Policy
jdupuis | May 3, 2012The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression has just awarded the Harper Conservative government here in Canada a failing grade in promoting free expression.
Federal scientists' freedom of expression: F
Canada's control over the communications of federally funded scientists is alarming. Climate change science coverage in the media has plummeted by 80 per cent since 200, drastically reducing information available to Canadians. Some scientists have been denied permission to talk to the media about their research even after it was published in peer-reviewed journals.
Not to mention that the…
drorzel | May 1, 2012Delayed again by the need to do actual, you know, work, here's a look back at the third year of this blog's existence. You can also read posts covering year one and year two.
2004-2005 was the last complete year before the move to ScienceBlogs in January of 2006, after which the making of these posts will become more complicated, because my posting rate went way up. For this year, though, I was still sticking to one post a day, and the blog had settled into a pretty decent groove.
The year did feature a brief foray into silly physics-related fiction, which might possibly be called a precursor…
oracknows | April 25, 2012A couple of months ago, I couldn't help but rejoice when I learned that Indiana Representative Dan Burton had finally, after twenty years in the U.S. House of Representatives, decided to retire after the end of this term. I thought that anyone in the U.S. who supports science-based medicine should rejoice, too, because I'm hard-pressed to think of someone in Congress who is more consistently antiscience, particularly anti-medical science, than Dan Burton. Worse, he put his politics where his beliefs were -- big time. Perhaps the most egregious example of Dan Burton's antiscience is his…
oracknows | April 23, 2012The U.S. is widely known to have the highest health care expenditures per capita in the world, and not just by a little, but by a lot. I'm not going to go into the reasons for this so much, other than to point out that how to rein in these costs has long been the proverbial political hot potato. Any attempt to limit spending or apply evidence-based guidelines to care runs into a buzz saw of criticism.
Indeed, most of the resistance to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), otherwise known in popular parlance as "Obamacare," has been fueled by two things: (1) resistance to the…
gregladen | April 16, 2012Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Otto has won the prestigious Minnesota Book Award. The award is very well deserved.
Here's my writeup of the book, and here's a radio interview with the author that we did a couple of months back.
Shawn's book is a critically important analysis of science policy, its potentials and failings, in a world of denialism and politics. As you know, Shawn has been involved with Science Debate (see the big badge on the sidebar?) and the Science Pledge. I'm pleased to announce that in the political campaign that I was recently…
stoat | April 13, 2012Or so says reuters and a whole host of others repeating the same story. The source is draft ELECTRICITY GENERATION POLICY STATEMENT from the shouty Scottish government. You won't be surprised to hear that I don't believe a word of it (I've been pretty sniffy before), but lets read on. Oh, but first, why so sniffy? Because, its not economic (if it was, we'd all be doing it, der). Nor do I see any sign of it becoming economic in the next 10-15-20 years. But who knows, I could be wrong. Lets read on...
They say: The Scottish Government's policy on electricity generation [nd: this is indeed about…
lborkowski | April 9, 2012In the New York Times last week, Gardiner Harris reported on tensions between FDA and the White House over FDA decisions that White House officials fear will be politically problematic for President Obama. Harris reminds readers that "The Bush administration repeatedly stopped the agency from issuing rules to prevent contamination of eggs, produce and other foods ... Much of the agency's staff assumed that the Obama administration would restore the agency's independence."
This assumption of the Obama administration restoring agency independence wasn't unfounded -- less than two months after…
choofnagle | March 28, 2012Writing in today's Times, Richard A. Oppel asks, "Whatever happened to Ron Paul?"
Ron Paul has fans, in the traditional sense of the word--fanatics. They foam over this small and strange man, whose career in Congress has largely been ineffectual. Thousands go to his rallies, but as Oppel observes, "A Feb. 27 event at Michigan State University drew 4,000 people. But at polling places the next day, Mr. Paul finished third -- with 3,128 votes -- in Ingham County, where the campus is. Mr. Romney got more than three times as many votes." Paul's supporters attribute this to a failure in…
oracknows | March 27, 2012This week, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that can only be described as historic. Any of you out there (in the U.S. anyway; I realize that my readership is international) who have paid even a passing attention to the news can't help but avoid reporting, debate, and polemics related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is often disparagingly referred to as "Obamacare." If the law is upheld, or even if most of the law is upheld, it will radically reshape health insurance in this country. Having spent 13 years in the trenches at cancer centers that see a high…
jdupuis | March 27, 2012This post has superseded my two previous link collection posts here and here.
The first focused solely on the Research Works Act, the second added posts on the Elsevier boycott and this one also incorporates posts on the reintroduction of The Federal Research Public Access Act. These three stories are all intertwined to the extent that it is difficult to separate them out completely. That being said, I'm not attempting to be as comprehensive in coverage for the boycott or for FRPAA as for the RWA.
Some relevant general resources:
The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against…
jrosenhouse | March 10, 2012I watched HBO's film Game Change tonight, about the rise and fall of Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential race. It was pretty good! Which is to say that it makes Palin look pretty bad.
As presented in the film, Palin is not merely uninterested in filling the gaps in her understanding of domestic and foreign policy, but is actually incapable of learning anything even when she tries. Her decent performance in the debate with Joe Biden is presented, quite correctly, as the result of pure cynicism. When her prep team realizes that it is simply impossible to bring her up to speed on the…
oracknows | February 23, 2012There's something about the prefix "anti" that provokes all too many people, even some who consider themselves "skeptics," to clutch at their pearls and feel faint. Antivaccine? Oh, no, you can't say that! They're not "antivaccine"? Who could be so nutty as to be "antivaccine"? Even members of the antivaccine movement don't like the term because even they realize that to be antivaccine is akin to being "anti" Mom, apple pie, and America. So they come up with the defense that they are not "antivaccine" but rather "pro-safe vaccine." They'll come up with silly analogies about how being for…
tfk | February 21, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer: National Center for Science Education, Darwin/Climate Enforcers, Humiliated by Forged Document Scandal:
Ethical questions about someone with no formal ties to NCSE clearly demonstrates the scientific, pedagogical, and moral failings of NCSE.
So Peter Gleick outed himself as the source of the Heartland board documents released last week, and now lots of people are chasing the shiny toy of how and why Gleick did it, rather than the important story of what the documents say.
But how and why Gleick did it, and even that Gleick did it, is irrelevant to most people, while…
tfk | February 10, 2012Last week's all-consuming outrage was spurred by a new rule issued by the Obama administration requiring that all employers' health insurance plans cover birth control without a copay. Religious employers â especially Catholic groups â had asked for an exemption, and thought there was a wink-and-nod agreement that they'd get the exemption, but then they didn't. They didn't want to have to pay for birth control, even though many of these groups employ people outside their denomination (and thus aren't bound by outdated papal bans on birth control) or people who are part of the denomination…
tsmith | February 8, 2012Have two awesome announcements that I've been waiting to share. One will still have to wait a few more days as we're finalizing some details, I can now let you know that I just started a new position as an Advisory Board member of the Zombie Research Society. It's a pretty cool group, including THE George Romero (Zombie Godfather); Daniel Drezner, author of Theories of International Politics and Zombies, and Steven Schlozman, author of The Zombie Autopsies. Plus a bunch of other white guys.
So, why do something like this? Zombies obviously are huge in pop culture, and typically "zombieism"…
gregladen | February 5, 2012I support and endorse Sharon Sund for US Congress. Sharon will represent the Third District in Minnesota.
For years, the Third District, in which I live, was represented by a moderate Republican, Jim Ramstad. Though I never voted for him, it was not all that annoying that he was in Congress because, as I say, he was moderate. Ramstad was pro choice, suppored stem cell research, he was not anti science and he was pro gay rights (but did not support gay marriage). I mention all this because it should reflect the electorate of the 3rd District which he represented.
Around the time of his…
cmonforton | February 2, 2012Communities affected by contaminated air, water and soil, workers retaliated for complaining about safety issues, and vulnerable groups abused by organizations charged with protecting them, are topics at the heart of public health. This week they are especially recognized by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as finalists for its Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Four of the six teams of journalists dug deep and reported on issues intrinsically linked to public health.
The Center for Public…
gregladen | January 25, 2012Last week, I attended the Science Online 2012 Un-Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. You've probably heard of it. This is a fairly new conference, having run for only the last few years, and was masterfully run and organized by Bora Zivkovic, Anton Zuiker and Karyn Traphagen. Most of the attendees are science journalists, writers, bloggers, and/or actual scientists. The "formal" sessions are, or at least attempt to be, topically-focused group discussions led by one or two individuals. The topics covered at this conference vary from year to year, but generally deal with science…
gregladen | December 17, 2011Sunday Morning: "The Knowledge of Good and Evil"
Listen to Glenn Kleier on Atheists Talk #146, Sunday, December 18, 2011.
Glenn Kleier will join Atheists Talk this Sunday to discuss his rousing new suspense thriller, The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Kleier has a background in advertising, marketing and communication. In 1998 he published his first book, The Last Day, which received international acclaim from reviewers. His works of fiction are known for their suspense and controversial interplay of religion and politics in our modern global society.
In The Knowledge of Good and Evil, Kleier…
lborkowski | December 7, 2011During the George W. Bush Administration, one of the prime examples of politics trumping science was the FDA's refusal to approve the emergency contraceptive Plan B (levonorgestrel) for over-the-counter sale without age restrictions. Now, during the Barack Obama Administration, history seems to be repeating itself.
Emergency contraceptives like Plan B can dramatically reduce the risk of an unintended pregnancy if taken within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse, but their efficacy wanes the longer a woman has to wait to take the drug. If a woman has to wait to see a doctor to get a…