General
integrityofscience | March 12, 2007In Friday NCAA men's hoops, Arkansas beat Vanderbilt 82-81, advancing the Razorbacks to the SEC Semi Finals and sending the Commodores back to class for now. Now imagine, if following his team's defeat, Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings had had this to say in the post-came news conference:
"If you look at the score since half time, we actually beat Arkansas." Despite the fact that Vanderbilt did, in fact, outscore Arkansas in the second half (42-39), Stallings would be the laughing stock of the league.
Yet that's essentially what the White House did last month when Press Secretary Tony Snow…
integrityofscience | March 7, 2007It's been more than 3 weeks, 6 flights, 4 states, 2 presentations, 1 AAAS meeting, 1 new nephew, and more than 1500 new e-mail messages since our last post. Sorry 'bout the lapse. It's a busy time in the world of scientific integrity, but we hope to be back up to pace shortly.
In the meantime, here's a nugget from last week's This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow. You can view the full cartoon over at Working for Change. It's a little ham-fisted, sure, but we love our weekly Tom Tomorrow fix, and we'll take his rants on science politicization any way we can get them.
Given all predicted hub…
loom | March 1, 2007Just a quick note: I'm in the process of changing hosts for my web site, carlzimmer.com. Once the transfer is done, you should be able to get to the article archive, book pages, and all the rest once more. The down time shouldn't last too long. The site will also be going through some long overdue overhauling. Believe it or not, the web site was built back in the twentieth century. Out with the vacuum tubes, I say.
loom | February 27, 2007This morning I noticed that on top of my blog there's an ad for an upcoming show on the Discovery Channel that claims to reveal the tomb of Jesus and his family. I haven't seen a preview of the show, and from an article in this morning's NY Times, I have very little interest in doing so:
The filmmakers commissioned DNA testing on the residue in the boxes said to have held Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There are no bones left, because the religious custom in Israel is to bury archeological remains in a cemetery.
However, the documentary's director and its driving force, Simcha Jacobovici, an…
loom | February 23, 2007The Koufax awards are among the biggest honors out here in the blogmos. It just came to my attention that the Loom has been nominated in the category of best writing. Of course, I'm packed in with lots of excellent blogs, so if you plan to vote, you've got lots of reading ahead of you. When voting does open up, prepare for a not-so-subtle reminder...
Best Writing Nominations | The Koufax Awards
integrityofscience | February 13, 2007Two House Committees are currently running a concurrent hearing to discuss revised Executive Order 12866, the January 18 Order that looks to delay and constrain several federal agencies' abilities to implement new regulations and provide guidance to businesses, doctors, and others. E&E Daily (subscription required) reports that the official in charge of implementing the new rule will testify.
Steven Aitken, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will testify before the (House Judiciary Committee's) Commercial and…
integrityofscience | February 8, 2007Political distortions of the scientific process have undergone a dramatic rise in Washington over the past six years, according to the Senate testimony of Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. Gleick's testimony (download - PDF) was provided to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Climate Change Research and Science Integrity Wednesday. Misuse of science and attacks on scientists, Gleick finds, have been pervasive and categorical.
Good, independent science - indeed good information in general - is crucial to making good political decisions…
integrityofscience | February 7, 2007Bill Brennan, acting director of the Climate Change Science Program, was spinning the White House's treatment of scientists at this morning's Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on Climate Change Research and Scientific Integrity.
"The administration takes the concerns of its scientists very seriously, and each department and agency is reviewing -- and modifying, if necessary -- its policies to ensure government scientists do not face censorship on any scientific matter," Brennan said. Source (subscription required)
Brennan's written testimony is available here (PDF). It does not address any…
integrityofscience | January 29, 2007The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be releasing the first of four reports on Friday, including a 12-page summary of policy recommendations. In its first report since 2001, it finds that the planetary warming observed since 1950 is 90% likely to be due from human activities.
Predictably, climate science deniers are already throwing stones. More surprising is the story that some scientists are predicting the report will be too optimistic. From the Associated Press:
Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea…
integrityofscience | January 29, 2007A Congressional hearing on politicization of science will take place Tuesday morning.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), will be holding a hearing on "Allegations of Political Interference with the Work of Government Climate Change Scientists." For a preview of some of the material that will be discussed, check out the information that the Committee is requesting from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (letter - PDF) regarding editing of scientific reports and "other actions to minimize the significance…
integrityofscience | January 19, 2007President Bush signed a whole heap of bad yesterday. Amendments to a Clinton-era executive order will substantially increase the influence of the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) over federal agencies such as NASA, the EPA, and the FDA. From Greenwire (subscription required):
Under revised Executive Order 12866, each agency must install a presidential appointee as its "regulatory policy officer," reporting to the agency head and involved "at each stage of the regulatory process." The Clinton order created the policy officer post but did not specify what type of agency…
integrityofscience | January 17, 2007On October 1 of last year, the EPA closed the libaries in its headquarters and several regional braches (Federal Record notice). The penny-pinching Bush Administration policy is now on hold, pending congressional review. According to Greenwire (subscription required):
Responding to a request from Democratic lawmakers, EPA will put on hold its plan to shutter facilities and destroy materials it deems to be duplicates or obsolete. EPA deputy press secretary Jessica Emond said the agency is waiting word from Congress on how to proceed.
The White House is seeking to cut $2 million from EPA's…
integrityofscience | January 17, 2007Some stories we're reading but won't have time to blog:
"Cutbacks Impede Climate Studies" from today's Washingotn Post
"Exxon meets green groups as climate focus surges" from Reuters
"How Should Scientists Work with the Media and How Should Journalists Report on the Debate Over Evolution?" from Evolution News & Views
integrityofscience | January 16, 2007This morning, we highlighted a story out of London that suggested the White House was about to make a "historic shift" on climate change. We were skeptical. As it turns out, it didn't take long for our skepticism to be realized.
The White House on Tuesday denied it was planning a U-turn on its climate change policy by embracing a system of formal caps on greenhouse emissions, despite rising pressure from European governments to change its stance.
Although energy security will be a key theme in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address next week, the White House issued an…
loom | January 15, 2007Over at Blog around the Clock, Bora has the details on the new science blog anthology book he has put together and which is now for sale. (My posts on eye evolution (1, 2) are included.)
Bora apparently got the idea for his book three weeks ago, and now he's got an honest-to-goodness tome between covers. I got the idea for my own book in 2005, and if I'm lucky, it'll be out in a year. Strange business.
integrityofscience | January 11, 2007We checked The Onion, and this doesn't appear to be a joke.
The Federal Way (Washington) School Board has placed a moratorium on the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in its classrooms. The documentary of Al Gore's climate change campaign has dubiously joined Sex Ed and evolution in the list of topics banned in the classroom. What was the impetus, you wonder? You're not going to believe it:
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information…
integrityofscience | January 5, 2007It's almost quittin' time, but here are a few stories we felt got the short shrift among New Year's excitement, inaugurations, and such ...
On Wednesday, the Union of Concerned Scientists released "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change." Now, we're assuming this is not a jaw-dropping revelation to anyone out there, but we're looking forward to reading it and hope to report back on it. Check it out here
UCS has also recently released a periodic table of political interference in science. The color-coded "A to Z…
integrityofscience | December 29, 2006We're catching up on the stories we missed while away from our computer. Here are a couple of standouts:
Tim Ball and Tom Harris of Canada's Natural Resources Stewardship Project are holding Canada's "Female Athlete of the Century" up as inadvertent spokesperson for the policy of let's-wait-and-see-what-happens on climate change. The article, titled declaratively "Climate change debate muddied," includes more straw men than a Wizard of Oz convention. We particularly liked the use of the term "fundamentalist environmentalism," an irksome term that, it turns out, they did not coin. Our Google…
loom | December 27, 2006Fellow scienceblogger Coturnix is assembling some posts about science for an anthology. He's been asking for people to contribute suggestions. I've been meaning to thumb through my old posts in order to send one over, but it's been more of a challenge than I thought. Part of the problem is that pieces of writing are like children, and it's no fun to break up the family. The other part of the problem is that my brain is just about reduced to goo between finishing my book and managing a couple of sick kids over the Christmas break. So let me turn to you, dear reader. Is there any post on the…
integrityofscience | December 20, 2006Four of the five presentations from last week's American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting panel discussion, "Defining and Protecting the Integrity of Science: New Challenges for the 21st Century," are now online.
Peter Gleick President, Pacific Institute (presiding);
“The Integrity of Science: Identifying Logical Fallacies, Deceitful Tactics, and Abuse of the Public Trust” (PDF)
Judith Curry Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
“Falling out of the Ivory Tower: a Case Study of Mixing Hurricane Science, Politics, and the…