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Larry Lessig tells CERN what's wrong with scientific publishing

Recently, IP scholar and government corruption critic Larry Lessig gave a talk at CERN in which he talked about the mismatch between the goals of copyright and scientific publishing. I was excited to watch it, but . . . well, I fell asleep partway through. (It's a long talk.) I haven't been well lately (thus the lack of posts) so I should probably thank Professor Lessig for the much-needed nap. It honestly wasn't because the video was boring - I love Lessig talks and their typographic design, and if it was boring, I wouldn't be sharing it here. But prior to the nap, I was a little troubled…

A Few Pictures of Denver During ARO

As mentioned, I'm currently at the ARO MidWinter Meeting in Denver, and have taken a few pictures of this beautiful city. I also managed to meet up with Karmen of Chaotic Utopia (I found out why she named it that!) for dinner and hang out with her fascinating cornucopia of friends. (Thanks Karmen!) Through her I got to meet a couple local poltical mavens: Ben Gelt from PAX Students, and Mason Tvert who was the impetus behind the notorious Amendment 44 in Colorado. And a generous reader, Charlie, took me out for a delicious meal of raw fish and sake last night (Thanks Charlie!). Unfortunately…

Pooch Pilsner, Doggy Draught, Canine Cold Ones.....

I once had a friend who's dog, Cuddles, *loved* beer. Cuddles would beg and whine if anyone had a cold tasty brew in the room. You can imagine how that scernio usually ended up: "Hey guys, watch what Cuddles can do!" It always seemed like a waste of good (or even bad) beer to me, but apparently a lot of people in the Netherlands don't think so. After a long day hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold bottle of beer. So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners made from beef extract and malt. "Once a year…

NZ Ornithologists "Very Keen" On Rare Parrot

What's a kakariki? Other than an incredibly cool-sounding name, its a kind of parrot that lives in New Zealand and thereabouts. Apparently, the red-crowned kakariki is an extremely rare subspecies, one of which has recently been spotted on the island of Maungatautari. It was once believed to be extinct, outside of aviaries. Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust chief executive Jim Mylchreest said he had received reports of possibly several of the birds on the mountain. "We've got an excellent photo of one of the birds and we had another report that three of the birds were seen up there…

Jeffrey-Lindley Paradox

Via Amy Perfors at the Harvard statistics blog, Social Science Statistics Blog, I learned of the Jeffrey-Lindley Paradox in statistics. The paradox is that if you have a sample large enough, you can get p-values that are very close to zero, even though the null hypothesis is true. You can read a very in depth explanation of the paradox here. I don't find this either surprising or worrisome, as Perfors does. While I'd never heard of the paradox before (it's really pretty cool, if you're into statistics or Bayesian reasoning), everyone who's taken a statistics course understands the perils of…

A Framing Analysis Research Project: Update (UPDATED)

OK, the initial response to my quesitons about the internet study was overwhelmingly positive, so I'm going to go ahead with it. I just need one more thing from you. Ordinarily with a study like this, I would run a pilot study to figure out exactly what concepts to include in the final version, but since this is my first time doing this web thing, I don't want to have a bunch of people spread the word, get a bunch of people who will do it once, and then only have the pilot data. So, I need to come up with a list of concepts related to current political issues. What I need is ten higher-level…

Blogging and Education

We interrupt this weekend of mirror neurons (I know, I'm slow getting the posts out -- the weekend may extend into the week) to bring you this public service announcement. Well, not so much an announcement as a begging for advice and discussion. Since I started writing about cognitive science almost exclusively on this blog, I've been getting links from course websites, faculty pages, etc., and it has made me think about how I, and other bloggers, can better facilitate science education. As I've said before, I think one purpose of academic blogs should be to educate people who will never take…

Mercury rising

Shrimp fisherman and environmental activist Diane Wilson gave a talk today at the Harte Research Institute. She speaks without script or slides. That's probably what makes her such a great speaker. Stories of her life as a fisherwoman turned activist invoke depressing, humorous, and inspiring emotions all at the same time. Diane's best known for sinking her own shrimp boat in protest of toxic discharge at a Formosa Plastic industrial plant here in South Texas, but she's taken on Union Carbide and others like a One Woman Army. She is the author of An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of…

The Bailey Case

Macht makes a good point, in noting that pro-science bloggers, who are quick to jump on any religious or Republican affront to science, have for the most part ignored the Michael Bailey case, largely, I suspect, because most of the pro-science bloggers are more anti-religion and anti-Republican than they are pro-science (which is not to say that they aren't, in fact, pro-science). Another factor, I think, comes from a source that I believe Macht, or perhaps Brandon (I forget which) has mentioned before: many of the most vocal "pro-science" bloggers are biologists who seem to have gotten it in…

Job Market Good/Bad

This is just strange.  Not profound, just strange.  The same newspaper on the same day carries two headlines on the same subject: href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/business/02cnd-jobs.html?ex=1328072400&en=c3b7312ad38409ce&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss"> Jobs Growth Slows but Remains Strong href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Wall-Street.html?ex=1256184000&en=f75f0bb8b4799a79&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland">Stocks End Mixed on Lackluster Jobs Data Jobs Growth Slows but Remains Strong By JEREMY W. PETERS Published: February 2, 2007…

Firefox is Better

Casual users might not notice much difference between Firefox 2.0 and IE 7.0.  But with continued use, the advantages of Firefox become increasingly evident.  This is especially true for people who take the initiative to install a lot of extensions. What is less obvious, is that Firefox still has the advantage in security, as confirmed by a recent report: href="http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/7asiAzrqaYcW7j/Firefox-The-Better-Phisher-Fighter.xhtml">Firefox: The Better Phisher Fighter By Jay Lyman LinuxInsider 11/16/06 4:00 AM PT Mozilla and Microsoft are duking it out over…

Good Day for Michigan

I am not having such a good day, but it is a good day for Michigan.  The Wolverines won in Bloomington, paving the way for for a big showdown with Ohio State. More importantly, the jack-o-lantern is off the deer. This deer has been making headlines for days.  Everyone has been worried about it.  Now it will be OK.  We think.   href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/11/deer.pumpkin.ap/index.html">Deer breaks free of plastic jack-o'-lantern POSTED: 3:41 p.m. EST, November 11, 2006 CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Michigan (AP) -- A deer whose head was stuck in a plastic Halloween jack-o'-lantern for…

A change in NIH leadership

Elias A. Zerhouni, is stepping down as head of the National Institutes of Health. I heard about the announcement last night at the NERD meeting. Many were happy. Many blog commentators have added their two cents. Here are mine: 1) He's stepping down real soon (the end of October). Why so quickly? Did something happen? And why is this happening just before the elections and not closer to January when the next administration takes over? 2) Zerhouni is an MD, and under his direction there has been more of an emphasis on translational-research and less on basic research. (Read all about it at the…

Diversity linked to ecosystem function

A recent study linking deep-sea biodiversity to ecosystem processes recognized that 1) the deep-sea supports the largest biomass of living things on the planet and 2) the deep-sea represents the most important ecosystem for carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous cycling. The chosen indicator species for the study was the nematode worm. Nematodes apparently account for 90% of all life at the bottom of the sea. I am unsure whether this is given in terms of species richness or biomass, but either way, it's an image problem. Just kidding, of course. The new study is published in the January 8 issue of…

Microbe Power by Christina Kellogg

One of the challenges of doing research in the deep-sea is the expense of getting down there and staying down there long enough (i.e., needing ships, ROVs, and submersibles). One way around that is to leave sensors on the bottom to collect data even when nobody is around. However, then you run into a power supply problem--can't exactly run out and change the batteries every couple of weeks. The solution? Microbial fuel cells. Clare Reimer's group at OSU have been working on seafloor fuel cells that exploit the naturally-occurring bacteria and geochemistry to generate power for deep-sea…

Future Fish Will "Catch Themselves"

In keeping with our nautically themed posts (perhaps a teaser for April's upcoming "Carnival of the Blue," hosted by none other than yours truly the Fabulous Flying Bleiman Brothers), we bring you this story: Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Wood's Hole are attempting to train fish to do the stupidest thing possible, catch themselves in nets when beckoned by fishermen. Listening to U2 makes me want to "self-exterminate," perhaps the scientists should try that? The idea is to train captured or farm raised black sea bass to associate a loud tone with feeding time.…

On the perils of choosing a T-shirt on a Friday that includes a committee meeting.

One of the best things about Fridays on my campus is that hardly anyone is around. Not only does this make parking less of a headache, and interruption mid-task less probable, but it means that there's even less pressure to dress in a manner that asserts, "I am a responsible adult!" I mean, I am a responsible adult, but must I prove it by wearing a suit? I'm on a campus committee that meets every few weeks, on Fridays. This means that the other committee members are also likely to dress as if it were a Friday -- in jeans and T-shirts. Even dressed like graduate students, we get the job…

Does analytic philosophy give you Asperger's Syndrome?

Or is there just something wrong with this instrument for self-evaluation? The average score is pegged at 15 for a woman, 18 for a man. The "Asperger's" range is 32-50. I scored 30. Now, I have this reputation (at least in the geek circles with which I run) of being social and diplomatic and empathetic and good at communicating. But these results would tend to suggest ... not so much. Although I'm wondering how accurate the self-assessments are. How good a judge am I of my facility at chit-chat or of how well I "read" other people? Also, the items that ask about what you prefer (rather…

Where do scientists learn to write?

During my office hours today, a student asked me whether, when I was a chemistry student, the people teaching me chemistry also took steps to teach me how to write. (The student's experience, in an undergraduate major in a scientific field I won't name here, was that the writing intesive course did nothing significant to teach good writing, and the assignments did very little to improve students' writing.) It's such a good question, I'm going to repackage it as a set of questions to the scientists, scientists-in-training, and educators of scientists: Do scientists need to write well? If so…

Beginning of semester moment of clarity.

Since classes for our Spring semester started just last Wednesday, my approach to the university this morning (from freeway exit to parking garage) involved a huge line of cars, creeping very slowly. It also involved campus police directing the movement of long lines of cars at what is, in normal circumstances, a four-way stop. It has been this way since last Wednesday, and it will continue to be this week for probably another week. In about a week, as if by magic, campus police will no longer be needed to move the traffic, and the lines of cars at any given moment will be reduced by at…

The student loan letter.

Something quite unexpected happened to me: I managed to pay off a student loan nearly a year before I go up for tenure! Who'd have thunk it? Here's the letter they sent me, with a bit of reading between the lines: Dear Janet, On behalf of [the school where I got the student loan], I wish to thank you for repaying your student loan and not being a deadbeat. I commend you for fulfilling this very important financial obligation instead of treating it like an obligation to one of those magazine CD clubs. The student loan programs are revolving funds, so your repayment will be used to make new…

Gabba gabba! One of us! One of us!

Following up on my earlier post on Roger D. Kornberg's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, I want to call your attention to this comment from the esteemed Pinko Punko: Well, in the press conf. Dr. Kornberg stated he absolutely and first and formost views himself as a chemist, and his training (Ph.D.) was under a world famous chemist. He considers himself a physical scientist whose goal is to understand the mechanism at the molecular level of a protein machine. Now, perhaps this is somewhat simple chemistry as many of the steps boil down to hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. You will…

What should my students call me?

OK, it's the time of the semester when I get a bazillion emails from students enrolled in my classes, and students trying to enroll in my classes, and assorted others. And, the emailers each choose a manner of address out of thin air, since usually they haven't met me yet and have no idea how I prefer to be addressed. The problem is, I'm not sure how I would prefer to be addressed! I am on record as feeling "How U doin?" is too informal an opening for email to one's professor, and as deeming beeyotch and its variants inappropriate. I am not "Mrs. Stemwedel" (since that's my mother). I'd be…

Spatial synchronicity (or, how should I feel about this?)

As I noted earlier, the population density in my office at school decreased enough to free up some room for a couch. The original plan had been to adopt an ugly orange love seat from a colleague's apartment, but it looks like the UOLS will be going in his office, since the couch he was planning to bring in for himself won't fit his office. So, I hied myself to IKEA and bought the maximum amount of couch that would fit in the trunk and folded-down back seat of my car. (If you must know, it's a Prius. Not cavernous, but good with the mileage.) And seriously, if the flat-packed box of couch…

The Book Meme

Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests tagged me, and I loves me some books, so who am I to refuse to be mimetic? 1. One book that changed your life? Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic 2. One book you have read more than once? T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3. One book you would want on a desert island? Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World 4. One book that made you laugh? Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World (My answer for #5 would also work here.) 5. One book that made you cry?…

Necessity is the mother of longer text messages?

Recently, I traded up from my nowhere-near-smart phone to a slightly more advanced (but still nearly obsolete) phone -- one maybe about a year newer (in terms of technological endowment) than the old one. Practically, what this means is that I am now able not only to receive text messages, but also to send them. And, tremendous Luddite though I am, I have discovered contexts in which sending a text message actually seem reasonable (e.g., to contact a fellow conference-goer in the morning after a night of conference-carousing, when a phone call might interrupt sleep or networking or something…

DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge: help to increase my share of the HP funds and I'll sing for you.

As I noted earlier this week, Hewlett-Packard is going to be distributing another $200,000 in the DonorsChoose 2009 Social Media Challenge. They're dividing up that pool of money according to how much each challenge has raised as a proportion of the total funds raised by this Sunday. In other words, if my challenge were to raise an amount equivalent to 1% of the total take by Sunday, HP would add another $2000 to fund the projects in my challenge. If we were to get enough of an extra kick from HP to break $3000, I would gladly deliver the "big reward" I promised to you (and the internets)…

Hudson River Fish Evolve To Handle PCBs

There is now a fish that has evolved immunity to PCB's. PCB is a substance designed to use as an insulator in high-heat electrical equipment (like the transformers used in the electrical grid, or household radios and such). It is very bad for the environment, was taken out of use years ago, but the thing is, because it was designed to stand up to very tough conditions, it does not break down naturally. I grew up not far from where most of them seem to have been made, and was actually involved in some of the cleanup. So, today, it is interesting to read about this fish: Bottom-feeding fish…

The Pastor Ray Mummert Award goes to…

Those rascals at antievolution.org are like the Baker Street Irregulars of the evolutionary forces—they're always doing the legwork to come up with interesting bits of data. Like, for instance, this wonderful example of hypocrisy/inconsistency at Uncommon Descent. This is what Dembski spat out today, complaining about us manipulative elites (he really deserves a Pastor Ray Mummert Award for it, too): "Framing," as a colleague of mine pointed out, is the term that UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics George Lakoff uses to urge Democrats that the public will agree with liberal policies if only…

Pulling in to STFU Station

So, I push you. Then, you push me. Then, I push you. Then, you push me. Then, I push you. Then, you push me. And I go "Hey, no pushing! Unfair!!!!" Or perhaps it goes like this, a little more complicated: Rebecca says something Stef says something PZ says something A buncha people say something Richard says something A buncha people say something And at any point in there, depending on which thing was said by which person, you yell "Hey, stop all the argument, we're done now!!! This has gone on too long!" It's like a New York subway. You get on the subway near the beginning, and that…

A different take on Oscar the Kitty of Doom

(LOL Oscar from Lauren.) While I expressed skepticism the other day regarding the media reports that a cat named Oscar could predict which patients at the nursing home in which he resides were within hours of death, some of you believed it, some even going so far as to speculate that not only could Oscar detect impending death but that he hangs out by the dying because he wants a snack. But none have gone so far as Mighty Ponygirl in speculating about Oscar's true motivation. Personally, I like my explanation that it's just confirmation bias better. It's less--shall we say?--disturbing. I…

Tim Slagle tells little ol' me to "shut up"

Apparently comic Tim Slagle thinks that my discussion of his comedy routine was horribly, horribly humorless and unfair to him and that I "set him up." I just happen to be at work right now (it's lunchtime, and I have a brief break between cases) and consequently don't have time to address it until much later today, but I will link to Tim and let you see what you think until I get around to dealing with it. Stop by Tim's blog and tell him hi for me. While you're there, you might want to take a gander at this piece by him. The discussion of chemistry and thermodynamics there has to be read to…

This is just so wrong

As a fan of Iggy Pop, I was appalled to read this: Former "The Lord of the Rings" star Elijah Wood will play Iggy Pop in The Passenger, a biopic of the legendary rocker, reports Variety. Ted Hope's This Is That Productions and Traction Media are executive producing. The movie, which follows Pop's early years with his band the Stooges, will be directed by Nick Gomez (Drowning Mona) from a script by Eric Schmid. The $6 million-$8 million "Passenger" is set to film in next six months and is scheduled for delivery by midsummer 2008. Pop has "given his blessing" to the project but will not take…

Technically speaking ...

This is interesting: Drupal has released a new code of conduct for their community. It has five points: * Be considerate * Be respectful * When we disagree, we consult others * When we are unsure, we ask for help * Step down considerately The fucker stole the whole thing from Ubuntu, as it turns out. How dare they!!!!111eleventy!!! Gmail just got like skype, sort of. Five days after the announcement of Voice and Video Chat service in Gmail for Debian-based Linux distributions, Google unveiled a Gmail phone call service for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Rather than having…

Florida chickens have come home to roost

Over that last day or so, tons of BP oil have been removed from Florida beaches. The news shows people who live along the beaches crying. Sorry, Floridians, I do not cry for you. I cry for the clams, but not the people. You put that oil there. You may or may not remember your part in stealing the election and putting the Oilman Bush in office, with the help of your governor, another Oilman Bush. You may or may not have noticed that you play a large role in determining the outcome of national elections, and thus helped re-elect Oilman Bush. Not much is being said about it now, but I'm…

Squid on ice

Don't rush to get tickets to New Zealand just yet—the colossal squid is frozen in a block of ice, and they don't plan to even start thawing it for another year (there aren't any other reasons to visit NZ than to see the squid, right?). To minimise handling of the precious specimen, the colossal squid will probably have its temperature raised, over days, in the tank in which it will finally be "fixed". "We don't want to move it too much," says Marshall. "When a thing like that is in the water, it's neutrally buoyant. "But, of course, when you get it out of the water, you've got a big lump of…

NASA Science Web Site

The Open Source content management system PLONE runs the newly released NASA Science web site. The site has something for everyone (researchers, educators, kids, and "citizen scientists"). The Plone seems to be working quite nicely. Some of it is still a little rough. The Space Calendar link seems to be broken, and the email to the "responsible government official" for the site (who, by the way, is Greg Williams) gets you an email to "noone@nasa.gov" ... There appears to be a number of distinctly different ways to navigate on this site, including a main in-your-face graphical…

Blog Business And Stuff

Following a number of reader requests (thanks for the feedback!) I've compiled a list of the most read posts from this blog, excluding those that were heavily visited but that were timely and thus not likely relevant now. The list is divided into rough categories, and I've placed it here, on my About page. I'll update this now and then. If there is anything else you want to see on there, let me know. Also, my blogroll has finally reached the "Z's" ... so in a few days I'll be updating that and running out a new set. If you'd like to be added to my blog roll, let me know. If you are not…

The new geo-historical curriculum

We've got conflicting chronologies: a young earth history that is virtually all relatively recent human history, and a scientifically accurate one that encompasses 4.5 billion years of geological and biological change. How to reconcile them? Well, if we just divide everything in geology and biology by about a million and splice it together with modern history, we get this vastly entertaining timeline. Here's a sample: A.D. 1066: William the Conqueror invades England by walking through northern France. A.D. 1215: Mega Fauna force King John to sign Magna Carta A.D. 1304: Plate armor…

Microsoft Softening Up India

Microsoft is encouraging its business partners to promote its Office Open XML specification (OOXML) to the Indian Bureau of Standards (BIS) and Ministry of IT. This move has incensed supporters of the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF) who fear that the "soft" Indian state may not be able to stand up to Microsoft pressure tactics. Open Source Initiative (OSI) board member Raj Mathur claims to have a copy of the Microsoft letter to NGOs. "Microsoft has 'persuaded' several non-profit organizations," Mathur writes, "to bombard the Indian IT Secretary and the Additional Director General of the…

Are emerging diseases emerging more?

Or is it just that they are more often recognized. Or more sensationally reported. A recent study suggests that "emerging" diseases such as HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus and Ebola are more common. By analyzing 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has determined that zoonoses - diseases that originate in animals - are the current and most important threat in causing new diseases to emerge. And most of these, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another…

Navy Will Shoot Down Satellite

Some time in the next few days the US navy will fire a rocket in order to shoot down a satellite carrying 454 kilograms of the very poisonous substance hydrazine. By blowing the satellite up, the hydrazine tank will explode dispersing the gas to a low concentration level If the tank is not blown up, it would likely survive re-entry. If it burst on contact with the earth, several city blocks could be covered with deadly gas. Most likely, the satellite will not hit a few city block, and the military says it is most likely to come down in a desolate area. But, the military has said a lot of…

Orac's looking for some quackademic medicine

One advantage of blogging is that I can sometimes tap into the knowledge of my readers to help me out. Some of you may recall a little something I created a couple of years ago known as the Academic Woo Aggregator. Basically, it was a list of medical schools and academic medical centers in the U.S. and Canada with departments or divisions of "integrative medicine" that promote what has been termed "quackademic medicine." Unfortunately, I've been very remiss in updating it. The last update was in May 2008. I think it's long past due for an update. I haven't decided whether I will post such an…

Why, oh, why can't I have something like this aimed at me? (part 2)

Remember John Benneth? He's a homeopath who runs a website called The Science of Homeopathy and produced a woo-tastic video claiming to show us how homeopathy works. Steve Novella also took on his video. For his trouble, he was rewarded with one of the most hilariously off-base attacks I've ever seen, even from anti-vaccine loons. So full of awesome looniness was the video that it induced in me a distinct sense of envy. After all, all I have is J.B. Handley attacking me. Now, for reasons that elude me, Mr. Benneth has produced a second video. It's just as outrageous. In fact, it's even more…

Best comments of the day on animal rights bullies

I have to admit, this one made me chuckle. In an earlier post today, in which I expressed my outrage at animal rights terrorists targeting an investigator's children for harassment at their school, I asked the following question: That reminds me: Where were these animal rights loons when "Andrew Wakefield was torturing baby Macacque monkeys in the name of horrendously bad science designed to be used as a "made for court" study against vaccine manufacturers? Paul Browne responded in the comments: Perhaps crank magnetism also acts as a force field that protects cranks from other cranks. I…

This is your body on religion

Religious ritual can make you very, very sick, and even kill you. This somewhat morbid, mildly gross, and terribly sad story about the Essenes, the religious zealots who authored the Dead Sea scrolls, is an interesting anthropological look at an ancient failed cult. It seems that their requirements for dealing with their own waste were mistakenly ineffective. They excreted into pits that protected parasites, which they would then carry back…and before they could return to the group, they had to bathe by total immersion in a cistern, which meant they'd basically soak in each other's…

Skepticsâ Circle #77: The Overmedicalized Edition

It's 2008. Unfortunately, there don't appear to be any signs that the problems of 2007 as far as rampant credulity and susceptibility to quackery and pseudoscience on the part of the public will be abating this year. Fortunately, we have a remedy--or at least something that can help show you how to examine these outlandish claims from a critical and scientific perspective. Yes, it's the very first Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle of 2008, and it's over at White Coat Underground right now. Appropriately enough, the setting is a primary care office in Anytown, USA, and the patients are...well,…

"Plummet" means "increased" at Power Line

How is An Inconvenient Truth doing at the box office? Pretty well. The gross takings have increased every weekend and have almost reached $10,000,000. It's already the number 7 on the all time box office list for documentaries. How does John Hinderaker and UPI report this? (My emphasis.) UPI reports that Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, hasn't done so well after a promising start: Former U.S. vice-President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has seen its ticket sales plummet after a promising start. After Gore's global warming documentary garnered the highest average per…

Lott's lawsuit in LA Times

The LA Times publishes Jon Wiener on Lott's lawsuit: But Lott is not suing those who have said some of his pro-gun research was "invented," "faked" or "cooked." The lawsuit turns on the definition of "replicate," from the "Freakonomics" sentence about how other scholars have tried and failed to "replicate his results." Lott maintains "replicate" means "analyze the identical data in the way Lott did." Because nobody tried to do that, he argues, "Freakonomics" is wrong. Most people, however, understand "replicate" to mean something like "confirm." Lott's reputation has indeed been "seriously…

IBC vs Media Lens on Iraq Casualties

The BBC has a report on the dispute between the IBC and Media Lens about Iraqi casualties. (My previous post on this is here.) IBC's John Sloboda trots out Kaplan's fallacy: Some critics of the Lancet study have said it's like a drunk throwing a dart at a dartboard. It's going to go somewhere, but who knows if that number is the bulls eye. Unfortunately many many people have decided to accept that that 98,000 figure is the truth - or the best approximation to the truth that we have. Yes, some critics have said that, but not ones that are experts in statistics. Sloboda says: We've always said…