Conservatives and Science
cmooney | January 29, 2009My latest Science Progress column is up: It makes the case that Stephen Colbert is the heir to Johnny Carson in terms of talk show promotion of science.
It also includes various lame and stupid talking points that I made up and didn't use on the show, such as the following hypothetical Q&A responses:
Didn't scientists start the "war" in the first place? Didn't they commit acts of aggression?
Yes, if you mean by learning things.
Why should I care about science?
Because America is really good at it--much better than France.
Is there really a "war" on science? Where are the bodies?
Well,…
cmooney | January 28, 2009Here it is:
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The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama's New Science Policy - Chris Mooney
Colbert Report Full EpisodesColbert Report Tickets
Paul McCartney AppearanceMore Funny Videos
I'll have more to say about the whole experience in my next column....thanks to everyone who wrote in with positive words about the segment.
cmooney | January 27, 2009You can watch it here. Tons of funny stuff in Colbert's segment on science, which starts roughly at 6:15 and runs to roughly 10:45. I was on for about three minutes, and was instructed: "No monkey business. No evolution."
Of course, even though Colbert plays a rightwinger who thinks with his gut rather than his head and doesn't trust book learning, the truth is that his show features a ton of science content and, indeed, is doing vastly more than most other parts of the media to improve the role of science in our culture.
I was thrilled to be on.
cmooney | January 21, 2009My latest Science Progress column is a response to Seed's interview with the outgoing science adviser. All I can say is wow, Dr. Marburger, you really don't get it, and maybe you never will.
Either way, we Bush administration science critics remain entirely unimpressed with your inability to even properly characterize (much less answer) our arguments. And that wind of change that you might feel around you right now--we're part of it. You're not.
You can read the full column here.
cmooney | January 17, 2009You can watch here, and here's the embedded video:
Topics discussed:
Chris's optimism vs. Carl's skepticism on Obama's science policy
Weighing the costs of environmental regulation
Stop the presses! Did NASA just discover life on Mars?
The Sanjay Gupta controversy
Carl predicts artificial life in 2009
The future for science writing
Again, the whole thing is here.
cmooney | January 15, 2009I have a new piece on Slate exploring precisely this question. Here's the core of it:
If the war on science is over, we're now entering the postwar phase of reconstruction--the scientific equivalent of nation-building. The Bush science controversies were just one manifestation of a deeper and long-standing gulf between the science community and the broader American public, one with roots stretching back to our indigenous tradition of anti-intellectualism (as so famously described by historian Richard Hofstadter in his classic work from 1963) and Yankee distrust of expertise and authority. So…
sheril | October 29, 2008Yes, we've heard all about it. I've been receiving a good deal of email and indeed, would have blogged Drosophila melanogaster earlier, but it's difficult to post while traveling. As Christopher Hitchens explained, curiously it's true:
last Friday, when, at a speech in Pittsburgh, Gov. Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place "in Paris, France" and winding up with a folksy "I kid you not."
But rather than wax poetic on everything wrong with this, I give the floor--err, screen--to…
sheril | October 10, 2007In one week, I'll be able to tell you about some incredible research on loggerhead sea turtles which has massive implications for ocean wildlife conservation, worldwide.
Before it's published, check out this great piece sent by Wes Rolley featuring the huge leatherback turtles off the coast of San Mateo, California. Leatherbacks are rare and they're the world's largest turtle. These critters migrate 7,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean and can weigh up to 2,000 pounds. If you thought Nessie was cool, well, these animals are real!
And stay tuned for big news on loggerheads...
cmooney | February 10, 2006Tara has done a comprehensive takedown of Tom Bethell's "No African AIDS Epidemic" conspiracy theory. We must thank her profusely for this, folks, because there's an element of personal sacrifice here in service of the greater good: She actually had to engage seriously with wacky arguments in order to produce the post that she's offered us.Tara has better things to do, of course, but she took one for the team. Let's remember and appreciate that.
cmooney | February 7, 2006John Farrell has been helping to keep an eye out for outlandish claims made by Tom Bethell, author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. It's hard to know what Bethell's most over-the-top view is, but I'd say two are in strong competition: 1) questioning the existence of an African AIDS epidemic; 2) questioning Einstein and relativity. (It's clear which of these views is the more "politically incorrect." Also, it really tells you something that Bethell's anti-evolutionism doesn't even top the list.)
But in any case, according to Farrell, Bethell isn't endorsing anti-Einstein…
cmooney | February 1, 2006Sounds like fun, no? Yesterday in the Times, Cornelia Dean reported on a science policy meeting for members of Congress:
More than 100 committee staff members, Congressional aides and at least one senator, Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, crammed into a basement meeting room. With all of the seats filled, people leaned on walls, sat on the floor and spilled out into the hall.
I'm glad members of Congress are getting cramped together to think about how they ought to structure their science advice, even if the necessary revival of the Office of Technology Assessment still seems quite far…
cmooney | January 31, 2006Sure enough, Bush did the "science" thing last night. I've already preemptively explained why he's not a credible messenger on this topic; so has DarkSyde (and I'm sure many others on the blogs). Still, let's parse the president's message a bit more:
First, I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology and supercomputing and alternative energy sources. Second, I propose to make…
cmooney | January 31, 2006A while back I blogged about an idea floated by Morton Kondracke: That George W. Bush should try to become the "science" president by emphasizing, in his State of the Union speech, themes of global scientific competitiveness and the need to ensure that the good old USA is leading the pack. Well, it now seems official: According to the Boston Globe, in his speech tonight Bush plans to highlight Norman Augustine, a former Lockheed Martin CEO who "last year led a congressionally mandated National Academies team that issued a report warning that America is 'on a losing path' in the global…
cmooney | January 30, 2006Call me crazy, but I've agreed to appear at 1 pm ET, for half an hour, on the Bob Dutko Show. Here is how it's described on the show's website:
In addition to interviews, the show offers up a steady stream of faith building information and apologetics. In addition to faith in Jesus Christ, Bob often presents evidence showing that belief in the Bible, Jesus, His death and resurrection can be backed up historically, logically and intellectually. All other religious beliefs crumble under scrutiny, yet Christianity stands firm with Jesus Christ alone as the one and only true means by which we…
cmooney | January 30, 2006Almost a year ago the Washington Post, following on my own work in Mother Jones, reported on Fox News "junk science" columnist Steven Milloy's ties to ExxonMobil. The piece was by Howard Kurtz, and it included a reaction from Milloy:
Milloy says Mother Jones has taken "old information and sloppily tried to insinuate that ExxonMobil has a say in what I write in my Fox column, which is entirely false. . . . My columns are based on what I believe and no one pays me to believe anything." Despite a mainstream scientific consensus, Milloy says that "the hysteria about global warming is entirely…
cmooney | January 29, 2006Media Matters has the latest on dubious statements about science by the editorial page of this seemingly august paper. It seems that two ed page folks have claimed that new findings about methane emissions from trees somehow undercut the case for concern about human caused global warming.
This is a ridiculous position: No matter what's going on with methane, we're still pumping oodles of CO2 into the atmosphere. That's not changing fast, and CO2 is the greenhouse gas that everyone is most worried about (not to say that the others don't matter). So this commentary from the Journal editors,…
cmooney | January 24, 2006There's an article up at OpenDemocracy.net that's attempting to be contrary and counterintuitive about the Bush administration's "war on science." I must say, I found it fairly feeble.
The author's first maneuver is to significantly understate the causes of concern. Thus, the vast scope of science abuses by the administration are culled down to two narrow categories, and some of the most prominent issues (like evolution and stem cells, where the president himself, rather than some sub-lackey, has made scientifically indefensible statements) are ignored entirely.
Once this feat is…
cmooney | January 20, 2006Bill Ruckelshaus. Russell Train. Lee Thomas. Bill Reilly. Christie Todd Whitman. What do these names all have in common?
Answer: All are former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency. All take human-caused global warming seriously. And all are Republicans--moderate Republicans, of a very different breed from the ones who are (generally) running our government today.
The GOP has a proud environmental tradition, of that there can be no doubt. Just think of Teddy Roosevelt. The tradition lives on, albeit in a kind of exile, in these five Republican former EPA heads--none of whom,…
cmooney | January 17, 2006This post is basically a pile-on. We're already flogging National Review over its promotion of Tom Bethell. So why not rub it in?
In The Republican War on Science, I outline conservative attacks on science in a variety of areas. Not surprisingly, it turns out that many of the leading strategies are reflected in articles published by National Review Online. Three quick examples:
Global Warming: Most of the pundits that NR publishes on this topic seem attached to one of a small number of well-known contrarian think tanks. Examples: Iain Murray and Christopher Horner of the Competitive…