The recent monomania of my nemesis adversary friend RPG brings to mind the close association between science and science fiction. Let’s face it, we’re all space cadets at heart. But what, precisely, is the relationship between science and SF? How well does SF interpret science? Can it predict the future? Does science draw from SF? Such are the themes to be discussed in a panel discussion on SF film to be held in a couple of weeks, in which I am involved, and which you are invited to attend (for a small fee). Matinee Wednesdays. Restrictions may apply.

I’ve just come across David Sloan Wilson’s inaugural blog on SciBlogs which is entitled, in part,

Science as a Religion that Worships Truth as its God

I don’t think I’ve read or heard anything more misleading all day, and in this post I hope to explain why I am so concerned.

Many years ago when the world was young, I was putting together an anthology of Nature papers on Chinese paleontology, for the University of Chicago Press. The idea was to mark the explosion in our knowledge of the history of life, directly precipitated by spectacular fossil material from China from the late ’90s onward. I was aided and advised my my colleague and friend Dr Zhe-Xi Luo of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

“What’s the title going to be?” asked Luo, during one of our many, long transatlantic conversations.

“I don’t know yet”, I replied. "I do have a working title, though: Enter The Dragon " – a cheesy reference to Kung Fu movies of yore. Either Luo didn’t get the reference, or he did, but passed swiftly on.

“I have a better title: Rise of the Dragon”, he said.

The Daily Nimbyist Bungaloid Curtain Twitcher unclogged the deepest recesses of its own nadir a couple of days back (HT: Carl Zimmer. And don’t hit me, I’m a palaeontologist) with this startling story on the newly described pterosaur Darwinopterus whose headline reads, breathtakingly

THE TERRIFYING FLYING DINOSAUR THAT COULD UNLOCK THE MYSTERY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

I shall now go away and chew one of my own legs off calm down before I examine this pitiful piece any further.

I received a tweet yesterday evening from Dr. R. B. O’H, soon to be formerly of Helsinki. The tweet read, in its entirety,

Hey, Henry. Will there be a CISB10 next year?

And that set me thinking.

I’m in the foothills of another book project. I’m going to tell you about the process, as a way of proscrastinating prevaricating letting you know of a little-known part of the book-writing process – writing a book proposal.

You’ll have heard by now that a 14-year-old girl died a few hours after being treated with Cervarix, a vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer. My first thought when I heard this was – oh no, not again.

Here I am at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) meeting in Bristol, doing my Nature Editor thing of hanging around in bars. Except that this year, I am co-presenting a poster; the first time I’ve done anything with my PhD work for seventeen sixteen years (Palaeontologists can’t count reliably beyond three – Ed.). It’s a long story.

I’m at the 69th Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Bristol. Live blogging will be tedious; tweets are much more fun. So if you want me, sign up at Twitter and follow @cromercrox

The post which until recently occupied this space has moved here, (via Clapham Junction and Crewe, replacement bus service weekends) where it really belongs. I’d meant to put it there to begin with, but for some reason Google Blogger doesn’t play nice with the iPhone, but NN does.

Ian and Kristi’s comments now refer to the post in another place – apologies for any inconvenience caused to your journey.