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David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.)
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years. Oliver Sacks found Reef Madness "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." Check it out.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
Category: Healthcare policy
I like industrial secrets as much as the next person. But it would seem that when tens of millions of doses of vaccine are weeks late, we might get something more specific than that one company was overoptimistic and another had trouble filling syringes.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:43 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This implies that religious beliefs and behavior emerged not as sui generis evolutionary adaptations, but as an extension (some would say "by product") of social cognition and behavior. May be something to that, Razib says — but it would be nice "get in on the game of normal human variation in religious orientation (as opposed to studies of mystical brain states which seem focused on outliers)."
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:51 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Brains and minds
As Obama explains, world leaders are puzzled that healthcare gets painted with a Hitler moustache. and other news.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:27 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Public health
The good news? The US's swine flu vaccines seem to work really well. The bad news? Because they use twice as much antigen as necessary, they leave about a quarter BILLION people elsewhere naked to the virus.
Posted by David Dobbs at 4:44 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Animals first. Then everybody else.
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:22 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
I regret I can't handle at more length, the following weighty and pressing matters:
Posted by David Dobbs at 12:12 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
"In one case, for instance, a revised manuscript arrived at his office with four named authors, but when he examined the metadata, he discovered an additional author was making substantial contributions."
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:10 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
Oh lordy, this is not good: The Times reports that up to 11% of the articles in leading med journals...
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Pharma
The biggest criminal fine ever, paid to settle charges of extreme seriousness. And some yahoo asserts this fine is really part of Obama's effort to "federalize" medicine and cut costs.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:38 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
I think it helps to have a sense of the history of science, which embeds in a writer or observer a sense of critical distance and an eye for large forces at work beneath the surface. Machinations in government surprise no one who has studied the history of government and politics. Likewise with science.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:16 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
PZ Myers 11.08.2009
PZ Myers 11.08.2009
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Orac 11.08.2009
Tim Lambert 11.08.2009
