science culture:
This three-part series on radical skepticism and the rise of conspiratorial thinking about science, by Daniel Engber, in Slate, is required reading for anyone interested in the role of skepticism in science and society. It's called "The Paranoid Style in...
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Posted on April 20, 2008 2:57 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Could it be that all this talk about how best to frame argument is pointless? It would if our capacity to change our minds in the face of new information was genetically determined....
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Posted on April 8, 2008 7:51 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Some folks are pushing for the US Postal Service to issue a stamp or two bearing the image of the late great Carl Sagan. I say, if they can put out a Star Wars series, they can bloody well do...
Posted on February 13, 2008 12:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Now's your chance to spare us all from another piece of dreck like The Core.
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Posted on January 31, 2008 9:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
CBC reports that Canada's "national science adviser Arthur Carty would be retiring on March 31, and that the position and office would be phased out." To which I could only say: "Who would want the job anyway? You'd just be...
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Posted on January 25, 2008 1:43 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The New York Times' Sandra Blakeslee reports today that a group of researchers has managed to induce the famous "out-of-body" feeling that sometimes accompanies near-death experiences. So goes another piece of evidence for the "soul." They employed virtual reality gear...
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Posted on August 24, 2007 7:03 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
People aren't stupid. At least they aren't all stupid all of the time. And then they can understand numbers, contrary to what the advocates of science framing would have us believe.
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Posted on April 20, 2007 7:18 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
We have to remember not to get carried away with the tools of rhetoric. In our zeal to tell our story, we have to stop short of making stuff up
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Posted on April 7, 2007 7:22 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A friend of mine, who has a pretty well-exercised brain, tried to get under my skin the other day by invoking the specter of climate change "alarmists," suggesting that we've been there before and should reserve a fair bit of...
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Posted on March 29, 2007 3:15 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This week's Nature explores the growth of university-level instruction in that most incredible of non-conventional medical therapeutic techniques, homeopathy. That's troubling enough, but apparently it's only a part of an even more disturbing trend: the granting of BSc degrees, by...
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Posted on March 27, 2007 8:38 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Just because you were right yesterday doesn't mean you're going to be right tomorrow. Even if you're one of the most important contributors to biology, like Lynn Margulis, there's no reason anyone should keep paying attention to you if you...
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Posted on March 16, 2007 11:22 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Every now and then, a science story comes along that reminds me just how full of awe and wonder the real world is. This particular story is a few weeks old, but it didn't seem to generate a lot of...
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Posted on March 2, 2007 6:39 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Absent anything original to add to the millions of words that have been written about Charles Darwin, on this Darwin Day I'm going to quote from one of his acolytes, Richard Dawkins. In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins runs...
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Posted on February 12, 2007 6:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Richard Branson. Say what you want about his contradictory ways -- promoting wasteful extravagance while saving the planet from the products of those wasteful ways -- but his choice of brand name was brilliant. And it gives newspaper editors and bloggers an irresistible headline for anything he does.
This time, it's a generous, $25-million prize for anyone who can come up with a way to scrub the atmosphere of all that nasty carbon dioxide we (including his transportation businesses) are pumping out.
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Posted on February 9, 2007 1:18 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Going on four years back, a couple of Californians decided the secular/atheist/agnostic/skeptic community needed a catchy name in the same way the homosexual community purloined the term "gay" as part of its evolution toward mainstream acceptance. They came up with...
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Posted on December 31, 2006 11:38 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Carl Sagan died 10 years ago today, I''d rather celebrate his birth, but there's this Carl Sagan Memorial Blogathon going on and I can hardly resist making a mention....
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Posted on December 20, 2006 3:24 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This comes from Acephalous. I am happy to help: What is the speed of meme? People write in general (typically truimphant) terms about how swiftly a single voice can travel from one side of the internet to the other and...
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Posted on November 28, 2006 6:37 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today's New York Times Science section includes coverage of a forum on the religion-science wars this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. Just about everybody who's anybody in this battle was there. My favorite...
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Posted on November 21, 2006 7:42 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Anyone who's spent even a modest amount of time and effort investigating the battle over the teaching of intelligent design creationism in the country's classrooms will recognize the argument that an understanding of evolution is essential to a decent science...
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Posted on November 5, 2006 12:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Defending the status quo is not my default position, particularly in my own field of science journalism, but I think someone should stand up for our side, considering the knocks we're taking from various angles. Some of my fellow SciBloggers...
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Posted on October 23, 2006 6:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why is it that one of the top critics of religion should be a biologist? Could it be that a deep understanding of biological evolution through natural selection really does lead one inexorably to atheism? If so, creationists might actually...
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Posted on October 4, 2006 10:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In addition to ridding D.C. of a pedophile, the resignation of Republican congressman Mark Foley last week may also be good news for defenders of science. About three years ago, Foley got himself involved with a couple of front organizations...
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Posted on October 2, 2006 12:04 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As a freelance journalist, I don't have the luxury of turning down too many assignment offers. I was sorely tempted a few months back, though, when the potential client kept suggesting I use Wikipedia as the primary source for a...
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Posted on September 21, 2006 8:53 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Former Boston Globe science columnist and college prof. Chet Raymo has written a stirring ode to the value of ignorance in his latest Science Musings. Pascal, Priestly and Popper -- he covers them all. What he's done is put his...
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Posted on September 19, 2006 11:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I've only read the few pages that Amazon offers on its website, but I'm convinced Frederick Crews' "Follies of the Wise" is the science book of the year. Jerry Coynes reviews it in The Times Literary Supplement. How can anyone...
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Posted on September 9, 2006 8:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
And now, a little self-promotion. I have a piece up on Seed's online magazine, "The Anthropogenic Trap," in which I examine the warnings of some scientists who say we're taking the whole guilt thing too far. Here's the opening. This...
Posted on September 8, 2006 7:52 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I envy Nature reporter Jenny Hogan, who's been blogging from the International Astronomical Union's big meeting in Prague for the past couple of weeks. I've always considered science journalism the most fascinating sector of the industry (that's why I'm one),...
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Posted on August 24, 2006 7:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The juxtaposition in recent news lineups of the debate over the definition of a planet and the depressing debacle in Lebanon puts the lie to the idea we live in a global village. While some of us are lucky enough...
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Posted on August 17, 2006 9:30 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Word is the proposal on the table at the International Astronomical Union meeting in Prague calls for a new definition of planet that would widen the category to include Ceres, Charon and "Xena." I say, bring it on! Why?...
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Posted on August 16, 2006 8:20 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If only we could teach our kids what science is really about before they get too old, then they'd be better equipped to deal with intelligent design and other anti-intellectual propaganda that poisons the noosphere. At least, that's a common...
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Posted on August 15, 2006 9:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have resisted reposting pre-ScienceBlog posts as the lazy way out, but seeing as how many of my fellow bloggers have done it, what the heck? This one comes from a year ago, on the heels of the discovery of...
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Posted on August 14, 2006 9:49 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If any member of the medical profession wonders why more than a few people prefer to seek "alternative" treatments, wonder no longer. While ignorance and gullibility among the lay public are rampant, there is also the very serious problem that...
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Posted on August 10, 2006 9:54 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
