emjohnson | April 13, 2010Yesterday Kiera Butler, associate editor at Mother Jones, posted an article claiming that soy-based veggie burgers and infant formula are "made with the chemical hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and neurotoxin." She based her conclusions on a report put out by The Cornucopia Institute, an organization committed to "ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture."
If you've heard about hexane before, it was likely in the context of gasoline--the air pollutant is also a byproduct of gas refining. But in 2007, grain processors were responsible…
emjohnson | April 11, 2010
In his recent TED Talk Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter To A Christian Nation argues that science can and should be used to address moral issues. His newest book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, will be published in October, 2010.
For more see Sam Harris, Franics Collins, and the NIH, The Feeling of What Happens, and the debate with Michael Shermer, Deepak Chopra, and Jean Houston Does God Have A Future?
emjohnson | April 9, 2010With yesterday's announcement of the historic nuclear arms treaty signed by Russia and the United States (that would reduce existing stockpiles by as much as 30%) I thought I would repost my piece on Edward Teller's nuclear legacy from September, 2003 that was originally commissioned by The Nation magazine (though ultimately went unpublished). Also see my posts Intimidating the Soviets: A Hiroshima Anniversary Memorial and The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter and the Role of Science in Public Advocacy. Yesterday's treaty is the first step in dismantling the nuclear policies that this would-…
emjohnson | April 2, 2010The monthly Carnival of Evolution is now up at Beetles in the Bush. Ted has done a terrific job of putting together some of the best science writing on the web. Make sure to stop on by and thank him for another great edition.
This month brings newcomer Chadrick Lane with his blog The Ancestral Mind and many familiar voices from Living the Scientific Life, Evolving Thoughts, Mauka to Makai, Deep Thoughts and Silliness, NeuroDojo, Lab Rat, Pleiotropy and many more.
emjohnson | March 31, 2010
I've got several imminent deadlines which means that my blog time is limited just now. However, there have been a few interesting posts that I thought I'd refer you to.
Orac has a review of a new study showing that publication bias can result in some animal research studies.
So, basically, all we can conclude from this study is that, for one intervention and one type of animal model, there appears to be publication bias, the effect of which can only be very roughly estimated and which varies depending upon which intervention is studied. It is unknown whether publication bias exists for…
emjohnson | March 29, 2010Today Ed Brayton (fellow Scibling at Dispatches From the Culture Wars) is reporting in the Michigan Messenger that the mercenary company Blackwater may face federal weapons charges for "illegally stockpiling automatic weapons" at one of their US facilities. Given the slate of bad news piling on for Blackwater, I was amused to find this 2007 advertisement discovered by Zero Anthropology.
Click for larger image.
The ad campaign appeared in the May/June, 2007 edition of the Journal for International Peace Operations, a publication of the International Peace Operations Association and sponsored…
emjohnson | March 28, 2010Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Deepak Chopra, and Jean Houston square off for a Nightline debate on the future of belief.
Part 1
The entire program lasts about 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch all parts continuously by clicking here.
emjohnson | March 27, 2010"But Dr. Zaius, the benefits to apedom far outweigh this animal's suffering."
Image: Planet of the Apes
Greg Laden has posted three parts (with more on the way) of a series that looks at how we should decide what animals have rights, what those rights should be, and how we weigh those considerations against the benefits of animal testing:
It is not entirely unreasonable to view the question of what humans can do to other species with suspicion. This would be the same kind of suspicion that a parole board would level against an inmate asking for release. We are a species with a record, and we…
emjohnson | March 25, 2010Culture defines who we are but few can explain where it comes from or why we adopt one tradition over another. In the classic musical The Fiddler on the Roof the main character, Tevye, muses on this basic fact of human existence:
Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything... how to eat, how to sleep, even, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl... This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you - I don't know.
The origin of particular cultural traits in human…
emjohnson | March 24, 2010Ann Coulter is a vicious and mean-spirited demagogue and I'm ashamed that I share more DNA with her than chimpanzees or bonobos. She represents the worst kind of reactionary partisanship and should be condemned by all quarters in the spirit of basic decency. That being said, however, I don't believe a government should have any role in prohibiting her speech, regardless of how offensive it is. And it's pretty offensive. Just after the Sept. 11 attacks Coulter wrote, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." This got her fired from the column…
emjohnson | March 23, 2010It has just been announced that my fellow Scibling Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science has been voted the winner of the 2010 Research Blogging Awards. In addition to being voted as Best Blog of the Year he has additionally been selected for having the Best Lay-Level Blog and for having written the Best Post of the Year (for duck sex). He deserves our praise and admiration for the incredible and tireless work he's been doing for many years to communicate science in an informative and entertaining way. I'm thrilled to have been nominated in the same category as him and I encourage everyone…
emjohnson | March 23, 2010Harvard Medical School physician and researcher J. Wes Ulm has a fascinating paper in the new edition of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, the quarterly academic periodical put out by Johns Hopkins University. His paper "The Cachet of the Cutthroat" investigates the legacy of ideas that formed the basis of laissez-faire social Darwinism:
Ultimately, Social Darwinism fails in practice because it never succeeded as a theory. It's not even Darwinist-Herbert Spencer, after all, had sketched out its contours even before Darwin published his own work. And when the great naturalist outlined a…
emjohnson | March 22, 2010Five years ago Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, made headlines when he suggested that women are not as well represented in science because of "issues of intrinsic aptitude." By proposing that women are biologically less capable of succeeding in science he gained the anger of many of his colleagues and continued his reputation for divisive management (African-American Studies professor Cornel West reportedly left Harvard for Princeton based on disagreements he had with Summers).
Now, a report released today on the representation of women in science reveals that, while there are…
emjohnson | March 21, 2010
Taken word for word from online fundamentalist forums(contains some graphic language).
emjohnson | March 20, 2010RaceWire is reporting that Thomas Hagan, one of three men convicted for the assassination of Malcolm X (and the only to plead guilty), was released after his 17th attempt at parole yesterday. Hagan, at the time of the murder, was known as Talmadge X and was a militant member of the Nation of Islam.
According to The New York Times:
Mr. Hagan said in a 1977 affidavit that he and several accomplices . . . decided to kill Malcolm X because he was a "hypocrite" who had "gone against the leader of the Nation of Islam," Elijah Muhammad. Mr. Hagan said that after one man shot Malcolm X in the chest…
emjohnson | March 19, 2010An adolescent female orangutan practices her ape stroke.Image: Anne Russon / New Scientist
Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are not the most dexterous of creatures (especially for primates) and this is particularly true when they're in water. Zoos across the country have removed the moats surrounding their exhibits precisely because of their tendency to sink. However, researchers Anne Russon, Purwo Kuncoro, Agnes Ferisa, and Dwi Putri Handayani have just published a paper in the Journal of Comparative Psychology showing how a group of orangutans on Kaja Island in Indonesia have developed an…
emjohnson | March 18, 2010 Image Source: Monkeys in the NewsMonkeys In the News has alerted me to an Associated Press story today about a Nevada research lab, part of Charles River Laboratories, that is one of the world's largest suppliers of clinical and laboratory research services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The company was fined after thirty monkeys died as the result of not following proper procedures. While it is clear that there are necessary medical reasons for using primates in invasive experiments, I think everyone can agree that strict regulations need to be put in place to prevent…
emjohnson | March 17, 2010
The monthly anthropology blog carnival Four Stone Hearth has just been posted. Ciarán was kind enough to include two of my recent posts and there is a wealth of information for those interested in all aspects of anthropology.
emjohnson | March 16, 2010 Looking nonhumans in the eye. Image: Elephant Man by Chris GallucciIn 1927 Bertrand Russell wrote his now famous essay "Why I Am Not A Christian" and outlined the general reasons for why he rejected such an ideology. This approach has been followed by other writers such as Ibn Warraq in Why I Am Not A Muslim, Ramendra Nath in his essay "Why I Am Not A Hindu" and David Dvorkin in his "Why I Am Not A Jew." My own choice of title is not in the same tradition as these other writers (since I agree with much of what humanism has to offer), but I do share with them a concern over…
emjohnson | March 16, 2010My essay The Unseen and Unknowable Has No Place in Science has just gone up this morning in the Religion section of The Huffington Post:
Yes, religion is incompatible with science. This doesn't mean, of course, that religious people are incapable of doing science. Far from it. There are certain questions that don't probe too deeply into the foundations of a person's faith and they have no problem employing their reason to its fullest in those cases. But when reason starts to get uncomfortably close (as it has for Francis Collins, Deepak Chopra and Michael Behe) well, that's when the…