Policy and Politics
tfk | August 24, 2009In 1925, John Scopes was tried and convicted of violating Tennessee's Butler Act. His trial was ginned up as a constitutional test case by the ACLU and as an economic stimulus plan for the town of Dayton, TN. The trial was promoted as "the trial of the century," celebrity lawyers were recruited for both sides, and the town did all it could to attract journalists and onlookers.
The trial wound up famously embarrassing William Jennings Bryan, who died shortly after the trial, and before an appellate court overturned the conviction he won on a technicality. While laws like the Butler Act stayed…
tfk | August 21, 2009Disco. hustler Casey Luskin pleads ignorance to fend off an argument by Ken Miller:
In a recent post, I noted that Ken Miller misrepresented Michael Beheâs arguments on the irreducible complexity of the blood clotting cascade in his book, Only a Theory. When I blogged at the end of last year about Millerâs similar mistakes at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, Dr. Miller responded by making me aware of something I did not previously know: apparently Michael Behe wrote the section in Of Pandas and People on blood clotting.
Under normal circumstances, it would suffice to congratulate Casey for…
tfk | August 16, 2009Steve Benen reviews the ways in which Republicans now ranting about how insurance reform will kill grandma once loved their 'death panels,' adding:
If reality had any meaning in modern politics, these "death panel" clowns would be laughed out of the building, and humiliated for life.
The whole enterprise of the modern GOP seems to fit entirely into the category of what philosopher Harry Frankfurt described in his famous essay On Bullshit. He distinguished several approaches to truthfulness in statements. On one hand, people can be truthful â concerned about the accuracy of what they say and…
tfk | August 15, 2009Of the assembled luminaries of the science/science policy world, guess who dropped the f-bomb?
And guess who was quoting RFK to do that, so it's totally cool?
Anyway, shorter panel: You don't have to be a scientist to defend science, and you do need to get involved. Schools matter, and politicians need to hear from you from the White House to the school house.
Many thanks to the packed room for a great session, with great questions and provocative interactions between the panel and the audience. I saw Kevin Drum, Amanda Marcotte, and Congressman Brad Miller in the audience, to name just a…
tfk | August 14, 2009At 3 o'clock today (Eastern), I'll be on a panel about ways that scientists and nonscientists alike can improve the use of science in policymaking, the use of policy to boost science, and ways to keep denialists from derailing that process.
We've got Susan Wood, a professor of public policy at George Washington University with a doctorate in biology. She made news in 2005 when she resigned in protest from her directorship of the FDA Office of Women's Health to protest the FDA's slow walking of Plan B's "over the counter" approval. She's also held senior positions at HHS and in the…
tfk | August 14, 2009Bill Clinton spoke to the Netroots Nation conference last night. It's an inspired speech, done without notes and with extemporaneous digressions based on a heckler's call.
Before he spoke, a range of Netroots Nation heroes spoke, including my hero in Congress: Brad Miller.
Miller has been awesome for blogger, for sciencebloggers in particular, and for science more generally. He's met with the attendees at ScienceOnline in past years, and has attended this conference as a panelist and a blogger for several years. Last year, heading to a Q&A with Nancy Pelosi, we were on the elevator…
tfk | August 13, 2009According to the Kansas City Fox affiliate (via TPM DC), Congressman Dennis Moore, who represents northeastern Kansas and is the only Democratic representative from Kansas, has cancelled public events after credible death threats. He tells the reporter that he's gotten two separate threats, and finds this turn of events unacceptable. "I expect to have differences with people, differences of opinion. And, I respect people's opinions," he said. "But, I expect exchanges we have to be respectful and not threatening. As a former prosecutor, I certainly do not tolerate threats well and that's why…
tfk | August 13, 2009Arriving at the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, I was on the escalator behind Duncan Black. David Neiwert introduced us in the registration line.
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com is explaining polling to us now, as Charlie Cook (dean of the polling community), Pollster.com authors Max Blumenthal and Charles Franklin, and Greg Dworkin (DemFromCT) nod in agreement. Shorter Charles Cook: Polling sucks, and sucks worse now than it used to.
tfk | August 13, 2009It is my understanding that NCSE remains unapologetic for ambushing Ed Brayton.
tfk | August 10, 2009Ben Stein got fired from his freelance gig with the New York Times! And it's because of his previously reported ethical lapse in advertising for a "free" credit report site that actually charges for your credit report. This all leads to: Shorter Ben Stein:
Wah!
Slightly less shorter Ben Stein:
Everyone used to love my column until Expelled, and then people were mean on the internet and got me fired from a job I didn't want anyway.
I usually hate the format of a fisking, but this piece needs a fine-toothed comb to capture all the stupid.
A fisking, FYI, involves me interposing corrections to…
tfk | August 10, 2009My wedding will inject substantial funding into the California (and national) economy. I deserve stimulus funding.
Which is to say, Debbie and I now both have lovely engagement rings. Hers is from Brilliant Earth, a sapphire set in their "Seacrest" design. Mine is the "Challah" design from Sumiche.
We've also made a deposit on a reception hall/wedding site, but that's a discussion for another day. Next projects: caterers, photographers, and the rest of the shebang. Can we singlehandedly save the California economy?
tfk | August 5, 2009I've been slow in writing this review only because the kerfuffle over Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future by Chris Mooney, Sheril Kirshenbaum distracted me. Yes, there's a lot of controversy, but I'm going to set that aside, ignore other reviews, and give my own take here. A response to some of the reviews will follow separately.
"Americans are dumb." This is the reaction I get most often when talking about the creation/evolution conflict, and it's the premise of many actions by the scientific community (which includes both scientists and a broader group of…
tfk | August 5, 2009Things are getting out of hand. The absurd disruptions at townhalls will backfire as people realize they are manufactured, and that the bills in question will help most Americans. But TPM reports Congressman Brad Miller's life was threatened in a call from a constituent:
"[W]e have received a threatening phone call in the D.C. office, there have been calls to the Raleigh office," said Miller communications director LuAnn Canipe, in an interview with TPM. The threatening call in question happened earlier this week.
"The call to the D.C. office was, 'Miller could lose his life over this,'"…
tfk | July 31, 2009Disco. DJ Bruce Chapman wonders Does Obamacare Provide for Euthanasia?
No.
This is the simple answer to that stupid, offensive, and intolerable question.
Here's Chapman's claim in all its glory:
Our Sr. Fellow Wesley J. Smith of the Discovery Institute Center for Human Rights and Bioethics is asking the question that Bill Donahue of the Catholic League and others also are raising: Is there language under consideration that could lead to "end of life care" that includes intentional termination of life? Outrageous? Well, then, the Obamacare bill should be clarified to make sure the meaning is…
tfk | July 31, 2009Bill Maher, anti-vaxxer and Germ Theory denier, got an award named for Richard Dawkins from an atheist group. The award specifies, among other things, that the recipient should be an atheist and should "advocate[] increased scientific knowledge." Orac notes that Maher is not an atheist and that his anti-vaccine work and his arguments against the germ theory advocate against scientific knowledge, calling that work "anti-science." Jason Rosenhouse disagrees, and Orac replies (with Jason defending himself in the comments).
I happen to think Orac has the better of the argument. But that's not…
tfk | July 28, 2009The BBC's Joe Boyle ponders Nigeria's 'Taliban' enigma:
They have launched co-ordinated attacks across northern Nigeria, threatening to overthrow the government and impose strict Islamic law - but who exactly are the Nigerian Taliban?
Since the group emerged in 2004 they have become known as "Taliban", although they appear to have no links to the Taliban in Afghanistan.â¦
The group's other name, Boko Haram, means "Western education is a sin" and is another title used by local people to refer to the group. â¦
their mission appears clear enough: to overthrow the Nigerian state, impose an…
tfk | July 28, 2009
The Bush administration classified various spy photos of glaciers. It isn't clear why. Those glaciers are no imminent danger to us, and are unlikely to learn anything useful about the sources and methods we use to monitor them even with the photos. That we take pictures of glaciers is hardly shocking news to our enemies.
Then again, the photos show dramatically different extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, even from one year to the next. Responding to a request for declassification from the National Academy of Sciences, the Obama administration released the photos. Already various…
tfk | July 26, 2009I'm 31 years old.
To celebrate my dotage, Sarah Palin will stop screwing up Alaska.
And in recent days I have gone to both the Mutter Museum and X-tr33m Mammals. This is quite a way to celebrate a birthday: diseased corpses and awesome extinct mammals.
Litopterns!
Notoungulates!
Soap mummies!
Wax models of eye diseases!
Awesome!
tfk | July 25, 2009Have you registered to attend Netroots Nation yet? It's going to be pretty awesome. There will be dozens of panels, touching on political process and political practice, science, civil liberties, climate change, healthcare, and future of just about any topic you care about. And it won't be out of touch pundits taking on these topics. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's right hand, will be there. You'll see the first public faceoff between Arlen Specter (R D-PA) and Joe Sestak (D-PA).
And you'll see my panel, Friday August 14 from 2:00-3:15. We'll be talking about science policy and…
tfk | July 24, 2009Shorter David Klinghoffer:
Wah!
Slightly longer Klinghoffer:
Why are people whose views I misrepresent and for whom I have invented a derogatory name so unpleasant to me? Damned deadbeats. Also, academia is the only field of endeavor where people are jerks. The world of business is filled with ambrosia and brotherly love.
Bonus flashback Klinghoffer:
Sure I said "Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today donât grasp," added that "Hitlerâs insight into Judaism [is] ⦠a profound theme in rabbinic literature," and praised Hitler's "fascination with and knowledge of…