post about creationism. As promised in a previous post, some friends and I visited Glasgow Caledonian University to see Michael Behe’s talk, ‘Darwin or Design?’, hosted by our dear friends at the Centre for Intelligent Design. It was, in a word, appalling. Here’s why.