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Another publisher stonewalls on how he screwed up

That ridiculous article on Biblical diagnosis has been officially retracted, and the editor left a comment at Aetiology: As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time", which clearly does not provide the type of robust supporting data required for a case report and does not meet the high standards expected of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Virology Journal has always operated an exceptionally high standard of thorough peer…

Riding the bicycle

Much of my forthcoming book is steeped in insights about evolution that have been derived from the new paleobiological synthesis, and in doing a bit a background reading I came across an interesting tidbit. In 1980 numerous authorities on evolutionary science converged in Chicago for a conference on macroevolution. Spurred by the work of paleontologists such as Niles Eldredge, Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and Steven Stanley, the meeting's goal was to assess whether the traditional slow-and-steady model of evolution preferred by geneticists fit what paleontologists saw in the fossil record.…

A fistful of stents

Here's my status right now, for those who have been wondering. First of all, I'm not dead yet. Let's get that out of the way. Yesterday morning was the big event here in hospital-land: I was to get an angiogram, this procedure where they thread wires up your femoral artery to you heart and start poking around with dyes and things to figure out what's going on. You're conscious, mostly, through the procedure, so thought I'd live-blog it, if I could, but it turns out they don't want you monkeying around with anything while the doctors are examining you from the inside out, and there were going…

And deliver us from carnivorous elephants, amen.

An illustration of Albert Koch's reconstructed "Missourium", or an American mastodon with a few extra bones. Even though I find modern creationism to be intensely aggravating I occasionally like to browse older creationist texts. It is amusing to see how old creationist arguments have been recycled ad naseum, refitted for new uses (i.e. acceptance of evolution is responsible for [insert social ill here]), or given up entirely over time. In this latter category falls the assertion of the 19th century biblical literalist Mary Roberts that God had purposefully created, and subsequently…

Culture, Conflict, and Climate

Dr. Montgomery McFate, a noted anthropologist and Pentagon consultant currently based at the U.S. Institute for Peace, has pointed out an historical military role of her academic field in understanding the local populace during the Colonial period. Despite this intermingled history of anthropology and the military, however, modern-day defense policymakers and academic researchers rarely play well together in the proverbial sandbox. In general, a Cold War-era preoccupation with technological superiority, combined with the negative aftereffects of poor cultural understanding of opposing forces…

Is it sexist to think men are angrier than women?

Earlier today we asked readers to imagine an angry face. Then, in a surprise poll, we asked what gender the face was. So far our results match those of a study led by D. Vaughn Becker: over three-fourths of the responses were "male." In the published study, there was no difference in the response based the respondent's gender. Both men and women are much more likely to think of a male "angry" face than a female one. If we'd asked you to picture a happy face instead of an angry face, the results would switch almost as dramatically in the opposite direction: Most people say happy faces are…

Casual Fridays: Who stops for pedestrians?

The last place I lived before small-town Davidson, North Carolina, was New York City. One thing that seemed extremely different to me when I moved from New York to Davidson was the behavior of pedestrians and drivers. In New York, drivers honk at you at a stoplight to remind you that the light's going to turn green in five seconds, so you'd better get moving. In Davidson, it's rude to honk for any reason other than to say "hello." Pedestrians, too, behaved differently. In New York, they seemed to openly defy cars, almost daring them to run them down. There's a New York look that seems to say…

You can create a "false memory" in a fraction of a second

Boundary extension is a phenomenon we've discussed a lot on Cognitive Daily. It's typically described as a memory error: We remember scenes as having bigger boundaries than what we originally saw. Take a look at these two pictures of Jim: If you only saw picture A by itself, then later you'd remember seeing a picture that looks more like picture B. If you look at them side-by-side, it's easy to see that picture A is cropped closer than picture B, but if you see the pictures separately, then it's likely you'll misremember the first picture has having broader boundaries than it really has.…

Casual Fridays: Does having kids destroy your memory?

Last week we wondered how having kids affects our own childhood memories. In many ways, our kids remind us of our own childhood, allowing us to relive our favorite memories. But kids also distract us by being so adorable (or not so adorable), and with new memories that might become more prominent than the old ones. My own experience suggests that kids do remind me of my own childhood. Now that Jim and Nora are teenagers I find myself thinking about my own experience in high school -- sometimes about memories I hadn't considered for decades. But maybe that's an illusion. What I would have…

Should you let your toddler watch TV?

When Jimmy was around 18 months old, Greta and I were both in graduate school. I attended classes at night and Greta taught and worked in the lab during the day. In the late afternoon I'd drive into the city with Jimmy in the car seat, and we'd swap -- she'd drive back home and I'd go to class, taking the train back home when I was done. At this point, Greta was extremely pregnant with Nora. She was exhausted at the end of her workday, but Jimmy had usually taken a nap in the car, so he was raring to go. All Greta wanted to do was lie down and take a rest, and fortunately, there was one way…

Julian would not appreciate the praise of David B. Hart

I think I'm beginning to figure David B. Hart out. I've been totally mystified about why anyone would consider him a credible or interesting thinker since reading his essay belittling the New Atheists, which was dreary and wearying — I compared his prose style to that of Eeyore. But note: one of his central points in that essay was that these New Atheists aren't as smart and brave as the Old Atheists, an idea that comes up again in a new essay. Hart has now written a column praising Julian the Apostate, of all people. Julian was a very interesting person in history, a 4th century Roman…

Latest Toy Scandal: Asbestos

You would think it would take a sociopath to put rel="tag" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos">asbestos in a children's toy.  You'd be right.  Yet, it has happened.  Stranger yet, Canada has adopted legislation that explicitly permits this. Asbestos became infamous when it was linked to href="http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec05/ch057/ch057c.html#sec05-ch057-ch057c-1022" rel="tag">mesothelioma, an otherwise rare form of cancer affecting the lining of the lung cavity.  It is considered to be incurable.  It takes an average of thirty years to show up, after exposure to asbestos…

How Climate Change Is Like the Iraq War

Today is Blog Action Day, during which many persons have agreed to write a blog post about environmental concerns.  This is one of thousands. Consider Climate Change, and consider the Iraq War.  Other than both being among the biggest mistakes ever made by humans, it is not obvious, immediately, that they have much in common.  However, there are common elements, and those common elements help explain why the threat from both is persisting so long... Both Climate Change, and the Iraq War, are going to be enormously expensive.  But for both, the bulk of the expenses are going to be paid later…

It's Easy to Misread David's intentions

class="inset" alt="Crusade Radio logo" title="Crusade Radio logo" src="http://www.crusaderadio.com/christianradiohdr.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="131" width="304">This topic has been covered by href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/more_christian_curses.php">Ed Brayton, href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/08/drake_endorses_huckabee_huckab.php">twice, and by href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/lightning_bolts_boils_sour_bee.php">PZ Myers.  This is a little update. A minister made headlines a couple of weeks ago when he called…

A little dose of hemp will cure everything

Do these claims make you at all suspicious? A few people on Twitter told me I should look into this panacea. Cures heart disease! Eases anxiety and depression! Removes unsightly moles! Arthritis! Snoring! Diarrhea! Acne! Diabetes! Removes warts! Mighraines! Lose weight! Alcoholism! Glaucoma! IT CURES CANCER! All forms of cancer! And all without any detrimental effects whatsoever! Add to the extravagant medical claims, the additional accusation that you can't get this treatment because of a conspiracy by BigPharma and greedy, grasping doctors who want people to suffer so they…

Things That Affect YOU: PDUFA and AERS

The href="http://content.nejm.org/" rel="tag">New England Journal of Medicine has a set of three early-release editorials, all pertaining to prescription drug safety, and all openly accessible: href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp078041">Paying for Drug Approvals — Who's Using Whom? Jerry Avorn, M.D. face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp078057">Drug Safety Reform at the FDA — Pendulum Swing or Systematic Improvement? Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D. href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp078048…

Six things departments can do to make interviews more comfortable

Following up on Alice's excellent discussion-starter post on "negotiating the illegal questions on an academic job interview," I'd like to offer a few thoughts from the departmental side of the equation. Anyone with more or different experiences should also chime in below. First of all, search committees, and really anyone in the department who will interact with the candidate, should get correct and up-to-date information on university policies and relevant laws. Then nobody can pretend to be in the dark about which questions are off the table. I haven't served on a search committee, but…

The Wonderfully Tasty, and Deadly, Fugu

One of the more, uh, interesting culinary experiences I have had in Asia was ordering fugu (pufferfish) sushi at a Japanese restaurant in China. A few moments after my order, a plate was sat in front of me that contained lots of fresh, white sushi slices...positioned just below the still-gasping decapitated fugu head. My dad was so disturbed that he asked the waitress to take the fugu head away while I happily chomped away at the delicious sushi. Well, at least I knew it was fresh! The fugu, or pufferfish, is a delicacy in Asia (and particularly Japan) due to the dangers inherent in…

A tribute to Isis, Aimee Mullins, and great shoes

Last night, I dreamed that I had a closet full of seriously amazing shoes, from strappy stilettos to lace-up boots. When I awoke and remembered that my closet is actually full of uncomfortable work pumps and trail runners, I was disappointed. But I knew who to blame for my dream: Isis! Ever since Isis arrived at Scienceblogs, I've been meaning to post something about shoes. When our resident domestic and laboratory goddess saved me a couple hours of driving to and from the office on Saturday by emailing me a journal article I'd forgotten, I promised to write her a thank-you post all about…

Donors Choose Update

Wow! I originally picked five projects to include in my DonorsChoose challenge, and within a few days, one of the projects was fully funded thanks to my readers and other donors around the country. As of right now, four of the six projects currently in my challenge have been fully funded, and I'm going to have to pick some more projects to tickle your generous impulses. Let me share with you the feedback I've gotten from teachers whose challenges I donated to: Pond Biology: a universe in a drop of water is now becoming a reality for the students of Mr. Enguidanos, who wrote you this note:…

Truth Serum, LSD, the CIA, and Free Will

Watching the movie "The Good Shepherd" got me thinking about something: are truth serums real? And if so, has any been proven to work? There was a scene in TGS where a prisoner who was believed to be lying was administered LSD. Now obviously THAT wasn't a real truth serum (unless you want to hear about the innate truth of teacups or something), but if the CIA was using LSD they were likely using other candidates as well. Lets just assume for a moment that there existed some potion that extracted the truth from people, rendered them unable to lie when questioned. Wouldn't that negate free…

If I Don't Remember Eating It, I Didn't Eat It: Memory and Food Intake

Given the ubiquitousness of weight, obesity, and eating discussions these days, I thought I'd talk about some research that has, for some reason, stuck in my mind since I first heard about it a few years ago. It concerns the relationship between memory and eating. We all know that the desire to eat isn't just about the physiological condition of being hungry. Stress, depression, loneliness, and all sorts of other psychological states can make us want to eat more than we otherwise would. So it should come as no surprise that eating has "psychological" components. It may surprise you to learn,…

Ambiguous Loss

One important concept in psychotherapy studies is the concept of href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Efamlygrf/units/ambiguous.html">ambiguous loss.  This is a loss that is, in some way, less than definitive.  If you are at the hospital visiting an ill beloved family member, and see the death, it is perfectly clear that a specific loved one has in fact died.  If you are mature enough to grasp the permanence of the loss, is it unambiguous. Many losses, however, are ambiguous.  Examples include infertility, when the loss is a loss of opportunity, as opposed to the loss of a specific person; a…

Co-optization of Continuing Medical Education

JAMA has an article on the history of continuing medical education (CME).  Annoyingly, they did not make it one of the open-access articles, so they don't get a link.  However, there are some telling excerpts and some good commentary over at href="http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-jama-history-of-cme-when-will-we.html">The Carlat Psychiatry Blog. There was a time when families used to sit, all together, at the dinner table, and eat dinner together.  I grew up in those days.  Dad, an MD, would sit at the head of the table.  My little sisters would sit next to him.  The…

New Premedical Curriculum?

Harvard Medical School recently completed a review of their required premedical curriculum, culminating with the development of recommended changes.  The outcome of this process is reported in an article in the recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.  It's one of their open-access articles: href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/3/221">Relevance and Rigor in Premedical Education Jules L. Dienstag, M.D. In recent decades, scientific knowledge has changed dramatically, once-settled scientific principles have been replaced by more sophisticated concepts and…

HIV/AIDS in Prisons

Everyone knows that HIV is American prisons is a huge problem, but we don't hear much about it. There are several reasons for that. For one, prisons are unpleasant places, and for the most part, we don't want to think about what goes on there. For another, many people figure that whatever happens to prisoners is their problem; some even assume that whatever happens to inmates is part of their well-deserved punishment. Perhaps homophobia is a factor, too. For some, it may be unpleasant for them to think about one of the modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS. Not that any mode is particularly nice…

Thoughts About P4P

Pay-for-performance is one of the buzzwords in health care financing these days.  I haven't been following it much, but Dr. Gault has, over at target="_blank">retired doc's thoughts.  His latest:  title="Site: retired doc's thoughts" href="http://mdredux.blogspot.com/2006/12/ama-president-nails-p4p-for-what-it-is.html" target="_blank">AMA President nails P4P for what it is at AMA Interim meeting.  Needless to say, the President of the AMA is skeptical, as are many physicians.  Dr. Reider, at Family Medicine Notes, wonders if the President's statements reflect the overall position…

What's Up Postdoc? (Edition #6)

Postdoctoral fellows of the world Unite and take over - The Anonymous Postdocs Before we get started I need to make this special announcement: If you would like to host a future edition of What's Up Postdoc? please email Propter Doc. Now on to the main event ... Welcome to edition number 6 of What's Up Postdoc?, the carnival of postdoc-hood and all related matters. Starting off. In the US there seems to be a crisis (so they say) - not enough young Americans are choosing scientific careers. Is this so? And why? You can join the discussion over at Eye on Science. Lou over at A Scientist's Life…

Put the blame where it belongs: God and the Republican Party

We are so screwed. That's the result of a new survey of people's attitudes toward evolution. Notice where the United States lies: nearly dead last. We beat Turkey. There was more to this study than just asking whether a person agreed with the statement that "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." They also collected other data on age, gender, education, genetic literacy, religious belief, attitude toward life, attitude toward science and technology, belief in science and technology, reservations about science and technology, and political ideology, and…

Friday Sprog Blogging: just add water.

One afternoon, the Free-Ride offspring were in the mood for some spur of the moment experimentation. So, we cleared the kitchen table, rummaged through the cupboards, and came up with a plan. The question we decided to investigate: What happens to different dry ingredients when you add water to them? We put each of the dry ingredients in its own little bowl. (If they got mixed up, that would make it harder to figure out what was going on.) Also, to help us remember what was in each bowl, we labeled the wooden sticks that we used to stir once the water was added. The dry…

What kind of impact do we really have?

There's a question I've been thinking about intermittently (over the course of several years) that I thought I'd lay out here, on the theory that you all have a track record of sharing smart and insightful things (including related questions of your own) in the comments. One of the things that potentially makes a human life good (at least, from the point of view of the person living it) is setting aims and directing one's efforts toward meeting those aims. For many people, these aims run along the lines of making the world a better place for others in some particular way - by reducing…

A few thoughs on conferences.

It's been pretty quiet here. Not only have I been engrossed in preparations for the Spring semester (classes start today), but I also went to the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference. So it seems like a good time to ruminate a bit on how conferences fit into the patterns of (my) academic life. The official reasons academics go to conferences include presenting their work to others in their field and finding out what other people in the field are working on. In the "scholarly communication" hierarchy, giving a talk or presenting a poster is less valued than getting a peer-reviewed…

Green gingerbread construction.

As I mentioned earlier, the sprogs and I decided to try our hands at building an entry for the contest to build a gingerbread house using sustainable building design practices. We read up on principles of sustainable design and stocked up on unsulfured molasses and powdered sugar. Here's what we did and what we learned. Every engineering project involves working within constraints. For starters, there are the contest rules: Everything must be edible. However half-baked (har har), there must be at least FOUR identifiable sustainable building design elements. Your design must include a…

How do you think we ought to deal with information about bad actors?

This is a follow-up, of a sort, to the previous post on why serious discussions (as opposed to shouting matches or PR campaigns) about the use of animals in research seem to be so difficult to have. One of the contentious issues that keeps coming up in the comments is how (if at all) such discussions ought to deal with prior bad acts that may not be representative of what's happened since, or even of the actions of most of the scientific community at the time of those prior bad acts. My sense, however, is that the real issue is who we think we can engage in a serious reasoned dialogue with…

Friday Sprog Blogging: Just Gimme Some Truth*

Since the internets are abuzz with discussion about truth, I decided to get some input from the smartest members of my household. Dr. Free-Ride: Wakey wakey! Younger offspring: (groggily) I don't want to get out of bed yet. Dr. Free-Ride: That's fine. Can I ask you some questions? Younger offspring: (simultaneously nodding and burrowing further under the covers) Mmm hmm. Dr. Free-Ride: If I ask you some questions, do you think you can tell me your answers? Younger offspring: If I know what the answers are I will. Dr. Free-Ride: Can you tell me what truth means? Younger offspring: Not…

How chemistry makes me feel. (One from the vault for National Chemistry Week.)

We're just past the midpoint of National Chemistry Week, so I thought I'd share a "classic" post (from last year's National Chemistry Week) about how studying chemistry can nourish one's human yearnings. What's so great about chemistry? Of course, if you're a kid, chemistry has the allure of magic -- something might explode! (For those averse to permanent damage, there are plenty of cool chemistry activities that are much safer than whatever my brother did with his store-bought chemistry set to scorch the hell out of our parents' card table.) But I suspect it's real charm for students, at…

U6 soccer and the Nobel Prize.

I've been thinking about Zuska's post on the negative impacts the Nobel Prizes might be having on the practice of good science. She quotes N. David Mermin, who opines: [T]he system [of prizes] had become a destructive force...these things are systematically sought after by organized campaigns, routinely consuming oceans of time and effort. I feel the pull of this worry -- although I'm also sympathetic to a view Rob Knop voiced in a comment: What I like about the Nobel Prize : once a year, there is a celebration of science that almost impinges upon the public consciousness. Yes, we are…

Friday Sprog Blogging: gross stuff makes learning fun!

Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, can you get your slime lizard [a plastic lizard embedded in slimy goo] off the table before dinner? Elder offspring: Sure. Dr. Free-Ride: Why do you two like gross stuff so much? Younger offspring: I don't know. Elder offspring: We just do. The sprogs like learning. And, the sprogs like things that are gross. Today, they offer a selection of books to show how the icky can enhance the informational. Informational but not icky: Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints by Millicent E. Selsam, illustrated by Marlene Hill Donnelly. This book helps kids to…

Another outing

An infamously anti-gay Lutheran pastor, Tom Brock, has been outed as gay himself. Unfortunately, the outing is ethically compromised by the fact that the writer accomplished it by infiltrating a confidential 12-step program for gay men dealing with "chastity issues". Basically, he had to violate a promise of confidentiality. This is a tough one; if the program were a sincere effort by these men to deal honestly with their sexual orientation, then this revelation violates trust and reduces the effectiveness of the program, and does actual harm to innocent participants. I can't condone that.…

The challenge of drawing principled lines.

The new piece by Natalie Angier at the New York Times may make things a little more ticklish for people who pick their food on the basis of the characteristics it has or lacks as an organism: [B]efore we cede the entire moral penthouse to "committed vegetarians" and "strong ethical vegans," we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity…

Friday Sprog Blogging: dating.

I do not know why, in December, the Free-Ride offspring turn their attention to questions of evidence and testimony. (I do worry, however, that by this time next year the elder Free-Ride offspring may become a 12-25 truther.) This week, the sprogs considered ways to establish dates that don't rely solely on the testimony of someone who was there. Younger offspring: I wonder when the first paper airplane was invented. Dr. Free-Ride: Sometime after the invention of paper, I imagine. Dr. Free-Ride's better half: Paper was invented a looong time ago. Elder offspring: By the ancient Egyptians.…

Will the autism "biomed" underground ever renounce using bleach to treat autism?

I know, I know, I've been writing about MMS a lot. Don't worry. Barring some unforeseen development, this will probably be the last one for a while. However, I just had to comment again because this is just too funny (not to mention that I didn't have a lot of time last night because, yes, I had to work on a grant application). Remember how I mentioned the pro-MMS petition in which Jim Humble, the man who had the revelation that you can bleach away whatever disease you're suffering from, demanded that Emily Willingham (who did a Change.org petition demanding that Kerri Rivera stop treating…

Why do I even bother with the Internet any more????

I very rarely read a story on the WCCO web site. That's my local news station. I don't scroll down below the headlines, and that by the way means that I don't see any of the wonderful ads that are down there. I often don't respond to facebook conversations with anything more than a sentence, but rather, put my thoughts in a text editor and then post them somewhere, usually not facebook. Lately, I've stopped with any extensive responses on Google+ as well. Why? Well imagine that you are using the ancient technologies of pen and paper, writing an important letter while at work. And…

Brain response to facial expression in autistic individuals and their siblings

Siblings of those diagnosed with autism are more than 20 times as likely as members of the general population to also have autism. Some of these siblings also show evidence of autism-like but less marked cognitive and social communication problems. This suggests that autism has either an environmental cause typically found in all siblings during development or childhood or a strong heritable component, but there is not a known genetic link or a well established biological marker. A biological marker other than observed behavioral deficits would be a neurological phenotype such as might be…

300

The movie 300 has finally arrived in Morris, and I saw it last evening. I'd heard a lot about this film, in particular that it was loaded with relationships to current events—the war in Iraq, in particular, with arguments for it being pro-war, anti-war, a jingoistic propaganda film, etc. The arguments are all wrong. I could tell exactly what this movie's hidden meaning was: it's a retelling of the creation-evolution struggle! "But of course!" you're all saying to yourselves, "It's so obvious, now that you mention it!" Look at the beginning. It's all about how the Spartans are the products of…

Will schoolkids be stuck with creationist textbook "supplements"?

Yes, apparently. PROPOSED INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS PUT SCIENCE EDUCATION, PUBLIC SCHOOLS AT RISK IN TEXAS Vendor's creationist materials could be used in public school science classes around the state FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 25, 2011 CONTACTS: Dan Quinn (TFN), 512.322.0545, 512.799.3379 (mobile); Robert Luhn (NCSE), 510.601.7203 x314, luhn@ncse.com Science in Texas public schools would take a shocking leap backward if the State Board of Education approves newly proposed instructional materials that promote creationism and reject established, mainstream science on evolution, said the Texas…

It's not just surgeons anymore!

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly it's a bad thing that another physician is diving head-first into the pseudoscience that is "intelligent design" creationism and making a of himself in the process. On the other hand, at least this time it's not a surgeon: A Columbia medical professor made his case for scientific acceptance of "intelligent design" last night and found himself taking fire from his peers for his view. John Marshall, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, argued in front of about 100 people in a University Hospital…

Emancipation Proclamation

On this day in 1862, the following proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln: By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then…

I might or might not be a science journalist

One of the great things about Coturnix is that he brings two context-broadening tools to the table in any discussion: Synchronic and diachronic. In a recent post (Am I a Science Journalist? he adds the diachronic. I had not previously realized or considered (or at lest, not thought it relevant) that early science journalists were not trained in journalism school, as has been the case recently. Recognizing this serves to place the professionalized (read "fetishied") version of journalism in a different light, and weakens models of modern practice that rely on potentially constraining…

Ridicule is a useful tool

And Federal Way is feeling its sting right now. The kooks who promote foolish ideas are one target for ridicule, and this Frosty Hardison character is a prime example. He's got a reply to the Seattle PI article that exposed him; it's a MS Word file that doesn't help his case. It starts off with a collection of bogus complaints about climate science, and just gets weirder and weirder. Here are a few choice bits. It's people like Al Gore, in both the Democratic and Republican parties and any other person on earth (no matter their political affiliation) that continue supporting the liberal…