Every time a scientist enters a laboratory, or a statistician crunches a dataset, or a researcher takes a sample, we get yet another glimpse of how fragile the scientific orthodoxy of the consensus crowd is. Here is another example. Plants, it now appears, are chatty things that talk to each other via a sort of internet thing. No really! Check out the illustrations on this university website. See the keyboards the plants use?

And all our lives we’ve been told plants need us to talk to them to keep them happy. As if we really matter to the rest of the planet. This finally explains why my lone office pot plant looks so down: it’s pining for vegetable company.

(Hat tip: ArsGeek.)

PS. I know I’ve probably posted too often today, but I received some very vicious vitriol from a disgruntled fan who wanted just one more post. So here it is. One more. Suggestions from regular readers on posting frequency and other improvements I could make for your reading pleasure are, of course, always welcome.

So the European Science Foundation holds a conference on research integrity, to “foster responsible research”. And guess who’s not invited?

Granted, he’s Canadian, but since their research found he is British and his work to foster responsible research did get a mention, you’d have thought he’d crack an invite too. As a commenter at the ClimateAudit site writes: “How can you trust the integrity of a conference that lacks the integrity to include the person who discovered the very errors they are discussing?”

A statistical researcher who worked on the same issue, might have had some contribution to make on the subject of research disputes, and is really British, didn’t get a nod either. Neither did this Danish statistician, of whom the organisers of a conference on research integrity must at least have heard.

Omitting some of the most visible and public critics of research integrity — on whatever grounds — does nothing to allay suspicions that it was just a one-sided public relations exercise for the status quo, does it?

I think this piece is an exceptionally funny take on politics and the media in South Africa.

Yesterday, I noted the rhetorical style of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. Here’s another technique: “I officially announce that in our opinion the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed.” Did someone compare him to Hitler?

Now where have I heard the technique of unilaterally declaring victory in a debate before? Oh wait. Here. And here.

Who’d have expected a sense of humour at an anti-war protest?

Hat tip: The Thinking Blog