ethics
revere | September 25, 2009There's hopeful news about the possibility of an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine and a weird story from Canada about "preliminary results" saying that you are more at risk from swine flu if you get the seasonal flu vaccine. With flu, anything is possible, but that is more than a little counterintuitive and strikes me as unlikely. Nowhere else has reported a similar experience. Since we don't know the methods or the data or the limitations or much of anything else that could allow us to consider how much to weigh this as evidence I won't say any more about it.
While we do write about vaccines here…
revere | September 23, 2009People complain that ministers in the cabinet Iran's recently selected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government will say things so outlandish no one else would even think of saying them, but Declan Butler over at the Nature blog, The Great Beyond, begs to differ. Take Iran's Science Minister, Kamran Daneshjou. Daneshjou's credentials had been questioned in an LA Times report in August, but Butler has found that a paper co-authored by Daneshjou contains genuine peer-reviewed science. The only fly in the ointment is that it doesn't seem to be Daneshjou's science:
Large chunks of text, figures…
grrlscientist | August 28, 2009tags: Onion News Network, ONN, detainee torture, humor, funny, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
In The Know panelists discuss the closing of the controversial detainee labyrinth and debate whether the Minotaur's sternum-stomping-by-hooves interrogation technique yielded valuable intelligence.
grrlscientist | August 24, 2009tags: cultural observations, Bill Maher, atheism, human behavior, humor, funny, streaming video
Yet another brilliant series of cultural observations from Bill Maher. Why doesn't this guy run for president?
revere | August 7, 2009We've been rather kind to Senator Charles (Chuck) Grassley in the past. Yes, he's a right wing Republican with some really odious ideas, ideas for which he deserves to be criticized. But he's also been a champion of the Federal False Claims Act which has encouraged and protected whistleblowers to reveal how corporations have taken the taxpayer for a ride, something for which he deserves credit. Lately he has been on a tear about the ways Big Pharma has been buying influence with high profile medical professionals, with the direct implication that this has skewed their practice, their research…
grrlscientist | July 23, 2009tags: Gordon Brown, world wide web, WWW, social injustice, poverty, security, climate change, economy, ethics, streaming video
We're at a unique moment in history, argues UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today's interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic -- and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy [16:43]
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
grrlscientist | July 19, 2009tags: religion, fundamentalism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, terrorism, Marcus Brigstocke, streaming video
In this video, Marcus Brigstocke rants about religion. Not for the faint-hearted! And I agree with everything he says, too. So there. [Audio from 'The Now Show', Radio 4, Saturday 21 July 2007. Pictures compiled, animated and sequenced by Alien8ted] [7:21]
grrlscientist | July 11, 2009tags: politics, American constitution, national security, terrorism, Bill Maher, streaming video
Should America curtail our constitutional rights under the guise of preventing terrorist attacks? NO NO NO. I just wanted to remind you of an important discussion that occurred nearly one year ago when American was trapped in the clutches of a lunatic moron who aspired to be "dictator" -- I wonder when Obama will finally stop all this invasive secret governmental spying on Americans? [3:41]
grrlscientist | July 9, 2009
Who: Dr. Jeff Schweitzer
What: free public presentation, "Moral Life in a Random World"
Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor.
When: 700pm, Thursday, 9 July
Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is a scientist who has written extensively on morality, religion, politics and science -- and who served as science advisor to former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. Schweitzer will talk about how we each have within us the awesome power to create our own meaning in life, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. He will address how…
grrlscientist | July 8, 2009
Who: Dr. Jeff Schweitzer
What: free public presentation, "Moral Life in a Random World"
Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor.
When: 700pm, Thursday, 9 July
Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is a scientist who has written extensively on morality, religion, politics and science -- and who served as science advisor to former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. Schweitzer will talk about how we each have within us the awesome power to create our own meaning in life, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. He will address how…
grrlscientist | July 6, 2009
Who: Dr. Jeff Schweitzer
What: free public presentation, "Moral Life in a Random World"
Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor.
When: 700pm, Thursday, 9 July
Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is a scientist who has written extensively on morality, religion, politics and science -- and who served as science advisor to former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. Schweitzer will talk about how we each have within us the awesome power to create our own meaning in life, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. He will address how…
grrlscientist | July 2, 2009Since Flickr is being an ass these days and won't let me share images with you that they don't approve of, which includes just about everything I put on my blog and no doubt includes screen shots of ads that I am using to illustrate my points, you'll just have to accept that I am not misleading you if you can't see the offending ads themselves.
Basically, if you take a peek at the ads in the top and right sidebar of this blog, you'll notice that Seed Media has revised their advertising policies recently. One of the results of that revision has been to run Google ads on both these blog…
grrlscientist | July 2, 2009
Who: Dr. Jeff Schweitzer
What: free public presentation, "Moral Life in a Random World"
Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor.
When: 700pm, Thursday, 9 July
Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is a scientist who has written extensively on morality, religion, politics and science -- and who served as science advisor to former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. Schweitzer will talk about how we each have within us the awesome power to create our own meaning in life, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. He will address how…
grrlscientist | July 1, 2009Due to our incredibly crappy economy, there has been a change in the advertising policies at ScienceBlogs recently. Which leads me to ask, what do you think of those Russian Brides ads that are popping up here recently? I ask because I think they are incredibly tacky, offensively sexist and worse, I wonder if "Russian brides" aren't somehow tied in with human trafficking? Does anyone else know about the human trafficking angle, or can you point me in the direction of information related to the Russian Brides racket and human trafficking? I'd appreciate your comments about the ads, since I've…
grrlscientist | June 19, 2009tags: The Constitution of the United States of America, DNA Evidence, criminal trials, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr, Supreme Court, William G. Osborne, justice, ethics
Some days, I am ashamed to be an American. These past two days, I've been astonished and outraged -- and ashamed -- by yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision that prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence. This decision was inspired by Alaska prison inmate William G. Osborne's petition to be allowed to undergo DNA testing -- at his own expense -- to establish whether he is…
ejohnson | June 15, 2009
The observation of World Oceans Day June 8 sparked a lively online debate about the environmental repercussions of seafood consumption. Is it possible to know whether the fish you are eating is truly sustainable? Why is Pacific cod "safe" but Atlantic cod off limits? Is farm-raised salmon really better than wild? Jennifer Jacquet of Guilty Planet, who works with the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Center, argues that the best solution is to refrain from eating seafood altogether. "I believe people are realizing that the 'choose this but not that'…
sciencewoman | June 12, 2009The following email appeared in my inbox yesterday, and I thought some of you might have some more thoughts to share.
Dear ScienceWoman,
I recently discovered your blog, and have a question regarding academic publishing. I am just now entering a PhD. program, and plan to get married in about 2 years. Given the nature of my particular field, it is expected I will have at least co-authored one paper before the wedding. After marriage, I plan to take his name, for a number of reasons, including the commonality of my last name compared to his name. My question is this: should I start…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2009tags: book review, Plastic Fantastic, How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World, physics, ethics, fraud, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Jan Hendrik Schön, Eugenie Samuel Reich
Physicist Jan Hendrik Schön was too good to be true. After graduating from the University of Konstanz in 1997, he was hired by Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he quickly rose to scientific fame. By 2000, he had published eight papers in the world's most prestigious journals, Nature and Science. One year later at the height of his career, he was publishing one scientific paper every eight days --…
grrlscientist | June 4, 2009
Who: journalist and author, Nina Burleigh
What: free public presentation, "Biblical Forgery"
Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor, room D4
When: Thursday, 4 June 700-830pm
Join CFI and the Secular Humanist Society of New York to meet journalist and author Nina Burleigh, who wrote the recently published book, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed, & Forgery in the Holy Land. Her book tells the story of the unraveling of a Bible relic forgery scheme in Israel, and gives a glimpse into the intriguing world of biblical archaeology…
ejohnson | June 3, 2009
Though Liberia's 14-year civil war ended in 2003, wartime effects are still evident in the country's horrific incidence of sexual violence; between January and April of this year, Doctors Without Borders treated over 275 new cases of sexual abuse in Liberia, 61% involving children under the age of 12. During the month of June, ScienceBlogger Isis the Scientist, in collaboration with Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection, will lead a fund-raising and awareness campaign against the rape and abuse of girls in Liberia, titled Silence is the Enemy. Earnings from several ScienceBloggers' blogs—…