cmooney | September 30, 2006I have had a very, very good September.
I traveled across the country, and back, twice (with offset credits for my carbon). I gave fifteen speeches, to (I would guess) over a thousand people in total. At many of my stops I made new friends, or was able to get reacquainted with old ones. I even got to speak in the Phoenix area where I was born, where my mother grew up, with three of my uncles in the audience.
I did umpteen radio interviews, and even caused a radio station to fold (that's the interpretation if you're superstitious, anyway). I signed probably hundreds of books. I had not one,…
cmooney | September 29, 2006As usual, being on the road is starting to wear on me a little bit...but there's one more talk tonight, and then I hole myself up again to work on the hurricane book. This one is in Santa Fe:
Friday, September 29
7:00 PM-8:30 PM
College of Santa Fe
The Forum
Santa Fe, NM
Meanwhile, Dietram Scheufele also blogged my appearance eariler this week in Madison, WI. As he puts it: "Mooney is one of the very few writers in D.C. at the moment who understand the importance of successful strategic communication about emerging technologies, and who is able to articulate this message very succinctly. We…
cmooney | September 28, 2006My piece in the latest issue of Seed--not yet online, but will be soon I hope--is about the scientist activism group that just announced its existence, Scientists and Engineers for America. As I argue in Seed, this could be the organization that finally brings the national scientific community out of its political torpor by targeting races and trying to actually unseat politicians who egregiously misuse and abuse science.
So far, though, the particular races that Scientists and Engineers for America will invest in don't seem to have been picked:
The group is looking at the Senate race in…
cmooney | September 27, 2006
I had a good event at Changing Hands bookstore, in Tempe, Arizona, tonight. So many people came to the talk that the bookstore had to rearrange chairs quickly, in a larger space, to accommodate them all.
In the audience, among others, was fellow ScienceBlogger John Lynch, the author of Stranger Fruit and a prof here at Arizona State. And so were not one, not two, but three of my uncles who live in the area...one of whom, my uncle Tom, is pictured here along with John and I. You see, we got beers afterwards. Oh, did we.
Tomorrow I'm off to Albuquerque. I love the Southwest. I only wish I…
cmooney | September 27, 2006"...tiresome polemic masquerading as a defense of scientific purity...."
"The reader must therefore decide if the narrator is unreliable or just hopelessly naïve...."
"Mooney's polemical fervor blinds him to the political content inherent in all discourse that connects science to human affairs."
"....his one-dimensional view of the world can only reveal the obvious...."
"Were Karl Rove to read this book, I suspect he would be comforted."
Such praise for The Republican War on Science comes from Daniel Sarewitz, of Arizona State University, in whose backyard I'll be speaking this evening.…
cmooney | September 26, 2006Fellow science blogger John Fleck has a piece this week in the Albuquerque Journal about yrs truly blowing through New Mexico. An excerpt:
They say it's better to be lucky than good, though it helps to be both. That might describe the arc of journalist Chris Mooney's young career.
Science policy is not the sort of thing that usually lands on the best-seller lists. But political fireworks is a different story, and Mooney's "The Republican War on Science" has been a hit.
"We had no idea this was going to be as big a deal," Mooney said in a phone interview from Bellingham, Wash., the latest…
cmooney | September 25, 2006
I am a lucky author.
Anyone who writes a book hopes to avoid the fate that David Hume famously ascribed to his Treatise of Human Nature, which he said ''fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.'' I certainly have managed to make the zealots murmur--but I have also made the thoughtful argue, which is far more gratifying.
The evidence: Parlor Press, and specifically its imprint Glassbead Books, has now officially released a book about my book, The Republican War on Science. Entitled "Looking for a Fight: Is There a…
cmooney | September 24, 2006Tomorrow I head out for five talks in five days in the following locales....New York, NY; Madison, Wisconsin; Tempe, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. This will be accompanied, as usual, by various radio interviews and such. I'll keep you posted on all of that. Meanwhile, for details on any of these five talks, click here.
cmooney | September 24, 2006I'm happy to announce that the paperback edition of The Republican War on Science is a "Paperback Row" pick for this Sunday's Times book review. The Times also links to John Horgan's mostly favorable review, which was part of a cover package last December. Back then, I didn't know that Horgan, like me, was an English major. Now he directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. In other words, Horgan is yet another rebuttal to the Discovery Institute's credentialism about science reporting.
cmooney | September 23, 2006
As you can see in this pic of (from left to right) Big Head Rob, Matt Nisbet, and myself, we were stylin' at Science Club Friday night in DC. Although no one, no one, could out-style Matt Nisbet's white blazer. I scoured the Washington, D.C., area for one to match, so that we would both be wearing our "lab" coats, but had zero success.
Anyway, I was psyched that many fellow science geeks were able to come to the party, including the following: Wayne Shields (head of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals), Michael Stebbins, Jennifer Ouellette, Sean Carroll, and Sylvia S.…
cmooney | September 21, 2006Numerical models suggest that Mooney and Nisbet will be in rare form this Friday night at Science Club in DC. And Big Head Rob and Kelly Ann Collins have official party announcements (one of which includes a Weird Science poster). But will this unprecedented social union between a few science geeks and stylish bloggers like Rob, KAC, and Rock Creek Rambler lead to a Big Bash? Or will it be more like cold fusion?
Inquiring minds, with and without Ph.D.s, want to know....
cmooney | September 21, 2006...Between now and the bday party tomorrow, I am going to try to get some significant work done. It's an important snatch of time, especially as I have another talk on Saturday (in Ohio, info here) and then I'm back on the road Monday. I'll be talking at an event along with PZ up in NYC Tues the 26th; then I'll be in Madison, WI, that evening; in Tempe, Arizona, on the 27th; in Albuquerque, NM, on the 28th; and then in Santa Fe, NM, on the 29th. The details are all here.
All of which is a long way of saying, no more blogging for a day or two. In the meantime, I highly recommend that you play…
cmooney | September 20, 2006So: KAC got sent the Discovery Institute's critique (PDF) of my chapter on "intelligent design." Her very appropriate response: "(WTF?!)" She also claims I'm "blinding her with science" (and provides the classic Thomas Dolby video to prove it).
The video is quite a trip, you have to watch it. Anyway, I think I know how KAC feels. Who would want to walk into such an obscure back and forth, like my debate with the Discovery Institute, and try to make heads or tails of it? Face it, we ScienceBloggers do tend to get down into the weeds a bit at times.
KAC, I promise, our first conversation won't…
cmooney | September 19, 2006Born September 20, 1977, in Mesa, Arizona. (And I'm speaking very near there on Sept 27!)
I don't remember at what time of day I was born. I'd have to call my Mom to find that out and she's probably asleep at the moment. However, I do remember hearing that I apparently didn't cry. Read into that what you will...
cmooney | September 19, 2006Check this out, in no particular order:
1. I finally have stuff up on YouTube, two videos. Go watch them if you like. At the moment I'm competing with Sensei Chris Mooney for views and ratings....
2. For those who missed my Skeptics Society debate with Ron Bailey over who's worse when it comes to abusing science, you can order a copy here. This, I suspect, will not be on YouTube.
3. I appeared last week on Mother Jones radio, you can listen here. Here's a synopsis of what I talked about: "Republican War on Science author Chris Mooney tells us that it's time for scientists to publicly fight…
cmooney | September 19, 2006After the Discovery Institute's criticism of my credentials, it occurred to me that I'm hardly the only person to study the works of someone like Chuck Dickens in college, only to end up writing professionally about the works of someone like Chuck Darwin. For instance, here's physics writer Jennifer Oulette, with two books under her belt that, if we universalize the Discovery Institute's attack on me, she shouldn't have written due to her background:
I'm a former English major turned science writer, through serendipitous accident: I stumbled into writing about physics, drifted further and…
cmooney | September 18, 2006Back in May, fellow birthday boy Matt Nisbet and I gave a two-pronged keynote address to the annual meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The subject: How to communicate about science, particularly in politically fraught areas. I pretty much winged it, though I hope I provided some insights--and then Matt provided real data on this question. You can watch the whole thing here, complete with slide shows, transcripts, and audio. Feedback appreciated. I really think that Matt and I should take this show on the road....
P.S.: Note to Randy Olson, there's a shameless plug for…
cmooney | September 18, 2006Well, I've read through the Discovery Institute critique of my work (PDF). I am not impressed. Neither is Carl Zimmer, who has experience with this sort of thing. PZ, meanwhile, has a good refutation of Casey Luskin's attack on my credentials.
[To tell you the truth, PZ, Luskin's criticism is actually even weaker than you say, because if we were act like good Kantians and generalize it it into a universal law, that would mean that journalism in this country would cease to exist, save in the few cases where journalists happen to have advanced degrees in the subjects they're reporting on. In…
cmooney | September 18, 2006I note this post from last week, and am flattered that a well known D.C. beacon of social radiance like KAC has deigned to Google me. Furthermore, she's mooting whether I'm worth going on long walks on the beach with (PG version). If she only knew.
It all reminds me of a (modified) Han Solo line: "I don't know, whaddya think? You think a DC socialite and a guy like me..." To which Luke Skywalker quickly countered: "No." But then, he was jealous.
In any event, KAC has also generously agreed to serve as part of the host committee for my upcoming 29th bday party, which I'm having jointly with D.…
cmooney | September 17, 2006
Helene is getting to be a hell of a storm. Look at how well defined the eye is. Note also that the storm is taking up roughly a 5 degree by 5 degree latitude/longitude square. That's big. Winds of hurricane strength extend outward 50 miles from the center. All of which means that if Helene tracks towards Bermuda, it could cause even more trouble than did Florence.
And did I mention that Helene is a Category 3 storm now? That's the second major hurricane for the Atlantic basin this year. Of course, we haven't had any 4s and 5s. Last year around this time, by contrast, we were about to witness…