Policy
stcynic | February 24, 2006If there is an iron law in politics, it's this: if you find yourself to the right of James Dobson on questions of gay rights, you're a true right wing whacko. But believe it or not, Dobson is taking a ton of criticism from his fellow religious right leaders for not opposing a Colorado bill that would give just a bare minimum of protection to gay couples. And I mean bare minimum - the bill would allow any two adults not eligible to marry to register so they can visit the other person in the hospital, make medical decisions for them and transfer property without having to go through the process…
jlynch | February 12, 2006 One of the more "enlightened" aspects of politics here in Arizona are voter initatives, wherein the public gets to petition to put stuff on the ballot. In the windup for the November elections, the streets are already crawling with petitioners wanting to get the necessary quota of signatures to get their particular fixation on the ballot.
This year, we have the Protect Marriage Arizona ammendment to the state constitution which is actually being spearheded by the Center for Arizona Policy, a right-wing, conservative Christian group that also (in 2004) supported teaching ID in AZ schools. As…
cmooney | February 7, 2006I'm pleased that the renowned Yale science historian Daniel Kevles has reviewed The Republican War on Science in the latest issue of The American Scientist. Here's the upshot, criticisms of yours truly fully included:
The Union of Concerned Scientists has a point in that during the administration of George W. Bush the politicization of science can be found in numerous areas of public policymaking far beyond defense. Chris Mooney informatively develops that argument in The Republican War on Science. A young political journalist, he is at times snide and polemical, but he has done a lot of…
pharyngula | February 4, 2006&t
So, the Bush administration is going to try and be pro-science. Here we go.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."
It continued: "This…
drorzel | February 1, 2006Though the tagline promises politics in addition to physics and pop culture, I try to keep the political content to a minimum. Not because I'm particularly worried about offending anyone, but because I don't particularly like the way I sound when I write about politics these days. I get very cranky, and even if I like the post when I put it up, a few days later I'm posting short filler entries just to move it off the front page faster, because reading it makes me cringe.
Of course, that's only part of the reason why I didn't watch the State of the Union address last night, despite having…
tlambert | January 27, 2006Jonathon Dursi details the spread of a bogus comparison between crime rate in US in Canada from John Lott to David Frum to Alan Gottlieb:
So here's the path of the lie as far as I can see it:
Aug 2005: Lott claims violent crime is twice as rampant in Canada as in the US; this is untrue, and comes from fallaciously comparing two different statistics from different countries.
Oct 2005: Lott makes other claims about Canadian crime rates in the National Post, equally cherry-picked.
Jan 2006: Frum play the same game in the National Post, comparing incommensurate `Total Specified Crimes'…
stcynic | January 27, 2006The Discovery Institute's Media Complaints Division, also known as their blog, has a new writer. His name is Michael Francisco and he's a second year law student at Cornell. His first contribution to the ongoing diatribe against Judge Jones' ruling in the Dover case is the subject of this post. In his essay, Francisco beats much the same dead horse that the DI was beating even before the ruling came out, the entirely false notion that Judge Jones had no justification for ruling on the scientific status of ID. I will show that not only was he justifed in doing so, he had no choice but to do so…
cmooney | January 24, 2006There's an article up at OpenDemocracy.net that's attempting to be contrary and counterintuitive about the Bush administration's "war on science." I must say, I found it fairly feeble.
The author's first maneuver is to significantly understate the causes of concern. Thus, the vast scope of science abuses by the administration are culled down to two narrow categories, and some of the most prominent issues (like evolution and stem cells, where the president himself, rather than some sub-lackey, has made scientifically indefensible statements) are ignored entirely.
Once this feat is…
stcynic | January 23, 2006In Utah, there is a bill in front of the state legislature to require teachers to to offer a disclaimer when teaching evolution. That disclaimer would state that A) not all scientists agree on the theory of evolution and B) the state does not endorse the theory of evolution. In Michigan, there is a bill that would encourage "critical thinking" about scientific theories, but it singles out evolution and global warming as the only two theories mentioned for such treatment. This appears to be the next phase of the ID movement's legal and political strategy.
It should be obvious to any…
grrlscientist | January 23, 2006
Ornithologist and Ivory-billed Woodpecker expert, Dr. Jerome Jackson, who has an impressive list of professional accomplishments, including the excellent book, In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Amazon (2004), has finally spoken out about the rediscovery of the IBWO in a peer-reviewed paper [free PDF] that was recently published in one of the most respected ornithological journals in the world, The Auk.
In this 15-page paper, Jackson asserts that the evidence put forward by the search party participants simply doesn't rise to the level of scientifically valid "proof" as portrayed by…
tsmith | January 11, 2006As of today, Seed's new science blogs are open for business. (Be sure to check out the list of other bloggers there--it packs quite a punch). To my regular readers, thanks for following me over here, and expect to see pretty much the same things I've written about in the past. Y'know, constant Brangelina pregnancy news, Britney worshipping, and lots of discussion of the latest fashion trends.
Yeah. Or, not. (Don't fear--I search of my previous site brings up zero mentions of either Britney Spears, Angelina, or Brad). What you will find is a lot of science, covering mainly medical/…
stcynic | January 10, 2006I came across this item on Clayton Cramer's blog and, while I typically disagree with him on political matters, I fully agree with some of what he says here. In discussing the Jack Abramoff scandal, he says:
Almost all bribery is related to government regulation of the economy or manipulation of the tax code. Yes, you do occasionally find people doing corrupt things for idealistic causes, but not often enough for me to worry about. People risk jail because they want to get rich.
The economist Thomas Sowell made the the point some years ago that, "When legislatures control buying and selling,…
stcynic | January 9, 2006As I mentioned, I did get to hear a few minutes of Sen. John Cornyn's (R-Texas) opening remarks in this morning's Alito confirmation hearing and got a good chuckle out of it. As is common among partisans of both parties, he portrayed he and his party as motivated solely by a concern for truth and justice while the other party is beholden to "special interest groups" and beset by ulterior motives. It's this kind of pot-and-kettle rhetoric that convinces me that it is folly to take either party seriously. For instance:
If qualifications, integrity, fairness, and open-mindedness were all that…
stcynic | December 25, 2005Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus to all of the wonderful people who have made this blog a success by reading and sharing your thoughts with me. And in the spirit of Seinfeld, a Happy Festivus as well. One of the great Festivus traditions, of course, is an airing of the grievances. Many bloggers have put together some of their grievances and complaints and a lot of them are really brilliant. Here a some of my favorite samples. From John Cole:
The Republican Party- I will never forgive the shameless display during the Schiavo affair, elevating a personal family tragedy into a cruel farce…
tlambert | November 25, 2005In Tech Central Station (where else?) global warming skeptic Roy Spencer spreads the DDT hoax:
The whole DDT issue is a good example of stupid environmental policy. Insiders say the de facto ban on DDT was the result of politics, not of overriding human health and environmental concerns. Threats of trade bans on countries that dare to use DDT, one of the safest and most effective insecticides available, have contributed to over one million malaria-related deaths each year in Africa. Literally hundreds of millions of people contract the disease each year. While the knee-jerk hostility to DDT…
stcynic | November 9, 2005Here's some good news. In the wake of the Dover trial, there were elections for the Dover school board held last night. The result? How about all 8 board members who supported the intelligent design policy got voted out and all 8 challengers who opposed the policy were voted in, including one of the plaintiffs in the case? That's as thorough a victory as one could possibly hope for and I hope this sends a message to other school boards that not only do you risk a lawsuit when you pursue policies that bring in religious alternatives into science classrooms, but you risk your seat on the board…
stcynic | November 8, 2005Jack Balkin has an interesting post picking up on David Bernstein's comments on Samuel Alito and originalism. There are many different issues jumbled together in the post, some of which I don't agree with, but I want to point out one statement that I think will come as a surprise to many people, especially many on the left. Many on the left believe that libertarianism is favored by big business because it would get rid of government regulation that reduces their profits. But in fact, big business often uses that regulation to its advantage to keep competitors out of the market and thus they…
tsmith | October 31, 2005 As mentioned in the comments to this post, there is a brewing controversy over upcoming guidelines outlining who should receive the "cervical cancer vaccine," a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV). Briefly, the HPV vaccine is a highly effective (100% in a 2-year clinical trial) vaccine which is targeted against two specific serotypes of the human papilloma virus: HPV 16 and HPV 18. Together, these types cause about 70% of cervical cancers in the United States. Previously, Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group, has said this about the HPV…
loom | October 10, 2005When it comes to evolution, the nation's attention is focused these days on Dover, Pennsylvania, where parents are suing the local board of education for introducing creationism into the classroom. It's certainly an important case, but if you really want to get a sense of what's at stake in the struggle over evolution, I suggest you turn your attention south, to the sunshine state. Florida is trying to have it both ways when it comes to creationism, and sooner or later something's going to have to give.
Two weeks ago, governor Jeb Bush broke ground on what he has called "a defining moment in…
tfk | October 10, 2005A repost from the archives.
At last I got a chance to read the last few pages of the book I've been pimping in the sidebar for a few months now. I've made some broad comments drawn from it before, but it's nice to be able to see the full sweep of the book.
Chris Mooney's argument in RWoS is more complex than it might seem from the title. He isn't decrying the lack of scientific basis for policies per se, but the ways in which the Republican Party in particular misrepresents the state of science and the nature of science in order to promote certain actions or forestall other actions.
I'll…