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A few observations on the difference between ethics and the law.

There is a rather vigorous exchange (although one that fails my test for a "dialogue" in a number of ways) going on in the comments on my post about Kay Weber's efforts to keep going forward with her lawsuit against Fermilab. Since this particular ethics blog is my ethics blog, I'm taking this opportunity to butt in with some comments of my own. The point of the original post was to pass on information to those who have been following the progress of the case and might want to give Kay what assistance they can in mounting the next appeal. It was not intended to present the complete details…

Climate change driven movie pitch.

My better half and I have been catching up on movies (thanks to Netflix and our DVD player). Last week we watched 28 Days Later .... Last night we watched 28 Weeks Later. It is my better half's view that the rage virus has burned itself out, so to speak, and that there won't be another movie in the franchise. But the drive to make sequels of sequels in inexorable, and I believe a recent news item from the UK holds the key to the next movie in the franchise. First, the news, as reported in The Mail: Abandoned baby hedgehogs are too weak to hibernate by DAVID DERBYSHIRE ... The RSPCA says…

Are certain forms of address ill-suited to academe?

A comment on ScienceWoman's post (concerning, among other things, how her students tend to call her Mrs. ScienceWoman and her male colleagues Dr. MaleColleague), got me thinking about the norms around addressing faculty that prevailed at my undergraduate institution and whether, if they still prevail, they're worth abolishing. The commenter wrote: No one I know (just graduated college) would ever dare address a professor by Mr. or Mrs.... As far as I'm concerned, those titles are related to marital status--which has nothing to do with education or as a sign of respect... Addressing a female…

The busy blogger's year in review.

David posted his holiday letter, but I didn't feel up to composing one of those. So instead, I'm going to do this "year in review" meme I saw at Geeky Mom's pad. (She got it from Trillwing.) The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month.* January: It must be a law of nature that when past and current graduate students dine together at the end of December the conversation turns, sooner or later, to cheaters. February: These are the offerings for the semester starting February 1, 2006. [This was the month I hosted Tangled Bank #46.] March: I have noted before that…

Gender profiling at the wine bar.

Razib tossed off a post expressing amazement that a very attractive wine bar hostess was making science fiction recommendations. The noteworthy feature, apparently, was "the intersection of science fiction & female physical hotitude." Predictably, others have commented on this post, worrying about the casual profiling of hot chicks as not into S/F, or perhaps of women who are into S/F as closeted ugly chicks (or closeted boys). Should I pile on? Maybe just a little. Even if the original claim was restricted to the probability of the intersection of (people who like) science fiction and…

To Canada I will go with pockets a-jingling.

So, I'm getting ready to go to Vancouver, BC, next week for the Philosophy of Science Association meeting (which coincides with the Society for Social Studies of Science meeting and the History of Science Society meeting). And I'm really jazzed that I'll get to meet John Lynch and John Wilkins and Ben Cohen and David Ng in the three-dimensional world. But I'm also psyched that I'm going to be able to get rid of all the Canadian coinage that has found its way into my hands over the last several years.* Naturally, this has led me to wonder whether there is a typical Canadian experience that is…

What I would (and would not) tell 12-year-old me.

Riffing on a Fark.com thread, John Lynch ponders the pearls of wisdom he might offer his 12-year-old self. This got me to thinking that there is useful advice I'd want to share with that earlier time-slice of me, but there is also information about which I think I'd keep earlier-me in the dark.* Here's what I'd share with my 12-year-old self: Hardly any academic setting will be so insulting of your intelligence as seventh grade -- so hang in there. There are very few creatures more willfully vicious than teenage girls -- but much of this is in response to cultural forces that don't want to…

Nature study at home.

How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan. Illustrated by Loretta Krupinski. This is a nifty science book for little kids. Our favorite thing about this book is that it's all about getting empirical. After some unassuming storybook text (with lovely illustrations) about different kinds of seeds and the different kinds of plants that grow from them, the book gets down to business and lays out an experiment for the young reader to do: Plant a dozen bean seeds and see what happens to them over time. After planting the seeds, each in its own eggshell or other container, and watering them daily, on…

Nature and Homosexuality

First of all, anyone who argues that homosexuality isn't "natural," and that being gay is just a strange human perversion, is clearly wrong. As I wrote in my article on Joan Roughgarden: Having homosexual sex is the biological equivalent of apple pie: Everybody likes it. At last count, over 450 different vertebrate species could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. You name it, there's a vertebrate out there that does it. But a crucial distinction has to be made, at least from a biological perspective, between homosexual behavior and homosexual identity. There is very little evidence of gay animals…

Neglected Psychologists

Mixing Memory's post on the undeserved obscurity of Franz Brentano got me thinking. What other great scientists of mind are modern neuroscientists neglecting? My own vote goes to William James. While his Principles of Psychology are often mandatory reading in Intro to Psych courses - not bad for a 19th century textbook - few neuroscientists grapple with his philosophical writings. That's a shame, because they are often more relevant than his Principles. Take this quote from his late essay "Psychical Research": "This systematic denial on science's part of personality as a condition of events…

Impediments to commenting worth typing into a text box.

On the post where I asked you what made you feel welcome to comment on blogs and polled you on what would make you unlikely to comment on a post, friend of the blog Eva notes in a comment: One of the bloggers at nature network is currently polling (silent) readers about what makes them not comment. Registration requirements are in first place at the moment, followed by the mysterious "another reason", so I'm curious to hear what the other reasons were, and whether they overlap with anything from your poll! So, in the interests of sharing the information gathered by my (decidedly…

Year-in-review meme 2009.

As DrugMonkey reminds us, it's time for the year-in-review meme. The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month. January ... as drawn by the younger Free-Ride offspring. February Some of you may be aware that, at least in certain corners of the blogosphere, November is celebrated as International acaDemic Writing Month. March During our second day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium last weekend, I finally got my much needed jelly time. April I've gotten word that another blogger who has been tracking IP addresses associated with comments (on his own blog and on the blogs of…

DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge: HP wants to help us even more.

It's day 20 of the 2009 Social Media Challenge in which generous ScienceBlogs readers (among others) help raise funds through DonorsChoose for books, supplies, field trips, and other classroom projects in cash-strapped U.S. public schools. So far, we've made impressive progress, with 13 challenges mounted by ScienceBlogs bloggers raising a total of $19,462. You may recall that $650 of that total was donated by Hewlett-Packard, which gave $50 to each of our challenges. I've just gotten word from the folks at DonorsChoose that HP wants to kick in even more -- with a twist: HP has been…

Coming Monday: our discussion the case of a halted international clinical trial in Cameroon.

Almost a month ago, I told you about a pair of new case studies released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides which examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were halted. In that post, I also proposed that we read and discuss these case studies as a sort of ethics book club. Next Monday, June 15, we'll be kicking off our discussion of the first case study, "Research Rashomon: Lessons from the Cameroon Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Trial Site" (PDF). The case study is on the long side (54…

Pi Day pie #7: Vegetarian shepherd's pie.

Saturday is Pi Day, and I figure we need at least one dinner pie to precede the parade of dessert pies currently on hand. (It's the whole parental responsibility thing. I do not judge adults who eat dessert pie for breakfast, trust me!) Since the Free-Ride household is vegetarian, the pie Wilkins posted won't quite work. In lieu of an actual meat pie, we offer the vegetarian shepherd's pie. "Meat" layer that isn't really: Heat a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 small onion, finely chopped, and saute until translucent. Add 12 ounces Yves…

Edible (and sustainable) construction in a lean year.

You may remember that last year we were inspired by Bake for a Change to dabble in "green" gingerbread construction. As 2008 draws to a close, the challenge has been issued once again to make a house both good enough to eat and eco-friendly enough to heat (or cool, etc.). The rules are the same as they were last year: 1) Everything must be edible. 2) However half-baked (har har), there must be at least FOUR identifiable sustainable building design elements. 3) Your design must include a minimum of a floor, a door, four walls, a roof, and two windows. This year our effort resulted in a…

Pinker says a whole lot of sensible things all at once

I'm not a big fan of Steven Pinker's work, but I have to agree with just about everything he says in this letter arguing against the planned "Reason and Faith" requirement at Harvard. First, the word "faith" in this and many other contexts, is a euphemism for "religion." An egregious example is the current administration's "faith-based initiatives," so-named because it is more palatable than "religion-based initiatives." A university should not try to hide what it is studying in warm-and-fuzzy code words. Second, the juxtaposition of the two words makes it sound like "faith" and "reason" are…

☮ Peace, man ☮

There is this woman in Colorado who's being sued for displaying a peace symbol on her home—it's very weird. A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan. Well, it is a peace symbol, you know, so it is rather abstractly against the Iraq war. There was also this long-dead Jewish rabbi that some people call the "Prince of Peace", and I understand he's having a holiday sometime soon…I wonder if the homeowner's association will be…

When anti-vaccine loons make videos...

...the results aren't pretty. If there's one thing about anti-vaccine loons that I've come to learn over the last decade or so, it's that when they think they're being clever, they're really not. Exhibit A for this case follows: Yes, courtesy of a particularly brain dead anti-vaccine website (and, compared to Age of Autism, that's saying something), all we have in the video above is a rewarmed "toxins gambit." How to find toxins in 5 seconds or less? It's more like how to find toxic ignorance in five seconds or less. The guy who came up with is video is probably terrified of salt because it…

Deepak Chopra descends: Hasn't Detroit suffered enough?

Well, well, well, well, well. Look who's coming to blight my hometown, and look who's doing it hot on the heels of my having directed some not-so-Respectful Insolence at him. Yes, it's Deepak Chopra himself showing up on Saturday to bring his woo to one of the places that least needs it, downtown Detroit: Excitement and diversity is coming to the Metropolitan Detroit community this Summer! Chene Park Amphitheater is bringing an entirely new experience to the City on Saturday, June 18th, 2011: The "Music & Mastery Holistic Festival". The "Music & Mastery Holistic Festival" is a full-…

I don't want to say I told you so, but ....

Huxley learned a while back how to open doors by, of all things, turning the doorknobs. Amanda thought we should get the devices that go over the doorknobs to thwart his efforts. I thought we should just attach fasteners to the doors and seal them up until he's eighteen. But, I respected Amanda's opinion, even though it was based on no data and conflicted with my opinion that was based on vast experience and such, and encouraged her to try the doorknob covers. So she got them and installed them and they worked. That was two days ago. So earlier this evening, distant thunder combined…

A Bend in the River: Get Bent

On of my favorite books is A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul. It is a story set in at the junction of a native and expat community in an African rain forest country with a not very despotic leader (the "Big Man") at a time when a civil war was about to arrive on the scene. I like the book because of the writing, because of the story, because one of the character is supposedly based on someone I vaguely know (that's always fun) and because I was there .... living at the juncture of an expat and native community in a rain forested African country with a not-to-despotic leader named Mobutu…

Drunk with scrubs

Just as a brief followup to my post about being carded twice in a bar despite being a member of the over 40 crowd, I can't help but make a brief comment on something else that happened while we were sitting back enjoying some beer. We were inside, but there was an outdoor sidewalk cafe area with tables as well. As I was sitting there sipping my brew, I noticed a guy in surgical scrubs showing up in the outdoor area. Not surprisingly, he appeared to be trying to chat up a couple of young women who were also out there. I had to restrain myself from bursting out in laughter. OK, I suppose it's…

Hero at Virginia Tech: A Holocaust survivor

The horror that consumed Virginia Tech on Monday produced an unexpected hero: Professor Liviu Librescu, who gave his life to save some of his students: In Monday morning's lecture on solid mechanics, all was quiet except for the sound of Professor Liviu Librescu's voice. Then came the gunshots -- in the classroom next door. In an instant, Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, a building dedicated to the science of engineering, was torn apart by the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Junior Richard Mallalieu said he and about 20 classmates instantly dropped to the floor, ducking under and…

They sold their souls for rock and roll

It's been a long time since I saw something like this. I remember back in the 1980's, I saw an utterly hysterically funny series on a religious cable outlet about the evils of rock 'n' roll, complete with dire warnings about how rock 'n' roll was a one-way ticket straight to hell. Well, it turns out that they're still making such amusingly over-the-top videos. Some of the targets haven't changed, many have. These are parts 1 and 2 of a four part series. Part I reveals Satan's true conspiracy that is rock 'n' roll, particularly the evil of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. So, check out Part 1…

Well, that certainly didn't take long

Ever since arch Holocaust denier David Irving was released from prison in Austria after being convicted of denying the Holocaust, I've been wondering how long it would take for him to reveal his true stripes and be up to his old tricks again. The answer, not surprisingly, was: Not long. Witness this story: ROME -- British historian David Irving, who was jailed in Austria for questioning the Holocaust, visited the Auschwitz death camp and renewed his claim that there was no proof it had gas chambers during an Italian TV program aired Friday. In the Sky TG24 documentary program "Controcorrente…

Dropbox is still good

I've been using Dropbox for several months now, and I still like it. I have it installed on two computers, a desktop and a laptop. I recently wiped the desktop's hard drive and installed an entirety new drive and system, then I installed Dropbox, and all my files (which were stored on Dropbox) mysteriously appeared on the new installation. Not really quickly but not a lot slower than if I had used some kind of backup system, and with zero effort. Dropbox is an off-site backup and sync program. You install the app and link it to an account (which is free for smaller amounts, a reasonable…

New in Paperback Book on Permian Mass Extinction

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time is a book by Michael Benton on the Permian Extinction now out in paperback. From the press release: Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known is a much bigger catastrophe - the greatest mass extinction of all time - which occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. In this cataclysm, at least ninety per cent of life was destroyed, both on land, including sabre-toothed…

Photos from Itasca

As you know, we just spent a few days at Itasca (see this for the meaning of the word "Itasca") where we saw some interesting wildlife. I thought I 'd share a few photos of the trip. We were at Itasca because Amanda volunteered to help out with the orientation for new biology grad students, by giving a demonstration of what she does in the Dave Thomas lab. I did not see the demonstration but I think it had something to do with reanimating tissues. Here's a photograph of the entrance way to the research station, which is all most people can see because you are not allowed in there. (…

The other side of the coin(age): Newton and the Counterfeiter

Did you know that Isaac Newton had two jobs? One, you know about: To figure out all that physics and math stuff so we could live for a while in a Newtonian world. The other was as th big honcho of the Royal Mint. Where they make the money. In that second job, Newton had several interesting problems to deal with, which were in some ways more complex than how planets keep orbiting around stars and apples keep falling from trees. He needed to secure the coinage of the land against counterfeit, and in particular, to end the career of one particular counterfeiter, William Chaloner. This…

Blog Rolling UDPATED

Here (below the fold) is my new blog roll. If you were expecting to be there and don't see yourself, let me know. I'm trying to keep my blog roll blog roll-like in that it includes mainly people with whom I exchange linking now and then, and especially whose who's blog roll I'm on. I've deleted seemingly defunct blog as well. It is quite possible that I accidentally deleted a blog that I shouldn't have. July 14th AM version: 10,000 Birds A Blog Around The Clock Almost Diamonds a Nadder! Angry by Choice Archy (John McKay) Armchair Dissident Beagle Project Ben Zvan (((Billy))) The Atheist…

"Spirituality"? Another word for lies and empty noise

If you go to the main ScienceBlogs page, you'll discover that the Buzz for the day is this little gem, triggered by one of our newbie bloggers: Spirituality and Science Over the last few hundred years, science has provided a mind-boggling richness of answers about the workings of the universe. For many people the importance of religion, at least as an explainer of the natural world, has shifted. Is it possible to believe what science teaches us about nature, and also be a person of faith? A Galactic Interactions post about being a Christian and a scientist has ignited an explosive debate.…

Fun And Instructive Classroom Exercise

Your brain ... to explore the nature of the conscious mind. You are the teacher, and you've got a classroom full of reasonably well behaved students. Tell them: "I want you to close your eyes, and I'm going to ask you a question. ... Quietly work out the answer to the question and keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them.... Do not say the answer to your question out loud ... and keep your eyes closed." When they have their eyes closed, say: "in your apartment or home .... where you live ... how many windows are there? Keep your eyes closed." Now, watch them as they work…

New in Paperback Book on Permian Mass Extinction

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time is a book by Michael Benton on the Permian Extinction now out in paperback. From the press release: Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half of all species then living. Far less well-known is a much bigger catastrophe - the greatest mass extinction of all time - which occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. In this cataclysm, at least ninety per cent of life was destroyed, both on land, including sabre-toothed…

I Never Liked John Stossel, and Now I Know Why

John Stossel is the woo-loving moronic co-host of the formerly not too bad but these days totally sucky tv "news" show 20-20. It turns out Stossel is a libertarian home schooling supporter and reality denialist Now, I should tell you that I am not against home schooling in principle. But I have come to believe that most home schooling setups involve either scary right wing fundamentalism or yahoo-istic libertarian political masterbation at the expense of the kids. But who cares what I think. What does John Stossel think? The cat is finally out of the bag. A California appellate court,…

Home Schooling in California: A spontaneous blog carnival

... well, just a little carnival. More like a street fair. On a small side street: Editorial: State must set standards for home schooling Extreme circumstances make bad legal precedents. It's proven anew in last week's court ruling that would dismantle a thriving and diverse home-school movement in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday called for legislation affirming parents' ability to home school, if the state Supreme Court doesn't overturn the decision on a Southern California case. Lawmakers should act, although carefully. The issue is more complex than a universal right…

An Ocean of Despair

Almost half of the world's oceans have been ruined to some degree ... often very severely ... by human activity. You've heard a lot on the news and in the blogosphere about this lately. This increased interest is in part because of the recent production (Feb 15th Science) of a map of the ocean showing these impact. Here is the map: Click Here to View Larger Image The work, published in the Feb. 15 issue of Science and presented at a press conference Thursday, February 14 at 1 pm EST at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Boston, MA, was conducted at…

The annals of "I'm not anti-vaccine," part 7 (argumentum ad Nazium edition #2, 2011)

Time and time again, anti-vaccine activists will piously and self-righteously tell those of us who criticize their pseudoscientific fear mongering, "I'm not anti-vaccine," followed by something like, "I'm pro-vaccine safety," "I'm a vaccine safety watchdog," or "I'm pro-safe vaccine." Nothing puts the lie to these denials better than looking at the sorts of things anti-vaccine activists say and write in their own lairs. For instance, here we have a commenter by the 'nym of veritas (no hubris there!) over at the anti-vaccine blog Age of Autism discussing the Poul Thorsen scandal: I just wonder…

Birthers on parade

You may have heard of the lunatic fringe contingent that thinks that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and thus not eligible to be President of the United States according to the Constitution. They're incredible cranks, cooking up all manner of dire conspiracy theories about a doctored birth certificate and birth documents, all full of dark plotting, aided and abetted, of course, by the "liberal" press. They're very much like 9/11 Truthers, only not as coherent. (And, no, that's not a compliment to 9/11 Truthers, either.) That there are kooky conspiracy theorists…

That godly perspective

I haven't mentioned the Clergy Letter Project or Evolution Sunday events before. They're nice ideas—it's an effort to get clergy to acknowledge good science, and encourage discussions about the subject on Darwin's birthday, this Sunday—but I have to admit it's rather orthogonal to my point of view. While I appreciate the sentiment and think it's a positive step on the road to reason, I prefer to cut to the chase and jettison all the old religious baggage altogether. I may have to take a more positive view towards it, though, since I ran across this weird wingnut site (well, maybe not too…

Doctors as drug reps

Fellow ScienceBlogger Abel Pharmboy over at Terra Sig pointed me in the direction of a rather fascinating and disturbing article about physicians being recruited as "thought leaders" by pharmaceutical companies. Abel's discussion is well worth reading for yourself, but I thought I'd chime in my two cents, as always. From a surgeon's perspective, these sorts of "opportunities" are much different, because most of us general surgeons and surgical oncologists only prescribe a rather limited range of drugs. For example, I rarely prescribe anything other than narcotics for postoperative pain relief…

How much of modern medicine is "evidence-based"? (briefly revisited)

I once blogged about an article attempting to address the very question in the title of this post, and I've also discussed in depth how messy the process of evidence-based medicine can be and why that provides an opening for purveyors of "alternative medicine" (my preferred term to describe it being "non-evidence-based medicine") to respond to complaints about the lack of evidence supporting their favored woo with a hearty but fallacious tu quoque. One of the favorite claims of purveyors of non-evidence-based "alternative" medicine is that modern scientific medicine is actually not very…

Chiropractors as physical therapists with delusions of grandeur

In the past, I've characterized chiropractors, at least the ones who claim to be able to treat anything other than back pain, as "physical therapists with delusions of grandeur who don't know their limitations." It appears that Panda Bear, MD agrees with me, and he's particularly disturbed about such chiropractors increasingly targeting the pediatric population: Apparently chiropracty can resolve asthma, ear infections, colic, allergies, and headaches to name just a few. What then, exactly, are pediatric chiropractors doing if it's not treating conditions or diseases...or is your poor Uncle…

Hockey Stick Hockey Stick Hockey Stick

Chris Mooney on the report Joe Barton commissioned on the hockey stick: I am beyond bored with the whole thing. I'm reaching the point of despair. Listen, people: This is an argument over a study that is now some eight years old. Eight years! You would think there is nothing new under the sun in climate science. So let us recite, once again, for those who still don't get it: *One study never definitively proves anything in science. Any single study can be attacked and criticized. Any individual piece of work will have its gaps, shortcomings, and associated uncertainties.* As for those who…

Clue stick etc

PZ Myers writes Time's former "Blog of the Year," the execrable PowerLine blog with which I share a state, has done it again: said something so stupid and so palpably false that I'm feeling a bit embarrassed about ragging on Oklahoma in my previous post--I should feel ashamed by association at being a Minnesotan. Check out Deltoid: down is up in the world of the Hindrocket. I feel PZ's pain. I share a state with Tim Blair, who has now made exactly the same blunder as Hindrocket: "Gore's chilling effect reduces movie audiences". We'll see a correction from Blair sometime around never. Not…

Lott vs Wikipedia round 3 continued

The John Lott article at Wikipedia was unprotected and the edit war has restarted. Lott is using a sockpuppet called Timewarp to try to make massive changes to the article. Some of the additions he wants to make are interesting: Although Lott has published in academic journals regarding education, voting behavior of politicians, industrial organization, labor markets, judicial confirmations, and crime, his research is hard to consistently tag as liberal or conservative. For example, some research argues for environmental penalties on firms. Hmmm, that sounds familiar. Here's Mary Rosh I…

Maybe they could switch to depleted uranium

Hunters should be allies of conservationists—in the best situations, hunting and wildlife groups have been great advocates of preserving habitat, which is the core issue, I think, in protecting biodiversity. If they're doing it so they can go in and blow away a few big meaty game animals, well, OK…setting aside that acreage also means a richer array of songbirds and arthropods and plants and fish and lizards and amphibians, which normally aren't shot up, have a better chance of survival. Sometimes, though, short-sightedness and denial and a refusal to deal with a minor inconvenience undercut…

Walter E. Dove and DDT

Alan Dove writes about his grandfather's involvement in the history of DDT (my emphasis): DDT owes its notoriety to American applied research during World War II. At the start of the war, chemists had known how to synthesize the compound for decades, and a few knew of its insecticidal properties, but nobody had tested it rigorously or turned it into a practical product. It seems unlikely that anybody would have, if it hadn't fallen into the hands of an obscure group of entomologists at the US Department of Agriculture in 1942. The USDA scientists had recently been drafted into a critical…

Easterbrook on Lancet study

Obviously anything Gregg Easterbrook writes about the Lancet study is going to be really stupid, and sure enough, he gives us this: The latest silly estimate comes from a new study in the British medical journal Lancet, which absurdly estimates that since March 2003 exactly 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of American action. The study uses extremely loose methods of estimation, including attributing about half its total to "unknown causes." The study also commits the logical offense of multiplying a series of estimates, then treating the result as precise. White House officials have…

The Australian's War on Science 39

Last week week Senator Fielding met with the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong to discuss the link between global warming and greenhouse gas. While Fielding claimed to have an 'open mind', this was rather undercut by his bringing four denialists to the meeting: Bob Carter, David Evans Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth. Naturally, The Australian gives them space to write about global warming isn't happening and how their questions were not answered. Wong has answers to their questions (written by Will Steffen) here, but I'll give my answers as well: Carter and co write: Is it the case…