Social Sciences
terrasig | February 12, 2009This guest post comes to us from a colleague and friend, Dr Michael Wolfe. Enjoy!
The simultaneous celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the births of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin today offers a special opportunity to reflect on the state of our democracy and the status of science in our society. That these two iconic figures were born on the exact same day is, of course, a coincidence. And yet, as often happens in life, a chance confluence of events can help us see connections that we might otherwise miss.
Today we lionize Lincoln as perhaps our greatest President, and his eloquent…
bioephemera | February 12, 2009Yesterday I prepared to write my Darwin Day post by attending a panel discussion at the Center For American Progress here in DC. The discussion was ostensibly about "evolution, transcendence, and the nature of faith," which led my friend Colin and I to hope for a spirited debate - perhaps even a die-hard creationist who would speak for the three-quarters of frequent churchgoers who don't accept evolutionary theory! But what we got was a predictable, rather boring discussion - at least until David Sloan Wilson arrived and threw me for a loop.
The first two panelists were Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks…
hrynyshyn | February 11, 2009A member of the audience at one of my climate change slide shows asked me why I hadn't mentioned the benefits of switching to vegetarianism when it comes to things we can do to lower our carbon footprint. I replied that I thought eating less meat will be as much as consequence of our actions as a way to change them.
It's not that I disagreed with the premise that meat production consumes too much energy and water, resources that could be better used to grow more plants. That's inarguable. It's just that I see enormous resistance among North Americans and Europeans to the idea of voluntarily…
revere | February 11, 2009The Chinese like chicken. The biggest restaurant chain in China is Kentucky Fried Chicken (2300 in 500 cities). The source of supply is always close. China raises more poultry than any nation on earth. But that poultry also has outbreaks of bird flu, and there have been eight human cases in the last month. Any relationship? The eight cases are not clustered and appear sporadic. But the Ministry of Health has said the human cases appeared in areas where there was no reported bird flu, which puzzled them, since it is conventional wisdom that human cases result from close interaction with…
palmd | February 9, 2009I keep pandagon.net on my google reader. I don't agree with everything I read there, which is a good thing, but I do respect Amanda Marcotte's opinions (and they are always well-written).
I must take some exception with her recent analysis of the octuplet fiasco. It's not just that I have a problem with blaming everything bad on Teh Patriarchy (which I do), but I think that sometimes dealing with patriarchy distracts from other real issues. Yes, sexism and patriarchy are important in society, but not everything is that simple. Let's take a look (emphasis mine):
At this point in time, I…
laelaps | February 9, 2009
William Buckland, from Reminiscences of Oxford.
In the year 1166 a woman quietly passed away in a cave on Mount Pelligrino, Sicily. It was the end she chose for herself. At the age of twelve she had left home to become a hermit and devote her life to worshiping God, and her remains were left to rot in the isolated cave that was her home. Her name was Rosalia.
Then, in 1624, a deadly epidemic spread through Palermo. It was at this time that a sick woman claimed to have seen a vision of Rosalia, and for the plague to be ended, the apparition instructed, Rosalia's bones would have to be…
sciencepunk | February 6, 2009Thanks to a sterling effort by a group of dedicated science bloggers and blog-readers, the whole Jeni Barnett MMR radio show has been transcribed for your reading pleasure.
Browse it, read it, blog it, be shocked, be amazed, tell your friends, etc etc.
OBVIOUS DISCLAIMER: This is a transcript pulled together by lots of people working late into the night. There will be mistakes, I'm sure, so use it as a tool to skim the show before listening to the bits that interest you. A recording of the show is available on Wikileaks, see here. You can also listen to each part via YouTube here.
The…
clock | February 5, 2009There are 15 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Web Queries as a Source for Syndromic Surveillance:
In the field of syndromic surveillance, various sources are exploited for outbreak detection, monitoring and prediction. This paper describes a study on queries…
sciencewoman | February 5, 2009Another duplicate Seed magazine has arrived in my mailbox, and just in time another great Scientiae has been posted. Be the first one to identify the authors of the following three quotes in the comments, and I'll send along the Universe in 2009 issue of Seed.
It's another cool issue focusing on the all awesome innovations waiting on our scientific horizon. So far, I've particularly enjoyed the feature article on the "ecology of finance" and the Seed Salon where a physicist and a social scientist discuss how networks are becoming a dominant paradigm for investigating all sorts of phenomena.…
evolvingthoughts | February 4, 2009So there's a rather livid article in the Independent by Johann Hari, titled "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves…
nisbetmc | February 4, 2009As I wrote last month, in the Year of Darwin, the loudest voice associated with science threatens to be Richard Dawkins and other New Atheist pundits who will argue their personal belief that evolution undermines the validity of religion or even respect for the religious. Certainly, this promises to be a big part of the publicity campaign behind Dawkins' forthcoming book on evolution.
In sharp contrast, the major science organizations such as AAAS and the National Academies are actively reaching out to religious leaders and groups. Another example is an event upcoming at the Center for…
pharyngula | February 2, 2009Phil Zuckerman has written a book called Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll); I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a good approach, looking at secular societies like Scandinavia and comparing them to religious societies, like the US. At this point, I don't know much more about it other than what I see in the reviews, and the Depth Deception blog finds an unwittingly hilarious review in Christianity Today. The final paragraph will leave you giggling.
Zuckerman sells humanity short. If people are content but no longer…
oracknows | February 2, 2009I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this before at least a couple of times, but I am an alumnus of the University of Michigan twice over. I completed a B.S. in Chemistry with Honors there and then I stayed on to do obtain my M.D. Several of my longtime friendships were forged or solidified during those years. Consequently, I still care about the place. That's why it distresses me when I see my alma mater shoots itself in the foot. Now, I'll grant you that what I'm about to discuss probably doesn't bother me as much as the plight of the Michigan Wolverines bothers me, given that never before…
dgmacarthur | February 1, 2009Francis Collins, former Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, in a presentation last week (as reported by GenomeWeb Daily News):
He also said that he is "delighted" that direct-to-consumer genetic
testing services are being offered, even though the field "has become a
favorite whipping boy for some of us." He said it is good "that the
public is having the chance to learn about their genomes if they think
they want to know ... and that companies are doing this in a responsible
way. But, of course, there are some things on the web that are not
responsible."
In addition,…
dgmacarthur | February 1, 2009Edited 2/2/09: The cited study discusses pre-natal genetic screening, not only embryo screening; I've updated some wording to reflect this, but it doesn't have any major impact on the overall message.
Razib points to an article suggesting that Australian couples are "flocking" to a US fertility clinic that allows them to screen their potential IVF embryos for sex and even cosmetic traits like skin and eye colour, in addition to variants that predispose to severe disease risk. ("Flocking", in this context, means about 14 couples a month.)
This follows on the heels of a fairly widely-publicised…
razib | January 31, 2009My Sister's Keeper:
They called it a lesbian paradise, the pioneering women who made their way to St. Augustine, Fla., in the 1970s to live together in cottages on the beach. Finding one another in the fever of the gay rights and women's liberation movements, they built a matriarchal community, where no men were allowed, where even a male infant brought by visitors was cause for debate.
...
"To me, this is the real world," she said. "And it's a very peaceful world. I don't hear anything except the leaves falling. I get up in the morning, I go out on my front deck and I dance and I say, 'It's…
oracknows | January 31, 2009I've been a bit remiss about writing about this story. For that, I apologize. I realize a lot of you sent me links. For some reason, this week was an embarrassment of riches in terms of blogging material, and I didn't have time to get to it all.
With that out of the way, let me just say that I find it very ironic that this particular story came to light during the week of the 64th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. If the Pope is truly appointed by God to rule over the Roman Catholic Church, in this case God chose someone who has an exquisitely bad sense of timing. Actually, he…
pharyngula | January 30, 2009Buses must be militant atheists, because pretty soon they're all going to be sporting declarations of godlessness. The latest nation to jump on the bandwagon is Brazil. If you can read Portuguese, you can go direct to the source and read all about it. Otherwise, I've put a translation below the fold.
In the first week of this year was launched the first advertising campaign in the UK about atheism, promoted by the British Humanist Association. The campaign has its own website (where shirts can be purchased) and is attracting great attention from the media since its launch in October -…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2009One of the rhetorical strategies that has been employed against science deniers has been the claim that a 'broad scientific consensus exists' to support a certain position (e.g., global warming, evolution). A problem with this strategy is shown by the blog belonging to this commenter (I don't give links to wackaloons) which provides lists of scientists that don't think global warming is partly due to human influences.
This misses the entire meaning of scientific consensus: it's a process, not a list of names.
This is not how a scientific consensus is reached:
"Dude, the earth is kinda hot…
laelaps | January 28, 2009
The Giant of Cardiff. Note the leaf placed to protect viewer's sensibilities.
Given the speed at which information travels these days it is not surprising how quickly we forget hoaxes and humbugs. Every year people get their 15 minutes of fame by claiming to have seen ghosts, aliens, or fanciful creatures, but these far-out tales quickly fade away. This past summer, for instance, Matt Whitton, Rick Dyer, and "professional Bigfoot hunter" Tom Biscardi claimed to have in their possession the corpse of a Sasquatch.
Media outlets, particularly FOX News, picked up the story and ran with it but…