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Another antivaccine-sympathetic pediatrician "reassures" his patients about the southern California measles outbreak

As hard as it is to believe, I've actually "known" pediatrician to the antivaccine stars (such as Jenny McCarthy), "Dr. Jay" Gordon, for nearly nine years now. It began back in 2005 when I first noticed him writing blogs full of antivaccine nonsense at the then-new group blog, The Huffington Post, where I noted antivaccine rhetoric running rampant, complete with amazing examples of what I like to call the "pharma shill" gambit. Since then, he's periodically come to my attention, be it for nonsense equating vaccine manufacturers to tobacco companies, falling headlong for the bogus "toxins"…

When the Effects of Global Warming run Smack Into the Cause of Global Warming

Five ships have sunk, so far, in the vicinity of the Kerch Strait, linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, in an incredible storm. One of the ships was a Russian tanker carrying 1,300 tons of fuel oil. Claims are being made that this is one of the worst environmental disasters ever. One of the things that lends significance to this disaster, regardless of how bad the environmental effects are, is the large number of ships that have sunk or have been rescued, and the dozens of sailors that appear to have died. The catch is that this is a result of one of those extreme storms that we seem…

Walking With Dinosaurs, LIVE!

A mother Tyrannosaurus rex and her offspring at the end of the WWD live show. Robotic dinosaurs have long been a thorn in the side of students of paleontology; the rigid, roaring robots of the "DinoMotion" craze of the 1990's did little more than get more people into museums without providing them with any actual information about the extinct animals. Stephen Jay Gould laments this theme park treatment of dinosaurs in his essay "Dinomania" (compiled in Dinosaur in a Haystack); As a symbol of our dilemma, consider the plight of natural history museums in the light of commercial dinomania.…

Science Fair for Mere Mortals

After judging the science fair last week, I would like to revisit my tips for you the science fair participant. Warning number 1 Some of the things I say here might go against what your teacher has told you. I am not sure what you should do in this case. Your teacher gives you a grade and I am just some dude on the internet. Proceed at your own risk. Oh, and maybe you are a teacher. I think that is great that you are seeking more tips for your students. However, note that I have not read any science fair rules. I am merely thinking about science fair projects from a science viewpoint.…

Loss Aversion

The amygdala is an almond shaped chunk of flesh in the center of your brain. It's long been associated with a wide variety of mostly negative emotions and behaviors, from the generation of fear to the memory of painful associations. (There's some suggestive evidence that sociopaths have a broken amygdala. Because they can't learn from their moral mistakes, they don't comprehend morality.) And now there's solid evidence that the amygdala also underlies one of the most potent human biases: loss aversion. To understand this bias, it helps to take a little quiz, which was pioneered by the great…

Disco. 'tute: Dawkins too scary for kids, too mean to miracles

Satanism" title="Richard Dawkins -> Satanism" /> Richard Dawkins has a new book out â for kids no less â and Casey Luskin is on the case. Luskin, you'll recall is the Disco. 'tute's chief pettifogger (in the classical sense), and his tendency to work himself into uncanny heights of excitement over every new creationist argument has earned him the affectionate nickname "fainting dachshund." Dawkins's book is about myths, how we tell stories to explain things, but that sometimes those stories aren't true, and how science offers a way to tell stories that are true, and how kids can tell…

Missing the Point

Jason Rosenhouse has a long post up claiming I missed the point in my post a few days ago about the lessons communication science can teach us about the accommodationism spat. The two things I came away from his post thinking were: 1) wow, did he miss my point! and 2) we're talking about very different things. First, to the question of whether I "missed the point," the question posed by Jerry Coyne was not about how to promote atheism. The question I was answering was about whether emphasizing spirituality could help more people accept evolution. At least, that's what I take Coyne's "come…

We told you so

When Sam Harris first broached the topic of his latest book in a YouTube video, Sean Carroll made a thoughtful criticism of the talk, and Harris replied via Twitter: "Please know that I will be responding to this stupidity." He did reply, though never successfully addressing the arguments offered against his position. He's studiously ignored the most salient criticisms of his thesis since then (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here, and here), perhaps hoping no one would notice the giant hole in the middle of his argument. Now that his book's come out, it turns out he didn't address those…

Friday Random 10, 3/27/2009

The Flower Kings, "Retropolis By Night": Not one of the best things ever by the Flower Kings, but Roine Stolt's mediocre is other peoples' brilliant. Porcupine Tree, "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here": very typical longish PT. Very good. Moxy Fruvous, "The King of Spain": incredibly silliness. Moxy is a Toronto-based group that does mostly comic songs, frequently a capella. It's extremely funny and very fun - particularly if you see it live. Alas, Moxy went on what seems to be permanent hiatus a few years ago, after releasing an amazingly lackluster final album. Genesis, "Mad Man Moon":…

Antibiotic Resistance Is a Breakdown of Infection Control

Because this week is really hectic, I just want to follow up on this post I wrote about MRSA. One of the hidden stories in the rise in the frequency of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains is that this has also been accompanied by an absolute increase in the number of infections. In other words, it's not the case that you used to have 90 sensitive infections and 10 resistant infections per year in your hospital, and now, you have 50 sensitive and 50 resistant infections (which would be bad enough). Instead, you have the same 90 sensitive infections and 90 resistant infections (for a…

Anne Kornblut, F-ck You

Glenn Greenwald catches Washington Post political 'reporter' Anne Kornblut impugning the patriotism of millions of Democrats: The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut, analyzing the differences between Republicans and Democrats on Iraq, explained on Tuesday night's Hardball: ANNE KORNBLUT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It remains, especially in Democratic crowds, the number-one issue. There is no applause line that gets a bigger response when you're out with Senator Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, than when they say the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start ending this war in…

Did I Mention Something About Antibiotics and Viral Infections?

I've discussed before how the misdiagnosis of viral infections, typically respiratory illnesses, leads to massive improper use of antibiotics. It's a problem in the UK too. From ScripNews (subscription only): Antibiotics are prescribed to treat up to 80% of cases of sore throat, otitis media, upper respiratory tract infections and sinusitis in England and Wales, even though official guidance advises against this, a study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy has revealed. The study was undertaken on behalf of the specialist advisory committee on antimicrobial resistance (…

Is Merit Pay the Answer?

By way of Brad Delong, I stumbled across this column by Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus calling for merit pay for teachers. Centrist Democrats, particularly those who suffer from a touch of Compulsive Centrist Disorder, have been pushing this since the early 80s. And it makes no sense to me. When I think about science education, these are the areas that I think need dramatic improvement: 1) Fully equipped science laboratories. You actually have to do some science occasionally. 2) Funding for the occasional trip to a museum, nature preserve, or science lab. 3) Smaller class sizes.…

Dear Intelligent Designer...Levels of Selection

Again. ScienceBlogling razib discusses some noises various biologists are making about levels of selection (I've touched on this topic before in the context of group selection). Sweet Baby Intelligent Designer, save us from this madness. I've been through this before--hell, I've even published stuff related to the topic**, and there isn't much there except for intellectual masturbationuninteresting and bad philosophy. If it doesn't provide me with testable hypotheses and the conceptual tools to do so, it's just not useful. That's what happened the last go around with this in the late 80s…

Two Good Healthcare Related Items

Revere busts another myth about the Canadian healthcare system--ER waiting times: But 70% [in Canada] saw someone within 15 minutes. In the US, wait times for cases requiring immediate attention as determined by a triage nurse are almost that long -- 14 minutes according to a recent study. Average wait times for heart attack victims? An average of 20 minutes, with one quarter of them waiting 50 minutes or more in the US. Heart attack victims. One quarter wait almost an hour to be seen. One reason is that US emergency rooms are crowded with patients that otherwise would see their primary care…

Senator Obama, Enough with the Fuzzy Wuzzy Talk

I don't want "hope", I want good policies, politics, and results. Obama demonstrates exactly how not to argue against Republican militarism. From Ezra Klein: I'm sympathetic to what I think Obama was trying to say, but the point is better put more simply -- to have the best shot at winning national security arguments with John McCain, the Democrats need a candidate who didn't support the invasion of Iraq. After all, McCain won't be tarred with the specific acts of "incompetence" that are frequently (and misleadingly) alleged to have been responsible for disaster in Iraq. The Democratic…

Five Simple Steps to Cutting Nosocomial Deaths

A couple of weeks back I posted about the Office of Human Research Protections' shutting down a highly effective infection control program. In the NY Times, Jane Brody discusses the program further. Here's the list of the five things the hospitals used to combat hospital-acquired infections: When inserting a central venous catheter, doctors should do the following: 1. Wash their hands with soap. 2. Clean the patient's skin with chlorhexidine antiseptic. 3. Put sterile drapes over the entire patient. 4. Wear a sterile mask, hat, gown and gloves. 5. Put a sterile dressing over the catheter…

Guilt, Neocons, and the Swing to the Israeli Right

I had read this NY Times review by Timothy Noah of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, but, until maha revisited it, I hadn't realized that I missed the importance of one part of the review (italics mine): Just about the only place the neoconservative movement can't locate Hitler is Nazi Germany. As late as 1944, the founding-neocon-to-be, Irving Kristol, publicly dismissed the "near hysterical insistence upon the pressing military danger," Jacob Heilbrunn reports in his new book, "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons." While the Nazis herded Jews into the gas…

'Defending' Freedom Isn't Free, Particularly When Wiretappers Don't Pay Their Bills

The sound you're hearing is the heads of everyone who cares about civil liberties going BOOM! According to the AP, the telephone companies cut off the FISA wiretap programs when they weren't paid on time: Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time. A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000. In at…

Matt Stoller Wants His Dog Whistle Too

Apparently, Matt Stoller, like the Mad Biologist, wants to hear a dog whistle from Obama too (italics mine): 74% of young caucus goers self-identified as Democrats, and 73% self-identified is liberals. Yeah, that's some post-partisan and post-ideological generation coming through the ranks. This is actually one of my great frustrations with the Obama campaign and Obama supporters. Even when Obama wins a victory on the back of the liberal, creative class vote, both his campaign and his supporters--most of whom are liberals--repeat the mantra that the victory was some sort of post-partisan and…

Rising Income Inequality and the Bush Administration: It's a Bug, Not a Feature

At least, that's what the latest CBO data suggest. Paul Krugman summarizes the change in after-tax income between 2003-2005: Here's what the numbers say about percentage gains in after-tax income from 2003 to 2005: Bottom quintile: 2% Next quintile: 2.4% Middle quintile: 3.9% Fourth quintile: 3.7% Top quintile: 16% Top 10%: 20.9% Top 5%: 27.7% Top 1%: 43.5% It was a boom, all right -- but only for a few people. Once you get to the top fifth it gets very interesting. Compare the top quintile increase of 16% to the top tenth increase of 20.9%. When you consider that the top quintile contains…

Abortion, Stem Cells, In Vitro Fertilization, and Tribalism

Michael Kinsley sums up the ethical inconsistency of the Blastocyst Liberationists: Third, although the political dilemma that stem cells pose for politicians is real enough, the moral dilemma is not and never was. The embryos used in stem-cell research come from fertility clinics, which otherwise would discard them. This has been a powerful argument in favor of such research. Why let these embryos go to waste? But a more important point is, What about fertility clinics themselves? In vitro fertilization ("test-tube babies") involves the purposeful creation of multiple embryos, knowing and…

More Racism in a 'Post-Racist' Society

Until Katrina hit, it had become increasingly fashionable to talk about the U.S. as a 'post-racist' society (and that fashion continues, albeit in abated form). Unfortunately, forced marches of desperate black people have a way of putting the kabosh on that. By way of digby, comes this heartwarming story from Arkansas about 'post-racist' America (italics mine): The chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas called Wednesday for state Sen. Denny Altes, R-Fort Smith, to apologize for e-mail comments attributed to the Senate GOP leader by a television station. ....In the e-mail on the…

While We're All Worrying About Britney's Hair...

...El Jefe Maximo is still pushing the elimination of the estate tax because the offspring of the ludicrously wealthy need a break: If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years. The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion. Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights…

The War on Science Continues

Bush is trying to do an end run around the newly elected Democratic Congress. Because we all know the American people spoke clearly in the last election, and they said, "We want to gut environmental and worker protection!" From the NY Times (italics mine): President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy. In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a…

What I've Always Wanted to Say About Dawkins and Religion

Now that I've pissed some people off about rape*, I thought I would calm things down by turning to a more sedate topic: Richard Dawkins and religion. Everytime Dawkins has issued one of his proclamations about religion, I've wanted to respond, but the words have never come out quite right. Thankfully, Barbara O'Brien has written a wonderful post that sums up exactly what I think: What Dawkins writes about religion is, IMO, generally true of that part of religion he is writing about. Unfortunately, like every other fundamentalist atheist I've ever encountered, he is profoundly ignorant about…

Should Antibiotics Be Given a Separate Regulatory Drug Category?

Well, we do it for narcotics. From Yahoo News: International experts debated whether antibiotics merit a separate regulatory drug category at a World Congress held on December 11 and 12 at the Hyatt Regency Boston Hotel. "We proposed this drastic action because antibiotic resistance is undermining infectious disease treatment worldwide and many large pharmaceutical companies are leaving the antibiotic field," explains Stuart B. Levy, MD, a Tufts Medical School professor and president of APUA, the global public health organization convening the meeting. Pharmaceutical companies spend an…

The 80s Redux: The Ketchup Is a Vegetable Edition

For you younguns, in the 80s, the USDA decided to define ketchup as a serving of vegetables so it could skimp on subsidized meals for needy schoolchildren. Well, the USDA has decided to stop using the word "hunger" and replace it with "very low food security." Here's some statistics on "very low food security": Some are not happy with the Orwellian double speak: Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and…

"I am pleased that we had an effect in this case"

That was the response of the head of Stop the ACLU to publicizing the names, address, and telephone numbers of the Dobrich family who were suing the Indian River School District in Delaware for violating the separation of church and state by using the public schools to indoctrinate students in Christianity. This led to widespread intimidation that ultimately forced the Dobrich family, along with another, unidentified family to move out of the district. Jesus' General decided this would be a perfect opportunity for satire, and so, wrote a letter to Nedd Karieva. Karieva responded (italics…

Religious Bigotry: The Good, the Bad, and the Puzzling

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 vote for a Mormon 21% of Americans would not vote for an evangelical Christian 15% of Americans would not vote for a Jew 10% of Americans would not vote for a Roman Catholic (an aside: I disagree with Razib about Gov. Mitt Romney. I think the real problem Romney will face is not his Mormonism,…

The Good and the Bad About Internet Campaign Finance

By way of AmericaBlog comes this news about the Democrats' fundraising: According to the Washington Post -- and Ken Mehlman -- Democrats are competitive with the Republicans in fundraising this year because of the internet: NC Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose committee has seen a 10 percent fundraising drop, compared with 2004, said Internet fundraising has allowed Democrats to reach a new group of liberal donors and narrow the GOP's edge with individuals. But he said his party still holds a solid financial lead because of money raised by state parties. Still, the trends at the national level are…

Isaac Asimov and the fuzzy nature of knowledge

It's an odd thing that when people list great science popularizers of the past, names like Sagan and Feynman always pop up, but most people seem to have forgotten Isaac Asimov, who wrote some fabulous essays on understanding science. Here's one example, in which he addresses a claim we hear all the time, that the errors of the past mean our knowledge now is on very shaky ground. He's answering a complaint from an English Lit student who chastised Asimov for thinking he knew anything at all. The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that…

I See Stupid People: The JD Hayworth Edition

Some stupid is so powerful that it can only be viewed safely through the StupidViewer 9000 (from here) Here's a joke: a Republican staffer of a conservative Christian Republican goes into a synagogue and tells the congregation that his candidate is more Jewish than they are. It's not very funny, and, sadly, it's true. You see, Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona has a slight Jewish problem. It started when he supported Henry Ford's Americanization program, claiming that Ford's program was only trying to get immigrants to speak English. What is the Americanization program?…

And on the Economic Front, Things Aren't Going So Well Either

This is one way to deal with looming un- and underemployment. From the NY Times: COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 12 (AP) -- A man who could not find steady work came up with a plan to make it through the next few years until he could collect Social Security: He robbed a bank, handed the money to a guard and waited for the police. On Wednesday, the man, Timothy J. Bowers, told a judge that a three-year prison sentence would suit him, and the judge obliged. "At my age, the jobs available to me are minimum-wage jobs," Mr. Bowers, who will turn 63 in a few weeks, told the judge, Angela White. "There is age…

Time to Cut and Run: Even Conservatives Think So

There has been an argument by some liberal hawks that once we entered Iraq, it was our obligation to fix it (the whole "Pottery Barn" metaphor). This always honked me off because I knew from the get-go that this whole thing would go sideways. Nonetheless, there was a brief window after the fall of Saddam Hussein to get things to a stable enough point where we could declare Democracy and leave. If we Bush had prevented the looting of Baghdad, restored some basic services, and held elections when Gen. Garner (ret.) had wanted (over a year before they were actually held), mabye this whole…

Put Early Primaries in Large States

David Broder has a silly column in the Washington Post where he argues that how unjust it is that people want to dethrone New Hampshire as the second primary state (Brad DeLong and Kevin Drum have nice rebuttals of Broder). Broder's argument is truly ridiculous: what great source of wisdom flows from New Hampshire and Iowa that is absent elsewhere? But Broder's column gives me a chance to discuss a criterion which should be used to choose the early primary states. When primary season rolls around (which now starts about two years before the general election...), there's a lot of talk about…

Frank Rich on the Lamont Hype

Frank Rich in the NY Times has a good analysis of the Lamont primary victory in CT, although I think he downplays what it means for the Democratic Party. Rich writes: The hyperbole that has greeted the Lamont victory in some quarters is far more revealing than the victory itself. In 2006, the tired Rove strategy of equating any Democratic politician's opposition to the Iraq war with cut-and-run defeatism in the war on terror looks desperate. The Republicans are protesting too much, methinks. A former Greenwich selectman like Mr. Lamont isn't easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman…

That Whole Separation of Church and State Thingee...

The NY Times has a very interesting article about an evangelical minister who decided that subordinating his religious beliefs to the Republican Party and the Holy Defender of the Blessed Blastocyst was a bad idea: After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns. "When the church…

Cheney, the Fourth Branch, and Shoddy Journalism

Following Cheney's claim that he is not part of the executive branch, the Washington Post ran a story detailing Cheney's reach throughout the executive branch. Laura Rozen relates a fascinating letter from a veteran editor: A careful reading of the story of Cheney's coup against a feeble executive reveals that paragraphs 7 through 10 were written and inserted in haste by a powerful editorial hand. The banging of colliding metaphors in an otherwise carefully written piece is evidence of last-minute interpolations by a bad editor whom no one has the power to rewrite..... That in turn suggests…

We Didn't Create Hamas, But We Did...

...help them win the election. Over at Thoughts from Kansas, ScienceBlogling Josh has a post about who and what are responsible for the current civil war in the West Bank and Gaza. In any discussion of the Middle East, all sorts of things will be claimed, but there is one awful historical fact: American and Israeli pressure on the Palestinian Authority to change their electoral system helped Hamas win the 2006 elections. The original electoral system that Palestinians had was completely proportional. If a party won forty percent of the votes, it received forty percent of the seats in…

Teaching Tolerance and Freedom of the Press?!

We can't have that. A high school journalism teacher was banned from teaching journalism because the student newspaper ran an editoral calling for tolerance of gays: WOODBURN, Indiana (AP) -- A high school teacher who faced losing her job after a student newspaper published an editorial advocating tolerance of gays can continue teaching at another school. Amy Sorrell, 30, reached an agreement that allows her to be transferred to another high school to teach English, said her attorney, Patrick Proctor. "The school administration has said in no uncertain terms that she's not going to be given…

Conservapedia's Glorious War on Sarcasm: the Gene Edition

Beta test version of Conservapedia graphical interface. Isn't he reassuring? What happens when you take Science Blogs "basic concepts" and add it to Conservapedia, the information website for fucking morons? You get more fun than a barrel of monkeys (which, of course, are not related to humans...). Here's what the Stupid People have to say about genes (this is the entire definition): A section of DNA that codes for the production of a protein or a portion of a protein. The gene is the fundamental unit of heredity. Although the gene is the fundamental unit of heredity, changes in genes (so…

No Anglo-Saxon Apartheid?

Is it necessary to assume an apartheid-like social structure in Early Anglo-Saxon England? : It has recently been argued that there was an apartheid-like social structure operating in Early Anglo-Saxon England. This was proposed in order to explain the relatively high degree of similarity between Germanic-speaking areas of northwest Europe and England. Opinions vary as to whether there was a substantial Germanic invasion or only a relatively small number arrived in Britain during this period. Contrary to the assumption of limited intermarriage made in the apartheid simulation, there is…

Now that's what atheists look like

I have something in common with these guys. That's the Polish death metal band Behemoth, and you can see that they look like real atheists: cadaverous, lots of black leather and spikes, with nice metal jewelry in odd places on their clothing. Uh, none of that is at all like me. Here they are in performance. I rather like it, but be warned: it's loud and harsh. See if you can spot the resemblance now: Get it? OK, I'll explain, since I guess it isn' quite so obvious. At the beginning of that clip, the lead singer, Nergal, is tearing up a Bible and throwing the pages out to the audience. Hey…

Stumpies are fugly?

Why men and women find longer legs more attractive: While all of the people were the same height, the length of their legs was altered to make them equal to the Polish average or longer by 5%, 10% or 15%. The team found that regardless of the volunteers' own body shape and leg length, people whose legs were 5% longer than average were rated as the most attractive. The next most appealing was an average leg length, or those that were 10% longer than normal. There's plenty of research on leg-length and its correlates to attractiveness. But the more important insight here is the rank order, and…

Great discoveries....

Via RPM I see that Chad at Uncertain Principles is asking about seminal discoveries and experiments in biology. This is a enormous field and I'm not really good at "lists." But here are a few off the top of my head.... In the 19th century - As far as theory goes it I think Darwin's idea of natural selection upon heritable variation as the motive force behind the process of evolution is the bomb. If you read Origin of Species and Descent of Man you see just how fertile Darwin's mind was, and some of his ideas like sexual selection have only recently become the focus of research again.…

Conservatives: Still Disappearing African-Americans From the South

In this case, South Carolina. From Steve M.: I was reminded of this when I glanced at Jacob Weisberg's Jon Huntsman profile in Vogue and my eye fell on this this har-har-har good-ol'-boy anecdote about a Huntsman campaign appearance in Greer, South Carolina: Henry McMaster, the state's silver-haired former attorney general, then makes the political tenor of the room explicit when he rises to introduce Jon Huntsman in his thick-as-gravy drawl. "Some of you folks may remembah that I made a pledge that I looked forward to the day Democrats in South Carolina were so rare we'd have to start…

Actually, Apartment Buildings Are Sexy

David Wogan brings up an important point--if we're serious about global warming, we need to lower the amount of energy buildings use: Consider this: according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, our nation's buildings consume over 40 percent of the energy consumed across all sectors - that is even more energy than consumed by the transportation sector (29 percent). And in our homes and apartments, nearly half (49 percent) of all energy is used for heating and cooling. As he points out weatherization is something you can and should do to lower energy consumption. But there's…

Dear Atlantic, I Have a Jobs Creation Idea

The Atlantic is being paid some unknown amount of money by McKinsey and Co. (the same people who brought you some very nice healthcare propaganda) to discuss this: The Atlantic and McKinsey & Company brought together some of the top minds in business, government, and the world of ideas, each to answer the same question: What is the single best thing Washington can do to jumpstart job creation? Matthew Yglesias has the best idea of the bunch, which is to moderately increase inflation. But then the other neo-liberal bromides are trotted: job training, tax credits to spur innovation, and…

Science is normative

PalMD has a post, Science is politics. I would respond that science is normative. Or, more precisely, the practice of science intersects naturally with our normative presuppositions. There's a big universe out there, and the stuff we study is skewed toward topics which interest humans. For example, there's a whole science, anthropology, devoted to humans. Why? Well, because we humans think we're mighty important. This isn't a scientific assessment. You could reply that we are important in terms of how we impact the biosphere, but privileging the biosphere of the third planet in the Sol…