hrynyshyn | April 8, 2008Could it be that all this talk about how best to frame argument is pointless? It would if our capacity to change our minds in the face of new information was genetically determined.
If evolutionary psychology doesn't turn your crank, give this post a miss. I'm not convinced myself that there's a lot of merit to this particularly line of inquiry. But just in case...
In a comment posted to one Chris "Intersection" Mooney's recent efforts to explain his support for "framing" science, PZ "Pharygula" Myers gets to the nub of the problem:
Science educators need to get people to accept new ideas,…
hrynyshyn | April 2, 2008Do you want to know what I really think about "framing science?" You do? Good. I'll tell you. Here's the problem with framing science. The problem with framing science is ...
It's either a trivial concept to which an entire academic career should not be devoted, or it's a corrupting influence that threatens everything for which science should stand.
Much has been made of the apparent failure of the champion of framing science, commuications expert and ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet, to explain the idea in sufficient detail to the satisfy most of the rest of the Science Blogs community. The recent…
hrynyshyn | April 1, 2008The fundamental question facing climate crisis activists is how to go about convincing the world to change its energy production and consumption habits. I still haven't found good answer to that. But Joe Romm has produced a magnificent primer on the challenges involved in changing those habits over at Climate Progress. There we learn why nuclear power won't be a serious player in whatever "clean" energy mix we come up with, why the Pacala and Socolow "wedge" strategy supplies only a conceptual tool instead of a useful guide to the required transformation, and why we have to start down that…
hrynyshyn | March 31, 2008It would appear that the staff at the Competitive Enterprise Institute don't like being called liars. I don't blame them for that. No likes being caught in the act. In a recent post dealing with the CEI's latest television ads attacking those of us who are worried about climate change, I made that charge. The good news is I managed to provoke the institute into wasting some of its corporate sponsors' money by spending the time it takes to respond to my charge. The bad news is they're still lying.
Senior CEI fellow Marlo Lewis argues on the CEI's "OpenMarket.org" blog that their ads fairly…
hrynyshyn | March 31, 2008A little April Foolishness now. Please help me fill in the blanks. Correct entries must come from television or film.
Number 1
Number 2
Logan 5
Number 6
Seven of Nine
hrynyshyn | March 28, 2008Not only is Al Gore -- and by extension every member of his Climate Project army of slide-show presenters, including me -- wasting everyone's time trying to wake up the world to the perils of climate change, but the whole mission could actually be making things worse. That's what you'd have to conclude if you buy the results of a study of public attitudes that just appears in the journal Risk Analysis.
The authors of the study, "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States," work at Texas A&M. (Two of the three…
hrynyshyn | March 27, 2008I generally don't bother to draw attention to intra-ScienceBlog warfare, but all hell is breaking loose as our little corner of blogosphere tries to come to grips with the wisdom of telling it like it is. I think it goes to the heart of what may be the fundamental question plaguing American progressives: How does one go about changing the mind of someone who has rejected reason?
It all began when PZ "Pharyngula" Myers was expelled from a screening of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled! PZ responded to his expulsion with his usual witty rejoinders, noting the irony that his companion for…
hrynyshyn | March 20, 2008Bob Carroll of The Skeptic's Dictionary, has produced a theme song for skeptics. Well, OK. He stole the music from Leonard Cohen. "The Tower of Song" becomes "The Tower of Woo." Actually, I think he's drawing on Bob Dylan at bit, too. From the Infidels album, which would be appropriate.
hrynyshyn | March 18, 2008Arthur C. Clarke, proposer of the geosynchronous communications satellite, author of more than 100 books and third member of the ABCs of science fiction, is dead this day at 90. My favorite of his novels was The Fountains of Paradise, in which the idea of an elevator all the way to that same geosynchronous orbit, is explored. What a guy.
hrynyshyn | March 17, 2008Shortly before taking his last breath, the late William F. Buckley heaped praise on The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, a new book by mathematician and intelligent-design evangelist David Berlinksi. This will likely encourage certain segments of the population to buy Berklinski's book, which is a shame.
The rest of us can take advantage of a cheaper alternative, and scan the first item in the April 2008 Harper's magazine Readings section. The excerpt from the book reminds those of us who fear a return to the Dark Ages of just what it is we're battling.
To the…
hrynyshyn | March 14, 2008The protocols of polite company would discourage labeling anyone a liar, but it is hard to come up with a more appropriate way to describe those who receive their paychecks from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This conservative think tank has in the past proved themselves to be enemies of reason and democracy. To that list we will have to add the truth, what with the appearance of its latest television ad designed to undermine support for action on the climate crisis.
In fact, I would challenge anyone still working with the CEI, or anyone associated in any way with the institute to…
hrynyshyn | March 12, 2008Unless you're a fictional misanthrope who also happens to be the best medical diagnostician on the planet, telling people they're idiots isn't the best way to get ahead. How then do we get the message across to those stubborn folk who insist upon talking on their cell phone while driving? And it's not a few stubborn individuals ;;;;; every second car and truck on the road seems to be driven by someone whose attention is measurably distracted by wireless telephony.
And it's not as if they haven't heard that it's dangerous. Studies attesting to the significant causal relationship between…
hrynyshyn | March 12, 2008If you'd like to join a sort of Scienceblogs elite reader club, you've got two days to send me an email. Each blog here can nominate two readers for access to one massive club account on del.icio.us. You'll be asked to tag (using del.icio.us bookmarks) three ScienceBlogs posts per week that are especially worthy of sharing with the rest of the blogosphere. They don't have to be from this blog--though that would be nice. Those posts will then run into an RSS feed that will be displayed on the homepage. If you want to be part of the process, email me by Thursday night: jamesh (at) scienceblogs…
hrynyshyn | March 10, 2008The atmosphere is lethal
But I will fear no evil
Because it's not too late,
It's not too late.
-- T-Bone Burnett
Marvelous musician and cracker-jack producer that he is, (responsible for last year's stellar Alison Krauss-Robert Plant collaboration), T-Bone may be dead wrong when it comes to doing something about the climate crisis. So conclude a quartet of researchers from Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. The problem is, we may have waited too long to start bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions.
"Atmospheric stabilization and the timing of carbon mitigation" appears in the…
hrynyshyn | March 9, 2008For its inaugural issue, the new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal Time and Mind has seen fit to publish a paper suggesting that Moses, among others of his time, didn't actually commune with any god, but was simply high on a local psychotropic plant extract. Ya think?
In "Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis," (10.2752/175169608783489116) Hebrew
University pyschology prof Benny Shannon draws on "comparative experiential-phenomenological observations" (his own drug trips), along with the documented effects of the psychoactive substances available to the ancient Hebrews. He came…
hrynyshyn | March 5, 2008Time was when what we call science was known as "natural philosophy." For the last couple of hundred years or so, however, science has become something quite different from the other branches of philosophy. Modern-day philosopher-scientists like Janet "Adventures in Science and Ethics" Stemwedel could very well take issue with this, but it seems to me that recombining the two is no longer feasible. Thus we have the problem of Climate Debate Daily, a web aggregrator of arguments for and against doing something about global warming.
The site is the brainchild of a pair of philosophers. Here's…
hrynyshyn | March 4, 2008Further to recent chatter about how silly it is to mistake blasts of cold weather for a reversal of long-term climate change, here's the latest missive from James Hansen:
The past year (2007) witnessed a transition from a weak El Nino to a strong La Nina (the latter is perhaps beginning to moderate already, as the ocean waters near Peru are beginning to warm). January 2007 was the warmest January in the period of instrumental data in the GISS analysis, while ... October 2007 was # 5 warmest, November 2007 was #8 warmest, December 2007 was #8 warmest, and January 2008 was #40 warmest.…
hrynyshyn | March 3, 2008An unlikely trio has just made available the results of their quasi-scientific survey of climatologists, who were asked how much they agreed with the latest report from the IPCC. It makes for fascinating reading, even if its response rate of less than 10 % is a bit disappointing. Despite attempts from some quarters at spinning the results to suggest the climate change "consensus" is weaker than often described, the survey actually finds remarkably strong support for the notion that we are headed for trouble.
Roger Pielke Sr., one of the authors, supplies a web version of the PDF linked above…
hrynyshyn | March 1, 2008Add to the long list of reasons not to support John McCain's bid for the U.S. presidency his inability to distinguish between medical science and ignorant fear-mongering. By accepting the discredited link between vaccines and autism, McCain has shown his judgment falls far short of that required for the head of a modern nation-state. Orac jumped on the story early this morning and I feel compelled to help spread this a widely as possible, in hopes of doing my bit to inoculate the country against the threat posed by a McCain presidency.
Here's what McCain said on Friday night:
"It's…
hrynyshyn | February 29, 2008It's almost not worth mentioning, but Mount Kilimanjaro exemplifies the central weakness of the climate change pseudoskeptic's case. Does it matter how much snow lies at the top of Africa's tallest peak? No. And for the same reason that it doesn't matter that this past January was particularly cold in some parts of the world. It all goes back to the difference between climate and weather. So, one more time, here goes.
Climate is like a road trip from San Francisco to Denver. Weather is like one hour of that road trip. Some hour you might be driving up a hill, the next you might be driving…