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Oil Eating Bacteria

In a recent conversation about the safety and ethics of synthetic biology in the wake of the announcement of the synthetic genome, many of the professors I was chatting with commented on how they hoped new synthetic biology technology would lead to bacteria that could eat the oil spilling into the gulf of mexico even as I type this right now. Of course, the "technology" for oil eating bacteria already exists and have already been used for clean up in previous oil spills--many naturally occurring species of bacteria can already break down the hydrocarbons in crude oil. The natural oil eaters…

Carboxysomes in a row

Carboxysomes are small compartments inside photosynthetic bacteria where the machinery for capturing carbon dioxide is concentrated. You can see carboxysomes and their characteristic virus-like shape when you look at slices of these bacteria under an electron microscope: Until recently, no one had looked at carboxysomes under the microscope in cells that were still alive. My labmates Dave and Bruno developed a way to label carboxysomes with fluorescent proteins and track them under a microscope as the cells grow, and their amazing paper in Science details some of the fascinating systems they…

Watching the sausage get made at the EPA

The EPA held a "Public Workshop to Discuss Management of Underground Injection of Carbon Dioxide for Geologic Sequestration Under the Safe Drinking Water Act" last week. I've talked about this issue before here. This process continues to not get the attention it deserves as it may drastically effect drinking water quality. The workshop is a decent look at part of the 'sausage making' process so here are some random thoughts (the quotes aren't quotes, they're paraphrased but I blockquoted them for clarity). EPA: We can regulate the injection but can't use the Safe Drinking Water Act to…

Does ezetimibe (Zetia, and in Vytorin) cause cancer? and who cares?

Cutting to chase for those of you who want a quick answer: we don't know, there aren't enough people to study yet. There are hints, though. Ezetimibe is commonly used in combination with a statin as Vytorin to reduce heart disease in patients. It doesn't work all that well. I should say, it decreases cholesterol fine but whether that leads to less overall heart disease isn't conclusive (latest study released today says maybe a little). Of course that study found an increase in cancer in those taking the drug. However, another analysis released today found that cancer deaths were increased but…

American Chemistry Council, cranky toddler

In The Corporation the film shows how if you considered the attributes of corporations, it could be diagnosed as a psycopath. I see the same thing in the ACC (American Chemistry Council), but frankly, a toddler seems more on the money. They have that same ability to look sweet while ernestly telling you something you know isn't true. They've gotten so bad that Reps. Dingell and Stupak is investigating ACC for shady dealings with the EPA (via EWG). (I also see mention of the fixers, the Weinberg group. If your industry is in deep, tobacco style, this is who you call. But they're not toddlers,…

Eli Stone and autism: how factual does fiction have to be?

Everyone knows by now that the show Eli Stone misrepresents the facts about thimerosal and autism in it's fictional story of a lawyer going after a pharmaceutical after they put "mercuritol" in vaccines. It's clear that the story is supposed to mimic the thimerosal issue but as some defenders of the show say, hey, it's fiction. So, when is fiction allowed to be fiction and when is it not? For example, look at The Da Vinci Code. Most of it is made up crap but even though it's fiction, people believed the 'facts' used in the book. Should that be permisible? The Dan Brown book is different in…

Should Public Health Be More Mean?

Warning: Rambling screed approaching. More mean? Maybe, but only if you can empower and inspire people to make a change. Let me give you a three good examples: 1) Breastfeeding is best. By miles. Still, not everyone really knows about the benefits. So there are intense campaigns around to pressure mothers to breast feed. The consequence is that more mothers breast feed, which is great, but also that mothers who can't for one reason or another (sometimes medical but usually logistical, a problem disproportionally besetting the poor) feel like they are bad mothers; that they aren't taking care…

You pulled that out of where?

Last week I gave you a refresher course on the invalid arguments used by altmed boosters. The Turf Battle Fallacy and Pharma Shill Gambit are classics for a number of reasons. The most amusing thing about these gambits is their hypocrisy.   The alternative medicine movement is  essentially a collection of businesses selling unproven supplements and interventions (not "therapies", as Steven Novella aptly observes).   Of course, that's an incomplete analysis.   Altmed is also a religion, with zealous adherents.  The arguments made by these adherents are never about the data, but about beliefs…

Race and intelligence: the debate continues

I posted a while back on two duelling essays in Nature on the intensely controversial subject of whether scientists should be permitted to study group differences in cognition. Nature now has a series of correspondence on the topic in its latest issue. Firstly, there are rebuttals from the authors of the two original essays: Steven Rose argues that the debate is dead and that reviving it serves no purpose, while Ceci and Williams argue (substantially more convincingly, in my opinion) that Rose's declaration of these areas of research as invalid is premature. Some of the other opinions are…

Lewontin & Ohta win the Crafoord Prize

The The Crafoord Prize in Biosciences has been announced. For those who don't know, this is a very prestigious award, comparable to the Nobel prize, only not as well known. The categories are specifically designed to complement the Nobel. This year's winners are Richard Lewontin and Tomoko Ohta, and it's about time. Lewontin has been hugely influential. However, until the 1960s, the view of genetic variation was entirely different: biologists believed that most individuals in a population were fairly similar, genetically speaking. This must, they assumed, be the result of natural selection,…

2007 Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Al Gore and the IPCC

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning, and it will be shared equally between Al Gore and the IPCC. It was widely anticipated that Al Gore would be this year's honoree. The IPCC was less expected, although it is certainly at least as--if not more--deserving of the honor. Here's what the Nobel Committee has to say about the award: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and…

Quackery in my back yard!

Oh, great. Orac just has to tell me that the University of Minnesota is going to host an anti-vaccine conference on 24 January. First, let me say this, though: they get to do that. Presumably they've rented out (or possibly obtained student or faculty sponsorship) Cowles Auditorium at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and just about anyone can do that. They may be fraggin' morons, but they're part of the public, and it's a public university. Still, this is painfully stupid and a disservice to the public trust. It's a conference in which a train of pseudo-experts will lie, lie, lie in…

Fantastical Fridays: Partisan Neurons

Since all of my Fantastical Fridays posts so far have been about chemistry or physics, I think it's time for a change of pace. Here's a post I wrote a couple of months ago about some more "political" science that had been in the news. (24 January 2006) Now I have an excuse for my behavior the next time I get into a bitter political debate: I can't help being defensive--it's hardwired into me!Those are the findings, at least, of a recent study led by psychologist Drew Westen, as reported by The New York Times today. Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the…

Systematic Undermining of Science In the Classroom: Creationism Rears Its Ugly Head

What do Biology teachers teach our children? This has been an ongoing subject of discussion by my Scibling PZ Meyers for years. I would like to add a comment, based on a paper in this week's Science. A study just published in Science indicates that while creationism may have been defeated in the courtroom, it is still a matter of contention in the classroom. The authors refer to a portion of biology teachers as the "cautious 60%": majority of teachers, the "cautious 60%," who are neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives?…

Haiti One Year Later: Citizens' Voices

"Our situation deteriorates" (since the elections) November 30, 2010 Today marks one year since the disastrous earthquake in Haiti. As we remember the thousands of lost lives, the injured and now the recovering citizens in the face of a cholera epidemic, I wanted to share their voices. Yesterday, I attended a lecture in Washington, D.C. by Dr. Fritz Deshommes (University of Haiti), Vice Chancellor of Research. Filled with emotion about the loss and devastation after the earthquake last year, he emphasized the importance of science and technology in dealing with a natural catastrophe.…

Saletan is at it again

I don't say this lightly, but Saletan is one of the more dishonest pundits out there -- I've read multiple columns by this guy where he lies with numbers and fudges the evidence to fit his preconceptions, and this is no exception. He's once again arguing that creationism is compatible with science, and he has to make some dodgy claims to do so. Look here: And what about the engineers in Ken Ham’s videos—the guys who made demonstrable contributions to science and technology while declaring themselves young-Earth creationists? Those men are what a good social scientist would call “evidence.”…

Limitations in Evolutionary Genetics

PZ Myers is reposting some of his greatest hits from the old Pharyngula website to his new digs at ScienceBlogs. In one post he gets into the deficiencies of modern evolutionary theory using West-Eberhard's book as a guide. I agree with most of the thing he says (and I'll get into how I agree with him below), but first I need to scratch a pet-peeve itch: "You can see this in any textbook of population genetics: the effect of selection is to impose a gradual shift in the mode of a pattern of continuous variation. Stabilizing selection chops off both tails of the distribution, directional…

Steve Steve has the Smarch of his Life -- Volume 4: The Morning After

This post is part of a series documenting Professor Steve Steve's recent visit to Philadelphia for the Drosophila Research Conference (aka, the Fly Meeting). Professor Steve Steve had a wild Saturday night. He was quite happy to have met leaders in the fields of evo-devo, population genetics, and genomics. Of course, Steve Steve is a pioneer in popula-devo-geno-metrics, so everything that came up in discussion was old-hat to him. That said, it was definitely a night to remember. And a morning to forget. Pictures of Steve Steve at the Sunday plenary session and on the drive home can be found…

“The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that.”

That quote is from a good article in Nature on how sex is non-binary -- my only quibble would be with that "now". You'd have to define "now" as a window of time that encompasses the entirety of my training and work in developmental biology, and I'm getting to be kind of an old guy. Differences in sex development (DSDs) are common knowledge, and rather routine -- and coincidentally, I'm giving an exam on sex chromosome anomalies today. The article works through a lot of basic concepts: chimeric sex, genetic vs. cellular vs. organismal sex, and the development of sexual characters. I was so…

The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view

Corey at 10,000 birds has an interesting post weighting the value of gray squirrels as a visitor to your bird feeder, vs. the nuisance they cause as a visitor to your bird feeder. Last summer, I found a way to combine both perspectives. Up at the cabin, the habitat is mixed woodland, so we have a high diversity of squirrel species. I assume there are flying squirrels buzzing around at night; There are marmots, but not many. There has been one red squirrel often seen near the wood pile; and in June, there was a pair of gray squirrels, seen most often, not surprisingly, at the bird feeder…

The LOL Cat Bible Translation Project

Genesis 1 Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs 1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. 3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1 6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he…

Race is a social construct and a self fulfilling prophecy all wrapped up together

Gene Expression has the second in a pair of posts on race that is worth a close look. In Why phenotypic races may not disappear, G.E. speaks of the particulate nature of inheritance in relation to culturally defined racial types (that are in turn based on appearance). There is the idea in the minds of some that interracial relations in the most intimate sense will banish racism or racial consciousness. To me that seems unlikely, though Latin American nations do not exhibit the sort of racism based on ancestry traditional in the United States, they do retain a marked preference for those…

The Omaha Shooting

First, I want to say that we should not forget that this was a horrific event, and that I'm sure we all mourn for the dead and their families. A fellow blogger in the science and technology world lost a close friend in this shooting, and has written about it here. Now, I want to ask two difficult questions. Before I ask the questions, though, I want to say something else. Yesterday, I had the idea of writing this post (this one, the one you are reading now). Didn't get to it right away. Then, I read Webs' post about the loss of his friend. It made me think: I'm thinking about writing a…

Creationists Can be So Funny

There was a time, not so long ago, when you could "Google" the terms "Greg Laden" and "Idiot" and get, well, besides the several thousand hits about me being an idiot and stuff, an Amazon.com page for "The Idiot's Guide to Human Prehistory by Greg Laden" This is a book I never wrote. But the publishers wanted me to. However, there were complications. The first complication was that I found out (from an excellent source) that the owner of the company had "a problem" with evolution, and I came to believe it was likely that certain things would be changed prior to publication. In…

More creationist ellipses!

Over on Uncommon Descent, Sal Cordova quotes Lauren Sandler from her book Righteous, in a self-congratulatory attempt to claim the Dover decision as a victory for ID (oh, my, but aren't they desperate). However, if you look at Cordova's quote, there are…ellipses. Seeing an ellipsis in a creationist quote really ought to make you automatically wonder. Fortunately, Steve Story pulled out the actual, original quote over at Antievolution.org, so you too can see what was edited out. Sal Cordova's version intelligent design proponents keep quiet about the idea that [Judge] Jones’s decision…

Dan Egerstad, the "Hack of 07" Hacker Arrested

Last August, Dan Egerstad, of Sweden, hacked his way into secret email accounts of government embassies, various NGOs and corporations. It was easy, partly because it was not a secure network. He then posted a very large number of email user names and passwords. The way he did it was simple. There is a piece of software that acts, more or less, as a "caller ID blocker" that can be put on a node on the internet, including on your own computer. This software, called "TOR" was developed by the Navy on the premise that "loose lips sink ships." They wanted Naval personnel to be able to…

Alan Dershowitz to Mike Huckabee: Enjoy your new orifice!

First, the video. Then, if you're good, I'll tell you an Alan Dershowitz story. It involves Stephen Jay Gould. So, when I was a graduate student teaching human behavioral biology and stuff, there was a class taught by Alan Dershowitz, Stephen Jay Gould, and some other guy. This was a large Socratic "lecture-courses" and one of the sessions involved ethics and gender differences in the law, so it was customary among the E. O. Wilson and Irv DeVore Teaching Fellows to crash the class and watch. Imma let you get back to worshiping Stephen Jay Gould and all when I'm done, but I gotta tell…

Christmas is Hell

People are very on edge today. More short and ill tempered than usual. I was walking along in Target and had that sense of tension and angst all around me, the feeling that everyone in the store would be happier if everyone else in the store was not there. As I was walking along I had the feeling that if I stopped walking the person behind me would just run into me. So I stopped in my tracks next to an endcap. Whump. Just as I expected. So for the rest of the day while I was doing errands I kept doing that. In Target a few more times. In the grocery store. In the parking lot.…

My job is to make you happy. About using Linux. UPDATED

I've convinced a few people to use Linux and most of them don't hate me, but most of them were masochistic geeks who were probably going to use Linux anyway. But there are three people who are pretty important to me who are now using Linux because of me, but who otherwise would not likely have ever used Linux, and who are not masochistic geeks. The whole idea of Linux being "grandmother ready" now takes on new meaning for me. I could be in serious trouble. So, I've started a new project. ~~~ There are now three people in my life who hold the following things in common: 1) Regular…

Why comparative religion classes will never work in American public schools

Sometimes I think that what public education in this country really needs is a good general requirement for a course in comparative religion. I've thought that one obstacle, though, would be finding teachers who wouldn't warp it to proselytize for their favorite cult. It turns out that there's another major problem: parents will sue teachers who make their kids think about that which must be believed dogmatically. On Jan. 31, McDonald gave the class, which consisted of juniors and seniors taking it as an elective, an assignment to read an Iroquois tale of creation, "The World on the Turtle's…

Rushton on Race and IQ

As previously noted, J. Philippe Rushton has made the argument that the brain size of "Blacks" is about 1267 cc's, and for whites it is about 1347 CC's. It has also been noted that Rushton claims that the average IQ of Blacks is 85 and he average IQ of whites is 100. But does Rushton say that there is a link between the two? Yes, explicitly so. In his widely distributed editions of Race, Evolution, and Behavior : A Life History Perspective (2nd Special Abridged Edition), Rushton makes the claim that the African IQ is 70, and that the reason that "Black" American IQ is 80 is because of the…

If this keeps up, it all might go to my head, such as it is

Even after over three years at this, I still find it amazing that as many people read my verbal meanderings as in fact do. In fact, I still can't believe that I'm one of the more popular medical bloggers out there. True, I'll probably never approach the traffic and readership of the huge political blogs or of our very own P.Z. Myers (who has at least ten times my traffic), but I appear to have become a fixture in the medical and scientific blogosphere. Even more amazingly (to me, at least), I appear to have developed a bit of influence. I know it's hard to believe, but I was forced to accept…

John McCain: A "crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman"?

I was disappointed to find an approving link from a fellow ScienceBlogger to this sort of rant by Matt Stoller: We all know that winning this election is not enough. It's just not. It's not even close. This is the most unpopular President we've ever had and our opponent is a crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman. Our nominee should crush this guy. "Crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman"? Nice. I wonder if Matt spit out the term "cancer-ridden" with the same amount of contempt and venom while typing as he did when he spit out the terms "crazy," "dishonest," and "madman." I wonder if he…

A hometown publication "gets it" about Expelled!

Heh. Before I abandon the disgusting piece of fecal matter that is Ben Stein's Expelled! for (hopefully) a long, long time, if not forever, I can't resist pointing out that it's good to see that at least someone totally gets it and sees through the lies. It's even better to see it coming from a hometown publication Real Detroit Weekly (you'll need to scroll almost all the way to the bottom of the web page to get past all the other movie reviews). A couple of gems: In addition to the standard creationist claptrap, Ben Stein argues that there is a link between acceptance of evolution and…

What does the well informed American voter interested in the intersection of science and politics read?

What does the well informed American voter interested in the intersection of science and politics read? Well, not just read, but read to become more informed about current events and controversies. And, I'm thinking here of books that look at the science/politics intersection rather than how politics works or how science works. I do not harbor the illusion that any one is really looking for something to read in order to pick a candidate or a party. That one of the parties is anti-science (mainly) and the other is pro-science (mainly) is well established. But one likes to become more…

The Methane Calculation (part 2)

On Saturday night, about 9 p.m., a short, sharp explosion rattled one of Russia's largest coal mines, a deep maze of underground tunnels located in Siberia. About 370 miners were working at the time. Most of them came hurrying out of mine entrances. But not all. Managers organized rescue teams and sent about 50 people back into the Raspadskaya mine to hunt for survivors - and bodies. In the best of circumstances - which would not be in the panic of an emergency, in the middle of the night - this would be a daunting task. The mine's tunnels (an estimated 200 miles worth) plunge…

Chris Rusbridge settles the question

If you're not reading the comments here, you're missing the best part of the blog. Case in point, this comment from the incomparable Chris Rusbridge, which I reproduce as a post so that those who are missing the best part of the blog don't miss it: Several things I wanted to respond to. You say you are "not at all sure we need to prove ab initio that keeping data is a good thing". Well, yes, I kind of agree... but I'm also quite sure that keeping all data is not a good thing. So keeping some, but not all data is good. Which data? Ah, that's a question for much, much more debate (one could…

All deaths are suicides?

Stephen Dubner quotes Gary Becker as saying: According to the economic approach, therefore, most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent "suicides" in the sense that they could have been postponed if more resources had been invested in prolonging life. Dubner describes this as making "perfect sense" and as being "so unusual and so valuable." One might wonder why something that makes so much sense and is so beautifully written etc. is "so unusual." To me it seems less like economics and more like a way of getting oneself off the hook, morally speaking. If, when other people get sick and die…

Just what do you think you're paying me for?

I get a lot of comments hostile to doctors, and I'm OK with that. Going to a doctor can be comforting, painful, humiliating, frightening, or all of the above. Doctors can be saints, assholes, and everything in between. But there are two phenomena I find puzzling. One is the act of "punishing" the doctor by not taking care of yourself, the other the idea that the doctor should take care of you for free. We pay doctors for their professional expertise. We hope that they will behave as compassionate professionals, but as human beings, we often fail. I strive to be compassionate, and teach…

Mea Culpa, sort of---a cranky doctor speaks again

My readers are pretty bright, and for that I am thankful. As you have no doubt noted, I posted a nice, cranky rant this morning. Shall we examine it dispassionately in the light of day? Any doctor who takes care of inpatients walks a fine line. As most nurses know, docs can be real assholes. While asshole-ism is never justified, it is sometimes explainable. Many hospitals are unable or unwilling to implement standing orders for basic comfort measures. It is theoretically possible to write a ton of "prn" orders to cover any contingency, but it's unlikely. For the non-medical folks, I'd…

HuffPo gets it wrong about Oprah. Surprised?

To wear the mantle of Galileo, it is not enough to be persecuted: you must also be right. ---Robert Park As a physician, it's hard for me to support the absurd media fashion of presenting two, equal sides to every issue. In politics, perhaps, many debates have two equally-valid viewpoints, but this isn't so in science and medicine. A treatment is either proven to work or proven not to work. Occasionally, plausible ideas are sitting somewhere in between hoping for evidence to push them one way or the other. Notice the word "evidence"---not waiting for the verdict…

Generations of imbeciles

I'm actually rather surprised that the movement to castrate autistic kids isn't more in the news. Parents of autistic kids are very good at advocacy, so where are they on this one? On the other hand, the abuse of the mentally and cognitively disabled is so ingrained in our society, that perhaps these parents can't even see it. The idea of castrating undesirables is not new. An American eugenics movement arose in the early part of the 20th century, leading to eugenics legislation, such as the Johnson Immigration Act of 1924. To give you an idea of some of the thinking that went into this…

More lousy health reporting in my home town

I used to teach at a hospital downtown. While on rounds, I'd often ask my residents and students where they were born, and get answers such as, "Alabama", "Kerala, India", "Damascus, Syria". Inevitably, they'd ask me where I was born, and I'd point to the floor and say, "Right here". "You mean in Michigan?" "No," I'd explain, "I mean right here in this hospital." So I have a certain pride about my hometown. I like Detroit, and although I, like many others born there, don't live in the city, I always hope for a recovery. So it saddens me whenever I see news stories that paint my natal…

Web 2.0---your doing it wrong

As anyone who has been following the naturopathy thread knows, this blog often covers controversial topics. To help elucidate the problems, there is often vigorous debate, which I rarely censor. I bring this up because of this blogs recent HONcode certification. As I told you, HON is struggling with the format of blogs. They are rather ambivalent about such a "free for all" format. Hence this email: Dear DrPal, We have recently received a complaint concerning your site: http://www.scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/ It is regarding the post about the Naturopath Challenge. We make it…

Push poll on concealed carry

Lott has a new post on blog where he writes: 6/15/04 Two-thirds of Police Chiefs think Right-to-carry Laws Reduce Crime A new survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police asks members: "Do you agree that a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime as recent studies in some states have already reflected?" 65.7 percent of members say "Yes". There are other interesting questions in the survey. Two-thirds oppose one-gun-a-month rules. Over half think that the rules allowing pilots to carry concealed handguns are too restrictive. It may be that two-…

Orac has a change of heart

You know, after all these years as a scientist, physician, and skeptic, I've been wondering. Perhaps it's time to undergo a reassessment of my and philosophy. I've always been a bit of a curmudgeon, and it hasn't really gotten me anywhere. My words appear to have no impact on the credulous. For example, perhaps I've been a bit harder than I should be on purveyors of dubious alternative medicine. Millions of people use it every day. Would they use it if there weren't anything to it? I think not. After all, look at all those testimonials for chelation therapy, Reiki therapy, Chinese energy…

A little light weekend reading

While I work on winging my way back to the East Coast, I thought I'd leave you with a couple of links that I became aware of but didn't get the chance to post. First up is the older piece by that tireless debunker of dubious medicine and quackery and fellow skeptic, Prometheus. In a piece entitled Mercurial Laboratories, he dissects in detail why the laboratories that purport to show parents that their autistic children have elevated mercury levels almost certainly do not do any such thing. Indeed, what he has written can apply to almost any set of lab tests, particularly this part: One of…

Support cancer research by supporting the Spector-Harkin Amendment

Evolgen and I both wrote about this earlier, when the Genetics Society of America urged people to contact their Senators. Now the biggest organization dedicated to cancer research, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), has weighed in. Received in my e-mail today: To: All AACR Members From: Dr. Margaret Foti, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. William G. Nelson V, Chairperson, Science Policy & Legislative Affairs Committee Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 by e-mail Re:'Please Contact Your Senators TODAY or TOMORROW in Support of the Specter-Harkin Budget Amendment and the…

Thoroughly Postmodern Bunyip

Chris Mooney has an excellent article on how "balanced" coverage of scientific issues can misinform readers: Moreover, the question of how to substitute accuracy for mere "balance" in science reporting has become ever more pointed as journalists have struggled to cover the Bush administration, which scientists have widely accused of scientific distortions. As the Union of Concerned Scientists, an alliance of citizens and scientists, and other critics have noted, Bush administration statements and actions have often given privileged status to a fringe scientific view over a well-documented,…

Ernst Mayr Quote

(two entries from my old blog) I've been reading Ernst Mayr's This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World. In it there is this great quote: It is often asked why we do science? Or, what is science good for? ... The insatiable curiosity of human beings, and the desire for a better understanding of the world they live in, is the primary reason for an interest in science by most scientists. It is based on the conviction that none of the philosophical or purely ideological theories of the world can compete in the long run with the understanding of the world produced by science. (second…