Sheril Kirshenbaum is a marine biologist at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke. Sometimes she's a classicist, radio jock, or congressional staffer. Never sure what's next, she continues to enjoy the journey...
Okay, so....I got sick of this new wave of conservative science punditry, which dismisses the "war on science" argument without even bothering to show it's wrong, and then goes on to claim that we liberals are "new eugenicists" and that our embrace of science is going to lead us off a political cliff. The result is my latest Science Progress column, readable here. It starts out like this:
I hate to confess it, but lately I've been feeling a bit wistful for the arguments of conservative science pundit Tom Bethell, author of the 2005 polemic The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. Granted, the "Incorrect Guide to Science" would probably have been a more accurate title, in that Bethell is just plain wrong about everything from evolution (which he tries to debunk) to global warming (which he argues isn't human-caused) to African AIDS (which, shockingly, he calls a "political epidemic"). Yet despite such outrages, there's something bracingly honest about Bethell's book--he really doesn't accept mainstream science on many issues, and so he tries, very straightforwardly, to argue that his facts are right and everybody else's wrong.
A new wave of conservative science punditry--epitomized by an essay by Yuval Levin in The New Atlantis entitled "Science and the Left," which was itself recently publicized by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson in an oped in the Washington Post--demonstrably lacks such candor....
Funes [Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory] said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion... The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
I'm pleased to make my first cameo appearance in the Scientiae Carnival, the 'best blogging on women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics!'
This month's collection is hosted by FlickaMawa of A Cat Nap and the theme is career paths, perspective, and changing self-image. Go check it out...
Democrats, Republicans agree on need, disagree on issues; health care tops list
WASHINGTON--May 12, 2008-- A new poll shows that 85% of U.S. adults agree that the presidential candidates should participate in a debate on how science can be used to tackle America's major challenges. The poll found no difference between Democrats and Republicans on this question. A majority (84%) also agree that scientific innovations are improving our standard of living.
Among the most serious long-term issues facing the country, 76% rate health care the most serious, followed by alternative energy sources (69%), education (67%) and national security (61%). Issues also considered serious by a majority of U.S. adults include global economic competition (55%), poverty (53%) and climate change (53%).
No, this is not my leg (I plan to stay ink-free), but the appendage belongs to a favorite girlfriend and former bandmate. She's a soil scientist with a passion for the lovable preying mantis and I suspect I've just witnessed the creation of the coolest science tattoo this millennium...
Check out my full post over at Correlations for a full photo of the 8-inch fella, antennae to abdomen!
I'm back from the AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, which brought together an incredible group of speakers and moderators. I remain humbled and honored to have been involved and will have details on this spectacular event next week.
In the mean time, I must figure out what to do without my Air, which sadly didn't make it back from the District.
Over at Island of Doubt, you'll find Carnival of the Blue 12, 'A celebration of all things wet and wonderful'. This month features contributions from both The Intersection and Correlations.
Props to my brother, who has been "noticed." From the New York Times Artsbeat blog, covering the New Orleans Jazz Fest:
This year's Monk Institute class has only been working together since the start of the fall term, but already there's a noticeable chemistry among the students, judging by their Jazzfest performance on Sunday morning. The group didn't sound quite like a full-fledged band yet - there were still some tentative moments - but it wasn't hard to detect much promise.
Based on the set I heard, the most advanced musicians in the group are Davy Mooney, a guitarist from here in New Orleans, and Colin Stranahan, a drummer from Denver. Both players worked at a high level of rhythmic assuredness, and their rapport together was palpable. But there were also solid contributions from the pianist Vadim Neselovskyi (from the Ukraine) and the tenor saxophonist Jake Saslow (Long Island).
Mr. Mooney, by the way, has been on my radar for a couple of years now. He placed third in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition - another signature effort of the Monk Institute - back in 2005. And for a while he was based in New York, playing often in Brooklyn. It's good to see him involved with the institute in this capacity, where he can only develop further.
My brother's website is here. A song audio clip plays here, and you can buy his CD here.
I'm looking forward to connecting with SciBling Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera and would love to meet any readers in attendance as well... Come on over to say hello and I hope you'll stay for my talk Friday at 1:45:
I Am New Media (And So Can You!)
Communicating Science And Policy Through The Series Of Tubes And Beyond
That's what CNN is suggesting. This puts the catastrophe at tsunami scale. And it suggests that Nargis could rank among the top three or four most deadly cyclones of modern times.
My god.
Courtesy of Weather Underground, the deadliest cyclones list:
1. Great Bhola Cyclone, Bangladesh, 1970, 550,000
2. Hooghly River Cyclone, India and Bangladesh, 1737, 350,000
3. Haiphong Typhoon, Vietnam, 1881, 300,000
4. Coringa, India, 1839, 300,000
5. Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh, 1584, 200,000
6. Great Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh, 1876, 200,000
7. Chittagong, Bangladesh, 1897, 175,000
8. Super Typhoon Nina, China, 1975, 171,000
9. Cyclone 02B, Bangladesh, 1991, 140,000
10. Great Bombay Cyclone, India, 1882, 100,000
MSNBC's Alan Boyle, author of Cosmic Log, just interviewed me about the ever worsening Nargis catastrophe. You can hear the audio here, and excerpts here. An excerpt:
Q: Is this another sign that the global warming nightmare is coming upon us?
Mooney: I'd be careful about saying that. There's good evidence that global warming should affect tropical cyclones ... in some way and probably make them stronger on average. But when you get a catastrophe like this, global warming isn't the direct cause, and it really doesn't explain why there's been so much suffering.
You really have to look at other factors in order to figure out why a storm can hit the United States and only a couple die, and a storm can hit Myanmar and tens of thousands of people die. That has much more to do with socioeconomic conditions, forecasting systems, lack of evacuation, lack of communication to the populace, and all these other things.
Q: Is this another case of a perfect storm, where, as in Katrina, it happened to hit just wrong and was something that played on all the vulnerabilities that that area faced?
A: It's certainly looking like that. You had something with Nargis that you didn't have with Katrina. Katrina, we saw it coming days in advance. We saw a Category 5, and we were just sitting there waiting. Well, Nargis rapidly intensified at the last minute. It had been a fairly weak storm, and then it just started exploding even as it headed toward the coastline. So people didn't even know there was a bad storm coming until maybe just 24 or 48 hours out. And it kept getting worse and worse and worse, and then it hit a vulnerable place.
Q: But you had written about Nargis, gosh, more than a week in advance and indicated that this would be a pretty bad storm.
A: Yeah, I blogged about it. I wrote about it over at the Daily Green. I track cyclones, so whenever I see something developing in the Bay of Bengal, and I see the ocean temperatures are really warm ... you just know that it can't be good. I didn't know how strong the storm was going to get, but I knew that the ocean temperatures were warm and I knew that it was already completely formed - and it had this ocean ready to pounce and ready to draw energy from. If you look at the Bay of Bengal, it sucked a couple of degrees Celsius out of the ocean and flung that at the coastline.
I can't tell you how many people this morning have emailed me this Michael Gerson op-ed from the Washington Post, which debunks the "Republican war on science" thesis. They all want me to debunk the debunker in this instance. But why?
Gerson doesn't accurately represent my argument in the first place. He's off down the eugenics trail, talking about values, blah blah blah. We "war on science" folks all know these distinctions--that the facts of science don't prescribe moral positions, that science doesn't dictate policy, etc--but they're dealt with long before we actually make our "war on science" argument.
By contrast, Gerson ignores the meat of that argument entirely. He doesn't touch climate change, or evolution, or any of the dozens upon dozens of Bush administration political science scandals. Neither does he address the literally hundreds of government scientists polled by the Union of Concerned Scientists who complain of political interference.
In short, Gerson's oped is a joke. No need for debunking, just laughing.
Myanmar ranks #4 in the world for annual forest area lost per year. Between 2000 and 2005, the country lost, on average, 466,000 hectares per year which puts their annual deforestation rate at 1.45% based on FAO statistics.
Given deforestation results in higher flooding and erosion rates and mangroves serve as important buffers against storm surges, I'm wondering to what degree Myanmar's serious deforestation played a role in the tremendous loss of life from Cyclone Nargis...
We've been watching Cyclone Nargis for a week here at the Intersection, but I've finally done my first lengthy piece about the disaster over at Science Progress. Over there, I make the following points, most of which I don't think you're seeing elsewhere:
1. It's Not About Global Warming, But Poverty and Infrastructure.
2. The American Media Present a Very Selective Picture of Cyclone Disasters in the Developing World.
3. Hurricane/Cyclone Forecasting in the North Indian Region is Lackluster at Best.
4. Hurricanes Can Bring Down Governments.
I want to expand upon the last point, which is increasingly on my mind. So let me quote from the column:
In his book Divine Wind, MIT's Kerry Emanuel emphasizes how at key moments, tropical cyclones have actually changed world history. That's precisely what happened with the 1970 Bhola Cyclone: It was the deadliest storm known to us, with some 300,000 to 500,000 dead in what was then East Pakistan. At the time Pakistan was one nation; but a strong separatist movement existed in the east. Enter the cyclone, and in the ensuing tragedy, even as the international community mobilized and the news media swept in, the central government in West Pakistan was widely perceived as inept, uncaring, uninvolved. Anger rose, and before long the nation we now call Bangladesh declared its independence--although it took a civil war to ensure it.
Even without a sophisticated analysis of the political situation in Myanmar, one can see many parallels in the Nargis catastrophe. We clearly have another regime that was out of touch, that did little or nothing to protect its people--the worst kind of despotism and irresponsibility. And now, in the glare of international scrutiny, there will be mounting outrage, and rightly so. If Cyclone Nargis can help strengthen the movement for Burmese democracy, at least there will be some silver lining in this tragedy.
A death toll this high is unfathomable. No words beyond a reminder we collectively share this pale blue dot and must now do all we can to help the people of Myanmar in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
Chris Mooney is a freelance writer and the author of two books, 
