Well, sooner than normal, some links which are well worth visiting:

• New Scientist Podcast
• Beyond Belief (new scientist subscription required)
• New Scientist Podcast (iTunes link)
• Wild Chronicles (iTunes link)
• Science @ NASA Feature Stories Podcast (iTunes link)

If you don’t have access to the full “Beyond Belief” article a lot of it is included in the podcast. I can not honestly say I am convinced that a conference looking at how science has “supplanted” God is a good thing.

Apart from anything else, this begins to create the impression “Science” is a replacement for Religious belief. Hopefully this is not the case but with more than a few of the people who contributed to this conference I am not sure. It is, as I see it, like saying bananas are a replacement for camera film. The two are totally different things.

Creating a conflict between the two is not a “GoodThingâ„¢” and simply provides more ammunition for the Religious Right to demonise science.

Oh well.

In a recent post here (http://www.whydontyou.org.uk/blog/2006/11/16/more-fan-stuff-on-the-wire/) heather writes “I’m still not 100% sure how to get to the podcasts…” – well the solution is at hand.

Assuming you are looking for quality science and technology podcasts the place to look is:

Science & Medicine or Technology

If for some reason the iTunes store URL doesn’t work then try these steps from the iTunes store..

According to Wikipedia, the Wire has been called “the best show on television by TIME, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian , the Chicago Tribune, Slate, and the Philadelphia Daily News (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_(TV_series))

No argument there.

You might think I’m over the top in my enthusiasm for the Wire but on I-tunes there are some really fanatical reviews. I’m still not 100% sure how to get to the podcasts but you can go there from HBO’s site http://www.hbo.com/thewire/ The best way seems to be to click on the HBO podcast links on http://www.hbo.com/thewire/downloads/ and so on.

The customer reviews say things like

“Light years ahead of everything on television. If you’re not watching you’re missing out on history”

I was going to blog here about why the Wire is so special, but I’ve been distracted by the wealth of material from HBO and in podcasts. This material ranges from really informative discussion (e.g. David Simon discusses how it is rooted in real-world Baltimore society and that it’s more about class than race, for instance, which seemed pretty obvious to me but I’m not American) to blatantly silly (buy Jermaine’s – supposed – pick of classic hip hop.) It will keep you engrossed for hours if you like the Wire.

However, it appears that not many people do. The viewing figures are supposed to be poor. I suspect it may be too demanding of a lot of the audience. Granted, thinking about social relations doesn’t normally make for very good escapist entertainment. The genius of the Wire is to work as crime show at the same time as (not so ) popular entertainment.