Science+culture:
I realize that many of you will disagree with the notion that we are overplaying our hand, or are not giving full voice to our uncertainties. I'm not sure the answer to this question myself. But I write all this because I sense a sea change in attitudes amongst climsci people that I know as good scientists without agendas. These are solid scientists, and some told me in no uncertain terms that we are not giving full voice to uncertainties; others implied as much. Therein lies the tension.
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Posted on December 20, 2006 1:32 PM • 39 Comments
A while back the guys at Meme Therapy asked me to contribute to their regular Brain Parade feature. The question posed was, "Do you perceive a growing sense of mistrust from the public with respect to science?" They must have...
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Posted on October 31, 2006 3:41 PM • 1 Comments
Perusing the NY Times science section online, a headline caught my eye: "Subway Sleuth Clears Dinosaur of Cannibalism." Despite originally being a geologist (or because of it?), dinosaurs never really interested me much. And the cannibalism hook doesn't interest me...
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Posted on September 27, 2006 12:58 PM • 7 Comments
The Springer journal Climatic Change is often a forum for a mix of climate change and climate change policy articles. But with multiple articles, the July/August issue delves into something that those of us who think and write about climate...
Posted on August 23, 2006 12:46 PM • 1 Comments
John Fleck covers the 2nd International Conference on Global Warming in Santa Fe here. John is a brother-in-arms when it comes to observations of the culture of climate change science. We've both written about tribalism in the game and now...
Posted on August 7, 2006 4:07 PM • 0 Comments
Great article out of the Colorado Spring Gazette back in mid-June. I had to check over and over to make sure it wasn't published on 4/1. Upshot is, a roughage farmer has installed a bunch of sonic cannons that supposedly...
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Posted on August 3, 2006 3:16 PM • 1 Comments
Here's a little op-ed column by David Harsanyi that appeared in the Denver Post this morn titled "Chill out over global warming." If you follow the global climate tribal wars you've heard it all before. Bill Gray, fresh off his...
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Posted on June 5, 2006 6:41 PM • 30 Comments
If you've read closely, you've seen me berate climate commenters for being tribal. What is tribalism? It's the sort of "what group are you in?" mindlessness that passes for critical thinking on climate policy and you see it on both...
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Posted on May 24, 2006 6:20 PM • 22 Comments
On Prometheus, Roger discusses a letter in Sunday's NY Times. Here's the upshot: fifteen members of the National Academy of Sciences, four of them Nobel laureates and almost all of them physicists, wrote a letter decrying the Bush Administration's handiwork...
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Posted on May 1, 2006 2:53 PM • 15 Comments
In light of my Monday post on midwifery, I received an email from an active midwife I know. She doesn't want to be identified, but I can tell you that she's active nationally and was involved in the politics of...
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Posted on April 6, 2006 11:32 PM • 4 Comments
Via the NY Times this morning (I like the site redesign, by the way), some prosecutors in the state of Indiana are going after homebirth midwives. I have issues both with the situation (the absurdly misguided prosecution of midwives) and...
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Posted on April 3, 2006 2:43 PM • 8 Comments
Geez. Far be it for me to have to explain to y'all Roger Jr., but this RealClimate post and the comments is has drawn has my mouth agape. I think Gavin mostly gets it, even if every single commenter fails...
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Posted on March 30, 2006 10:14 PM • 7 Comments
[Subtitle: get over your tribalism instincts already] Part I of a continuing series Isn't it ironic? Sb 's Thursday frontpage is filled with notices about the 31st meeting of the Skeptic's Circle. Orac says, "...time for the most dedicated skeptics...
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Posted on March 30, 2006 5:26 PM • 16 Comments
This, I hope, will be my one and only ID/evolution post here. (Depending on your perspective, it's already either adequately covered, well-covered or seriously over-covered by the other SB'ers.) But this is beyond weird, so I have to post it....
Posted on February 21, 2006 12:43 PM • 3 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
In light of all the buzz about how a TAMU undergrad was able to censor Jim Hansen, I got this question from a scientist: "why isn't this admin going down? they must, eh?" Thusly I replied: "ask yourself a simple...
Posted on February 7, 2006 6:54 PM • 14 Comments
Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the 
