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Michael Behe's son has a surprise

He's come out: Behe's son has abandoned Catholicism and is an atheist. It's actually a bit sad: he comes right out and says that he's an anti-theist, but that he's never told his parents (I guess the news is out now!). It also sounds like he's a bit estranged from his father, saying "I really dislike my father". He's still living with them, but is "quarantined" in the basement so he doesn't contaminate his brothers and sisters with his weird godless ideas. It's a very interesting discussion, but I just have to say that seeing fathers and sons unreconciled, even if the father is a bit…

The Latest Outrage: Holds on Holdren, Lubchencho

The Washington Post (the news part) reports that the man who is now one of my senators, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, has placed a hold on the nominations of John Holdren and Jane Lubchencho, and won't allow them to be voted on. Reportedly, "Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba rather than questioning the nominees' credentials." What a complete outrage. These nominees need to work on climate change, science advising, and much else; they have no role in Cuba policy. Obama named them back in December--they should be in their…

The Intersection History of Science Curriculum

I've been thrilled at the comments I'm getting in response to my posts on Nicholaus Copernicus. See for example here. So I've thought of a plan to invite blog readers to join me throughout the next several months as I push through a large number of other texts like De revolutionibus. For the remainder of this week, the primary reading will be Copernicus. (I still have a ways to go to finish.) Secondary readings will be Owen Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read and Thomas Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution. After that, here's the schedule I'm working from, and will strive to keep to--with Amazon…

Exclusive from ScienceDebate: The Reconciled Science Stimulus Numbers

Science Debate has done a great analysis of the science funding that has emerged from the House-Senate reconciliation process on the stimulus bill. For the most part, science funding was restored through the reconciliation process: $ 3 billion for NSF; $ 2 billion for DOE Science; $ 5.4 million for DOE research on efficiency and renewable energy; and 10.4 billion for NIH. You can check out the full analysis here. Assuming this bill gets to the president's desk and is signed--which seems a fairly safe assumption at this point--then this is great news for science and American innovation.…

The Stimulus Package

In case you missed today's speech at George Mason, President-elect Barack Obama wants to double the production of alternative energy within three years and make over 75 percent of federal buildings and 2 million homes more energy-efficient. It's a move that will create jobs immediately and save money for homeowners and businesses down the line. His new infrastructure push would also support the construction of a smart grid to save money, protect power sources, and collect and distribute renewable energy. While the actual plan has yet to be officially unveiled, the draft provides more detail…

I Don't Like Ike

Tropical Storm Ike intensified into a hurricane today, and then rapidly intensified into a sudden Category 3 storm, our third major hurricane of the year. And instead of recurving northward, as hurricanes at its location tend to do, Ike is forecast to plow straight towards Cuba and Hispaniola, and possibly threaten the United States. All of which is so not cool....but just more proof that this hurricane season is far, far from over. To that end, my latest Science Progress column is an attempt to seize the moment to direct attention beyond Anderson Cooper dodging flying billboards on CNN, and…

Spin

At 2:22 pm tomorrow, I'll have circumnavigated that spectacular star of ours exactly 28 times. Despite the traditional hullabaloo and fanfare every twelve months, it's easy to argue that counting orbits is rather arbitrary. Our year results from the happenstance masses of earth and the sun, the distance between them, and a few other extraterrestrial considerations in the mix. Given all entities involved came about due to a great big bang billions of years prior to my arrival, birthdays don't seem very significant when you scale out. An individual cameo isn't even a glimmer in the eye of…

Help Laelaps win a Quark!

The folks at 3quarksdaily have just announced that they are going to award three prizes (called, appropriately enough, quarks) to some of the best examples of science blogging on the web. All you have to do is pick out your favorite blog post written sometime between May 24, 2008 and now and submit it in the comments. The submission process will be open until midnight on June 1, 2009, shortly followed by the opening of public voting. Then six finalists will be selected from which the winners will be chosen by Steven Pinker. If you have any favorite Laelaps posts please feel free to submit…

From Blog to Book

Over at the Inverse Square blog author Tom Levenson has just started a multi-part blog series on the evolution of his forthcoming title Newton and the Counterfeiter. It is an extension of a session on writing a pop-sci book he lead with Dave Munger at ScienceOnline'09 last January, and the posts provide an excellent opportunity to see how a book goes from an idea to a volume sitting on the "New Arrivals" display at B&N. So far he has posted parts 0.0 and 1.0. I can't match Tom's experience as an author, but I will be contributing my own perspective on writing a pop-sci book based upon…

Founder of Save the Chimps, Carole Noon, passes away

As reported in the New York Times Carole C. Noon, the founder of Save the Chimps, passed away this week. She was 59 and suffered from pancreatic cancer. I first learned of Carole and Save the Chimps when I saw the documentary Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History. Since 1997 Noon and her organization have worked to acquire and care for chimpanzees used in biomedical experiments, the entrainment industry, or kept as pets. One of the biggest wins for Save the Chimps was when the organization was able to rescue 266 chimpanzees that were being improperly kept (and even abused) at the Coulston…

Laelaps, in print (again!)

I am proud to announce that my post, "Who scribbled all over Darwin's work?", was selected for inclusion in the 3rd (2008) edition of The Open Laboratory. You can see a list of all the winners here , and I am pleased to see that my post will be printed alongside work from many of my favorite science bloggers. Congratulations are also due to Bora, Jennifer Rohn, and the judges, who have worked so hard on this project! [As an aside, I am glad that this year I had no idea when the winning entries would be announced. Last year I was pacing the floor the night the results were scheduled to be…

What's Up With the Hurricane Season?

I've already had much to say about this year's puzzling Atlantic hurricane season. Indeed, I've called the year "schizophrenic." But now, the Houston Chronicle's crack science reporter Eric Berger has done an entire story on what the season does and doesn't mean. I'm quoted in there several times, and I also have my reaction to the Berger piece up at the newly relaunched and revamped Daily Green. In essence, I argue this: As we move further and further away from the dramatic 2005 hurricane season, the science actually seems to get more murky...but that's no excuse for not protecting…

For Razib... When Posts Resonate With Sciblings

Every now and then, something I write leads to stimulating discussion elsewhere. It seems Razib over at Gene Expression (who happens to be one of my very favorite Sciblings) really enjoyed my New Kids On The Block link on Tuesday to such an extent that he was inspired to remember his favorite boy band as well. But don't get your hopes up for enlightened dialogue because this is arguably not such an example. And to Razib... Click on the photo to find a special medley just for you. Now watch the entire video and make sure to practice those dance moves for our next Scibling reunion! As an…

Blogging About; and Catch Me on Thom Hartmann Today

I have lotsa blog posts today. Only, they're not on this site. First, I wrote a long essay at Huffington Post about the Yearly Kos science panel, which I thought was just extraordinary. It was definitely worth dropping a dime to travel to Chicago for. Click here to read my take. And here's a great picture of the panel itself from Lindsay Beyerstein: Meanwhile, the website The Daily Green has asked me to blog regularly about hurricanes--in other words, to track the weather, which has become a great hobby of mine. My first post over there, entitled "2007 Hurricane Season: Don't Get Too…

Crystal Ball Session: Predicting Future Science Policy Crackups

This is a very open ended post. I'm interested in a little futurism--and some feedback from all of you. Let's postulate, shall we, that the next president does in some sense "resolve" our two current hottest science policy controversies--stem cells and global warming. Then, the question is, what's next? What topics at the science policy interface will all the talking heads be shouting about during the next presidency? Nanotech? Genetic engineering? Something on nobody's radar? To answer this question, I think we need to bring out the crystal balls--the long range forecasts. To me, the…

Nisbet on NPR; I'm Down Under

Matt Nisbet has just done a segment with NPR's "On the Media" about our "Framing Science" article in Science. At Matt's blog, he notes that this is just the first of many instances in which we'll be starting to elaborate on the arguments advanced in our (necessarily brief) Science piece. In any event, I'm psyched not only that Matt did a great job on the air, but that it's possible to embed the program right here, YouTube-style: Meanwhile, I just crossed the Pacific for the first time in my young life: I'm currently blogging from the Sydney airport as I wait for my plane to Melbourne, where…

Open Access May Increase Opportunity for Medical Illustrators

Medical/technical illustrators too often are forgotten.  They add value to publications, and need to be compensated.  So what will be the effect, as open-access publishing becomes more common?   It is hard to know for sure, as the whole field is evolving so rapidly.  But Peter Suber, writing at href="http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/2007/11/does-oa-help-or-hurt-scientific.html">Open Access News, thinks the OA movement will be beneficial to illustrators.  He links to an article by href="http://www.medical-illustrations.ca/2007/11/02/open-access-and-medical-art/">Tim Fedak, which…

Donors Choose: Swag for 2 more donors!

A couple of weeks ago, the Donors Choose people very nicely sent me 2 t-shirts to thank us for participating in the Scienceblogs Donors Choose challenge. I confess that I have more t-shirts than I need already, and the Sciencewomen Challenge is still live with two remaining projects. So... I'll send them to the first two Sciencewomen readers who donate $5 or more to either the remaining projects listed here. Email me your donation receipt and your preference of the two shirts below, and I'll let you know if you're the lucky winner! Both shirts are men's L, and both were designed by blogger…

A beautiful post from Kate

I'm at the end of a super long work week, one where I saw even less of Minnow than usual, and one that's leaving me wondering whether my priorities need adjusting. And as I listen to Minnow babble herself to sleep down the hall, I discover this beautiful post from one of the most thoughtful bloggers I know. But here's the thing: making a workplace more family friendly is a fight that cannot be one by women alone. Women cannot be the only ones making a ruckus in the workplace and fighting with themselves, their peers and their bosses to effect change. If we make a nurturant woman's workplace…

The toad is in custody

From KMBC: Clay County sheriff's deputies said David Theiss, of Kansas City, possessed a Colorado River toad with the intention of using it as a hallucinogenic. Experts said it's possible to lick the toad's venom glands to achieve psychedelic effects. Most pet stores don't sell the Colorado River toad because the venom can sicken humans and kill household animals. "People used to do it all the time, but it got faded out awhile, but came back as a fad. Not a smart one," animal expert Danny Snyder told KMBC's Dion Lim. "The toxins in it can kill a lot of stuff." Authorities said this is the…

Video of British Soldiers on LSD

This video shows British Soldiers under the effects of LSD during a military exercise. I absolutely love the wry narration. Thank you to Boosterz for mentioning the video in a comment thread on the post How Much LSD Does it Take to Kill an Elephant? While looking for this footage on YouTube, I was surprised to see just how many videos of people on acid are available to the general public. If you can suggest any particularly good ones, please let me know and I will embed them after the jump. Don't forget to vote for Shelley! This video reveals some additional data from a NASA study of…

I'm in the Bible?

A reader ran my name through one of those bible code programs — you know, those really silly exercises in goofy divination that juggles lines of the bible around to find some arrangement that reveals words and phrases — and it turns out I'm in there. See? Gosh, I guess the Bible must be true then. Then the next step in this program is that it extracts a numerically related verse, somehow, that tells you deep things about the word in question. This is me: Respect my biblical authoritah! My very, very tired biblical authoritah…we got home from TAM at 4am, which means my brain is almost…

Get Your Neurotransmitters in Candy Form

(Homer Simpson voice) Mmmmmmm, GABA.........aghahgahgharrrrrhhhhhhh ::drool:: GABA is your friend. Increased GABA in the brain can result in decreased feelings of anxiety and increased relaxation and happiness. So, nobody tell those wacky Japanese candy makers that GABA doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, and its highly doubtful any would make it into the bloodstream from the stomach. Shhhhhhh. Don't tell them that. Cause next time I go to Asia, I wanna make sure I can still pick up some GABA chocolate (The Mental Balance Chocolate, 280mg GABA) or GABA hard candy. Dee-lish! The company…

The Easter Bunny Brought Pot This Year

Some guy was arrested this past Wednesday for trying to smuggle pot in an Easter Bunny. The stuffed bunny wabbit was stuffed with more than plush, it was also packing 16.6 grams of weed. The owner of said bunny was pulled over after running a red light, then searched the car because an "overwhelming" scent of marijuana was coming from the vehicle, the report says. Dupont found the bunny on the passenger floor. Inside the bunny's front pouch were 16 small bags of marijuana. Dupont said the marijuana appeared to be packaged for sale, the report says. Lawrence, who is wearing a DARE T-shirt in…

Competition vs. creativity?

An interesting perspective from education professor John Kitchens: President Obama, you must understand that mandating standards without equitable funding creates punitive systems of education, and current forms of high-stakes testing too often pit student against student, and eventually citizen against citizen. The struggling economy will likely renew the sense of competition and education for the sake of occupational gain, while a sober look at the number of jobs available in the near future will reveal the futility of these motivations. However entrenched these ideas about education are in…

Furry Interspecies Romance - Orangina-style

This is one of the most bizarre commercials I've ever seen (and yes, I'm including the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld spot in that sample). It's a French ad for Orangina, which I discovered via Stephanie at almostdiamonds. It appears to be an innuendo-drenched Technicolor musical extravaganza set in a baroque painting peopled by anthropomorphized woodland creatures. There's even a cephalopod bartender reminiscent of Carmen Miranda! And a lot of exotic dancing. What does any of this have to do with my favorite carbonated orange beverage? According to the Independent, "The adverts were said to be…

The Joy of Statistics: not your local weatherman

The BBC is screening a new documentary, "The Joy of Statistics," hosted by Hans Rosling of Gapminder. This is a short clip; you'll probably recognize the data and presentation from a couple of years back, but the Minority Report-style, virtual full-body interface is new. Granted, it starts off a little reminiscent of a local news meteorologist gesturing stiffly at a greenscreen. But within the first minute it starts to seem more natural, and the data (comparative life expectancy, wealth, and population in the developed and developing continents) is always eye-opening. The BBC seems to be…

Back from Blogcation - twice over

Hi everyone, I'm officially back from blogcation this week, so thanks for hanging in there while I was (mostly) off the grid! For the next couple of weeks, I'll be slowly wading through the emails and links I got during over the last few weeks. Plus, I'll not only be posting at BioE, I'll also be contributing over at Collective Imagination, which is focusing this month on technology and personal health, including data visualization and e-health. (These are big interests of mine that I occasionally touch on here at BioE, but are a squarer fit over at CI.) Please pop over and see what you…

Make your own book scanner, just to spite Google!

I really wanted to go to the D is for Digitize conference in New York. I couldn't go, but Harry Lewis did, and according to him, the star was Daniel Reetz of DIYBookScanner.org: While everyone else at the conference was ruminating about whether Google had a library monopoly or whether Amazon or Microsoft might imaginably be able to compete, along comes this dude with his Rube Goldberg contraption and says, hey, let's all just start doing it, and we'll catch up eventually. (source) Reetz made the book scanner above from "trash and cheap cameras." Very impressive. But what does it mean for…

Flowerbots

H. annuus Macoto Murayama Nanobots? Alien spaceships? A scene from TRON? No, it's illustrator Macoto Muriyama's delicate diagrams of flower structure. Muriyama says, Generally, a plant is considered to be a being that has an organic form. However, that is just one of the aspects because along with their organic form, a plant possesses a contradictory element of geometric/mechanical structure. By highlighting the later, the plant's out-of-the-ordinary form is revealed, and in it, a different kind of attractiveness can be found. (source) See an entire gallery of Muriyama's work at Pink…

MA jumps on the NYC Trans-fat ban wagon`

This is never going to end: A lawmaker introduced a bill on Tuesday that would make Massachusetts the first U.S. state to ban artificial trans fats from restaurants, closely following New York City's ban of the artery-clogging oils. "We have an opportunity to vastly improve public health by directing restaurants to switch to healthier alternatives," Peter Koutoujian, a Democratic representative in the Massachusetts Legislature, said in a statement. The bill uses language similar to new regulations announced this month by New York City, but marks the first effort to force restaurants in an…

Things people swallowed 100 years ago

The NYT has a great little article about Chevalier Jackson, a turn-of-the-century doctor who kept a collection of foreign objects removed from people's throats. Dr. Jackson "preserved more than 2,000 objects that people had swallowed or inhaled: nails and bolts, miniature binoculars, a radiator key, a child's perfect-attendance pin, a medallion that says "Carry me for good luck." . . . He was so intent on assembling his collection that he once refused to return a swallowed quarter, even when its owner threatened his life." On February 18, the Mutter Museum, which owns Jackson's collection,…

Withdrawal From Iraq

Republicans see that they are losing on this issue, so they just make the issue go away: href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082100310.html">U.S., Iraqi Negotiators Agree on 2011 Withdrawal Withdrawal from Iaq is one of Obama's stronger points.  So it is a smart move for the Administration to  just make it into a non-issue.  Ok, whatever, just stop the href="http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/6/army_recruiter_suspended_for_threatening_high">illegal coersion of kids to join the Army.   Follow the link to listen to the interview and the aurio…

Ark Park? What Ark Park?

Ken Ham has been planning to build this colossal boondoogle in Kentucky, a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark. Except they've hit one little snag. Their groundbreaking was pushed back from spring, to summer, to fall, and the most recent media report was to next spring. Meanwhile, their fundraising goal of $24.5 million appears to have ground to a halt at just over $4 million, where it has been for quite a while. They had reached the $3 million mark all the way back in May. I don't know what the problem is. $4 million is more than enough to hire one old man with a wooden mallet and a bronze axe…

Quote of the day

As you can see, juggling lab and fatherhood has left me no time to blog. So now that I'm waiting for the centrifuge to cool down I'll take this opportunity to quote a great musician whose words have some resonance these days: Cranium implants, false debt, funny money, dead sat heart, signs of the empire in decline, stretching the bottom line without regard to time or limits of mankind, paying no attention to the laws of cause and effect, advance and decline, the ways of ancient biorythms, science, no conscience. -Steve Coleman, from the song No Conscience, off of Steve Coleman and the Five…

Let's talk about facts this election - Part VII - More Family Values

In a comment to yesterday's post Rev Matt stated: There is also a correlation between teen pregnancy and religion. I tried to look up the stats for the US and couldn't find any. What I discovered (mostly from this study) was that in the US religiosity correlates with a lower rate of contraception use (not surprising), a delay in the age of a person's first sexual experience (not that surprising) and a decrease in abortion. So in the US it is not clear what the correlation is between teen pregnancy and religiosity. (If any one can find that data, let me know.) ON THE OTHER HAND there does…

SciLink - the LinkedIn for Scientists

I've been receiving requests from the newest networking program. I've given up fighting and just joined in. So what's special about this new networking site? Well, in contrast to LinkedIn there are special features that are more applicable to academics in general. For example you can add papers and awards to your profile. And unlike Facebook's SciBook, SciLink is a true science networking tool. It also comes with a cool scientific genealogy application. (Evil Gomez - someone has finally implemented your idea!) There are some patches that the developers need to iron out, but overall it looks…

Embryos at last!

Oh, look: The first embryos from our new and improved fish system! We only got a handful today, but you can see why. Those are about 3½ hours old, so we collected too late and the little babies' mommies and daddies had spent the previous few hours assiduously poking around in the marbles sheltering the eggs, and had sucked up their little brothers and sisters in a cannibal feast, as they like to do. We'll be adjusting our schedules, as developmental biologists often have to do, to do much earlier collections starting tomorrow. The parents look happy and comfortable, perhaps a little plump…

Carnival of the Blue #7

This month's Carnival of the Blue is happening now at The Natural Patriot. The quality and layout have improved remarkably over time, due largely to the efforts of past Carnival hosts. This is also one of the better moderated collections so far. Host Emmett Duffy does a great job providing a few words of background on each of the eighteen ocean stories hosted there. The Carnival sideshows include musings on sharks, seagrass, snapping shrimp, Cyclone Sidr, and the Carbon Tax, as well as a profile of the "modern pirate" at the helm of the Sea Shepard, interesting talk about a jellyfish diet,…

Landslide!

I took my love, I took it down Climbed a mountain and I turned around I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills till the landslide brought me down The largest known arthropod is now followed by the largest known landslide. 60,000 years ago a submarine landslide off the coast of north-west Africa traveled 1,500 kilometers before dumping 225 billion metric tons of sediment. For perspective, 1,500 km is about the distance from Miami to Memphis and 225 billion tons is the weight of about 45 billion male African elephants. One of the authors, Peter Talling, of the article published in…

Did Someone Say Party?

Just a friendly reminder that Zooillogix, Gene Expression, Deep Sea News, Adventures in Ethics and Science, and Thoughts from Kansas are throwing the biggest, most fun, blowout bonanza ever put together tomorrow night!*** The party starts at 9pm sharp at Tonic, the bar owned by yours truly on Polk Street in San Francisco. Scandelous clothing is highly encouraged unless you're a dude or not good looking! Can't wait to see you all there. We're going to laugh; we may cry a little; and without any doubt, somebody is going to get into a drunken brawl with a cop (Oh please, let it be Janet…

Leopard Attacking Crocodile

In a sure sign that Kruger National Park in South Africa is angling to be the World Wrestling Federation of game reserves, yet another unlikely and brutal animal match-up has been caught on film. In this series of photos, a leopard ambushes a crocodile. A protracted struggle ensues but it's pretty clear who ultimately comes out on top. While crocodiles have been witnessed attacking leopards in the past, this is the first known encounter that began the other way around. Cut and pasted just for you from the pages of The Telegraph, check this out: more below the fold This encounter is…

Snail eradication (day 16).

Another slow morning for snail picking. It was cold and dry, so most of the gastropods were probably hunkered down wherever it is they hunker down. I'm hopeful, however, that after yesterday's significant weed-clearing operation there are fewer slug and snail safe-houses. While I wasn't picking handfuls of gastropods, I was clearing a few more weeds and setting up some "safe"-houses of my own. The hardware store didn't have unglazed tiles, so we ended up getting unglazed terra cotta saucers to balance on bricks as nice, moist shelters from the sun and wind. At the moment, there are six of…

links for 2009-03-15

Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde: Science would be so great, if it weren't for other people Trying valiantly to avoid getting scooped. (tags: science-communication tribe-of-science) Need to Keep My Mouth Shut « Transient Reporter The trouble you can get into by voicing enthusiasm. (tags: science-communication academia) Peer Review and Its Flaws « Blue Lab Coats Considering the official criteria and the (apparently) actual criteria for successful grant proposals. (tags: tribe-of-science peer-review science-communication) To all the junior grad students out there « I Love Science, Really A…

The Earth, then and now.

... as drawn by the younger Free-Ride offspring. The Earth as described in 2006: The moon was going through its phases, the meteor catcher was catching meteors, and the ozone layer, while holey, was still there. The Earth as described in 2009: The meteor catcher appears to have been replaced by a large satellite dish. Maybe we have better options with which to handle falling meteors now. (Or maybe we've just prioritized telecommunications.) Just past the asteroid belt, Mars seems in a very close approach to Earth (possibly because the Mars Rover would appears to be back on Earth -- for…

They'll be killing cranes in Kentucky

This from Julie at 10,000 Birds: Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources unanimously passed its sandhill crane hunting proposal. All eight hunters on the commission think it's a good idea to shoot cranes in Kentucky. The proposal now goes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for final approval or denial. The public comment period on the Kentucky sandhill crane hunting proposal ends AUGUST 1 2011. Read the details here, including information on what you need to do to help stop this. Take action and spread the word. Julie's post has the address for submitting written comments…

A challenge!

Here's a request from gnosos: "Dr" Hovind is giving a speech on my campus tomorrow night in a 450 seat auditorium. Usually, questioners only get 15 seconds at the mic at these kinds of things, and I'm trying to think of a question that approaches one of his many glaring errors in thought in a novel way. Do you (or your readers) have any ideas about what you (or they) would say to Kent Hovind given 15 seconds? I'm cynical: I think the rapid-fire limitation is intended to prevent deep, thoughtful questions or any kind of considered rebuttal, and I also think he'll just reply to anything…

A double dose of...

...Eneman! I was remiss in July. It happens that I totally forgot to post the monthly feature that has become a tradition over the last two years of blogging. Oh, I tried to make up for it by resurrecting a rather amusing EneMan article from nearly two years ago as an installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo when I didn't have time to come up with new material. What I can't figure out is this: If EneMan is so busy being the industrious and hard-working student, where does he get the time to do all this extracurricular stuff? JULY 2007 I have to say, I'd be pretty scared if I saw a 6 foot…

Casual racism in the 1930s

After having been pointed yesterday to a video of an old Betty Boop short that strongly suggests that Boop may have been a homeopath, I couldn't resist clicking on the links to a couple of other old Betty Boop cartoons. One of them reminded me of just how different our culture was 72 years ago when this cartoon was released. What's astonishing to me, from the vantage of 2007, is the casual racism, done without a care in the world that it would offend anyone and done with the grossest racial stereotypes played for cheap laughs: We can be grateful that such stereotypes are no longer…

Can alternative medicine be subjected to scientific scrutiny?

Dr. R. W. asks (and answers) the question, pointing out in detail how: Promoters of unscientific claims often reject ordinary scientific standards for experimental design and evidence. Even government funded CAM research is troubled with serious methodologic flaws. Research on complementary and alternative methods is conducted without regard to biologic plausibility. The proponents and funders of alternative medicine research do not accept negative results. Government oversight is biased in favor of complementary and alternative medicine. He's right on all points, although he forgot that…