clock | September 14, 2008...to revisit this discussion. Keep the current election in mind as you read all the posts.
clock | September 14, 2008Its Not Just Palin -- Its The Message.:
The brilliance of the McCain strategy and messaging is that it includes a trap for Obama. To push back on the McCain claim of "country first" and "the original mavericks who will shake up Washington" the Obama campaign's attack of "four more years of George Bush" becomes a problem. In a country that yearns for post-partisan change the Obama campaign risks sounding too partisan and like more of the same.
Morning podcast with Jay Rosen (please LISTEN to the entire podcast - will make you think!):
That led me to the idea that perhaps it's not Obama that…
clock | September 14, 2008
This is one a couple of posts about Creationism, written originally on May 1st, 2005.
Creationism Is Just One Symptom Of Conservative Pathology
I am not an "evolutionist". I am not a "Darwinist". I am a biologist. Thus, by definition, I am an evolutionary biologist. Although my research is in physiology and behavior, I would never be able to make any sense of my data (or even know what questions to ask in the first place) without evolutionary thinking.
As I am also interested in history and philosophy of biology, I consider myself a Darwinian. But not a "Darwinist" or "evolutionist" - those…
clock | September 14, 2008Photos Reveal Myanmar's Large And Small Predators:
Using remote camera traps to lift the veil on Myanmar's dense northern wild lands, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have painstakingly gathered a bank of valuable data on the country's populations of tigers and other smaller, lesser known carnivores (see photo attachments). These findings will help in the formulation of conservation strategies for the country's wildlife.
Erectile Dysfunction Related To Sleep Apnea May Persist, But Is Treatable:
For sufferers of sleep apnea, erectile dysfunction (ED) is often part of the…
clock | September 14, 2008Don't click on "Play"! I warned you. Don't blame me if you cannot sleep for a week trying to get rid of this old pernicious ear-worm:
clock | September 14, 2008Chad did an interesting analysis the other day - looking at the traffic attracted by science posts vs. non-science stuff (e.g., pretty pictures, politics, etc.). This made me look at my all-time traffic here (I know some of the posts are re-posts from the old blogs where they got lots of traffic as well, but I can ignore that for the purpose of this exercise). I rarely ever check Google Analytics, so the first surprise was my 6th place in overall traffic for the past month! And then I looked at the Clock content to see what have been the greatest hits over the past two years.
Considering I…
clock | September 14, 2008At Quail Ridge Books
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17, 7:30 p.m. Thomas Frank (WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?) RETURNS
with his new, much reviewed book, THE WRECKING CREW: CONSERVATIVE RULE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, which examines the Washington culture that politicians have given us.
clock | September 14, 2008 This was an early post of mine building upon George Lakoff analysis of the psychology underlying political ideology. It was first published on September 04, 2004 (mildly edited):
I keep going back to George Lakoff's "Moral Politics", as I did "here"
and "here", because I believe this book provides very important insights into the psychological sources of ideology, or worldview, from which all political stances logically follow. As I stated "before", it is not a perfect book. First, it is written in a pretty dry academic style. Long lists, in my opinion, should be taken out of the main body…
clock | September 13, 2008Statues of marble or brass will perish; and statues made in imitation of them are not the same statues ... But print and reprint a thought a thousand times over, and that with materials of any kind ... the thought is eternally and identically the same thought in every case.
- Thomas Paine
clock | September 13, 2008
This was first posted on http://www.jregrassroots.org/ forums on July 10, 2004, then republished on Science And Politics on August 18, 2004. That was to be just the first, and most raw, post on this topic on my blog. It was followed by about a 100 more posts building on this idea, modifying it, and changing my mind in the process. You can see some of the better follow-ups here. Also, I have since then read Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz, which is a much better and more scholarly work than E.J.Graff's book. Below the…
clock | September 13, 2008Vedran tells me that people from the Oncology Institute in Belgrade, who usually give women little brochures that describe breast self-exam in words, are now using - and loving - the two videos (originally from here) he has embedded into his Gynecology aggregator. Another win for Open Access.
clock | September 13, 2008Under the fold....
WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?:
When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to see--let alone respect--a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?
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Unity is not the great need of the hour, it is…
clock | September 13, 2008A Chicago Tribune reporter travels to an Illinois farm to literally try to put lipstick on a pig:
clock | September 13, 2008Everything about the Science in the 21st Century conference at Perimeter Institute can be found here.
clock | September 13, 2008Everything about the Science Blogging 2008 London conference can be found here and here.
clock | September 13, 2008Mimi and her husband took a trip to Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and all I got were these movies:
clock | September 13, 2008Male-specific Neurons Directly Linked To Gender-specific Behaviors:
New research identifies a few critical neurons that initiate sex-specific behaviors in fruit flies and, when masculinized, can elicit male-typical courtship behaviors from females. The study, published by Cell Press in the September 11th issue of the journal Neuron, demonstrates a direct link between sexual dimorphism in the brain and gender differences in behavior.
My, What Big Teeth You Had! Extinct Species Had Huge Teeth On Roof Of Mouth:
When the world's land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago,…