mikethemadbiologist

An LA Times story about voters' willingness to support candidates of various religious backgrounds completely baffles me. In the story is good news, bad news, and things that just don't make sense. Razib summarizes findings: 54% of Americans would not vote for a Muslim 37% of Americans would not…

I might have more to say about the Delaware mini-pogrom later, but by way of Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, I found this bit of abject idiocy: Just two hours prior, while executive session was held, Bennett led nearly 100 spectators in song as they waited patiently for the news. ..."If these…

It's the 4th of July, and the Mad Biologist doesn't work on yontif, so here's something from the archives about scientific literacy (or illiteracy, actually). Surprisingly, I actually agree with Nicholas Kristof (originally published Dec. 8, 2005). Nicholas Kristof actually made sense today. He…

Kos should definitely be given credit for creating the political site DailyKos. But unfortunately, skill sets don't always transfer. His political analysis suffers greatly from, well, not to put to fine a point on it, his ignorance of political events before 1992. I say this because Kos often…

From the AP: Investigators believe American soldiers spent nearly a week plotting an attack in which they raped an Iraqi woman, then killed her and her family in an insurgent-ridden area south of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity…

By way of BornUnderPunches at DailyKos comes this transcript of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Dumbass) pontificating on "an internet." I'm sure he'll do a superb protecting the internet (italics mine): There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery…

One of the common defences of the Republican police state surveillance program is the mantra "Sept. 11 changed everything." According to a Bloomberg News story, the Bush Administration was engaged in domestic electronic surveillance well before the Sept. 11 attacks (italics mine): The U.S.…

If someone else here posted this, my apologies. This cartoon is from Reality Check by David Sipress.

By way of GrrlScientist, comes the Slogantor. Here's what it generated for me: Behold the Power of the Mad Biologist. 'Nuff said.

I've written before about internet progressives. I've never liked the term progressive because I have always associated them with the Progressives of the late nineteenth century: good-government types who are not very concerned with economic justice. I'm all for good government, following the…

This week, our benevolent Seed Overlords ask, "What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?" Well, I thunked, and thunked, and thunked. Then my head began to hurt. Then I thought of one unsung success. Vaccination. Think about it. Typically,…

Full disclosure: I am a moderately observant Conservative Jew (Conservative is a denomination of Judaism, not a political leaning). Having said that, the bandying around of the term faith is disingenuous. Religious people are supposed to be honest--at least, that's what I was taught. We hear all…

I've never liked most war movies because I think they glamorize warfare, even if they are 'realistic.' That's why I've referred to them as "war porn." Most deaths are horrifying in their randomness: a few inches to the left or right and someone lives instead of dying. And most of the deaths are…

PZ rightly noted about the l'affair de Big Pharma that it's just a stupid overreaction: somehow I don't think the Viagra trade is destroying America's inner cities or rural communities. But, over at Feministe, zuzu notes that the Dominican Republic has a thriving sex industry. Was he just one…

A bunch of us ScienceBloggers have decided to help raise funds for teachers (more details here). I really don't care if I 'finish' dead last, but who doesn't want to help kids? For the price of a couple of those ridiculous Starbuck's milkshakes, you can help kids learn. Besides those lattes go…

A bunch of us ScienceBloggers have decided to help raise funds for teachers (more details here). I really don't care if I 'finish' dead last, but who doesn't want to help kids? Everybody likes kids. Even Dick Cheney likes kids. Sometimes, he even lets them live. Seriously, if you would like to…

One of my many pet peeves is that nobody takes 'ordinary' bacterial infections seriously. I originally wrote this post Jan. 8, 2006, but I was ranting about Acinetobacter since the previous August. The good news is that people other than infectious disease specialists are worrying about it. The…

While I'm away, I'll leave you with this introduction to likelihood theory (originally published Nov. 22, 2005). In the Washington Post last week, Charles Krauthammer boldly opposed the Tin Foil Helmet wing of the Republican Party by calling intelligent design a "fraud." The best part of his column…

From the archives, here's a post about Paul Krugman's explanation of why academia is so full of those goddamn libruls (originally published April 6, 2005). Yesterday, Paul Krugman wrote an editorial about the high proportion of liberals in academia. His major point was that the anti-intellectualism…

...don't think I'm not watching. I'll know who's been naughty and nice. A bunch of us ScienceBloggers have decided to help raise funds for teachers (more details here). I really don't care if I 'finish' dead last, but who doesn't want to help kids learn? Seriously, if you would like to help out…

From the archives, here's a post about high school science fairs (originally published Jan. 31, 2005). Once again, New York kicked butt in the Intel science competition. On the face of it, this would be a good thing. Then I looked at the titles of some of the projects. Here's just a few titles…

While I'm away at the Evolution 2006 Meeting, I'll leave you with some posts from the archive of the Mad Biologist (Intelligent Designer, I love this scheduled post thingee). This one is about the misuse of language by creationists (originally published Feb. 9, 2005). From time to time, I get…

Thanks to the superpowers of the Mighty Seed Blog Engine, I'm able to post this while simultaneously driving to the Evolution 2006 meeting. Hopefully, I'll run into RPM and Carl Zimmer there. It's going to be very weird: I spent four years at Stony Brook and now I'm returning as a visitor.…

Our Seed Overlords ask: What makes a good science teacher?... Lots of other ScienceBloggers have given really good answers to this, so I'll just add one more thing. A good teacher has to know what students don't know. When I ran into problems, I was always assuming that the students had…

driftglass takes up a topic near and dear to my heart because it's a cancer that still corrodes and corrupts the U.S.: the use of hate-mongering by the Right to gain and keep political power. And you thought I was Mad (and if you're not reading driftglass, what the hell's the matter with you).…

Lotsa liberal madness at the most recent installment of the Carnival of Liberals. My first ever post at that blog carnival.

I have to admit that creationists are a creative bunch, if not accurate. From the files of the Mad Biologist comes this post about a creationist explanation of antibiotic resistance. It's pretty remarkable. And I hope nobody tells the Coultergeist about this argument... (originally published…

...when it comes to funding and resources. And this will have serious ramifications for your health. In talking to a hospital clinical microbiologist today, he told me that microbiology labs in hospitals and states are suffering from two problems. The first problem is that, unlike the Chemistry…

I've always had a problem with the internet 'progressives.' I have never liked the term progressive, particularly since I'm not ashamed to call myself a liberal (here's one reason why). I haven't blogged much about the YearlyKos convention and ensuing controversy (being a lefty blogger, albeit a…

In what I think is the only way to cope with the Blond Banshee (aka the Coultergeist), PZ writes (italics mine): Like I said, I'm not going to take this trip apart sentence by sentence, even though I could, given enough time and interest. I will suggest instead that if anyone reading this thinks…