Politics
oracknows | December 15, 2007It's been a while since I mentioned the Autism Omnibus hearings. The Omnibus proceeding is the culmination of all the legal cases brought to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program by nearly 5,000 families who "feel" that their children's autism was caused by vaccines. Many, but not all, of the plaintiffs blame the mercury in the thimerosal in childhood vaccines, despite there being no good evidence to support such a link. The way that the hearings are being run is that several "test cases" are being chosen by Special Masters, who hear evidence presented by the plaintiffs and the defense…
gregladen | December 15, 2007The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research would offer an online degree in Science Education. Approved by a State Advisory Board yesterday, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will consider the degree in January.
Could this be why there has been a shakeup at the Texas Higher Education department?
The prospect of the ICR offering a degree is at the same time chilling and satisfying. Accroding to NCSE Director Eugenie Scott:
They teach distorted science ... Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools…
clock | December 14, 2007To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to:
- correct my factual errors
- call me on my BS
- tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask
- if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so.
Here is the first one, so…
pontiff | December 14, 2007Last week Mitt Romney, in a speech on religion, said that "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." Or, as I like to put it, "Religion iff Freedom." This bothered me more than a little bit, until I realized that I could turn it into an empirical question. Or a least a question where I could make a plot! Below is a plot of importance of religion in people's lives versus their political freedom for a 39 countries:
The views on religion were taken from a 2002 Pew survey and the political freedom index was taken from the 2007 Freedom House's survey of political freedom…
j7uy5 | December 14, 2007Christians have a solemn duty. The reason will become clear.
Recently, there was a strong reaction in the Blogosphere about Governor
Mitt
Romney's "
href="http://www.mittromney.com/News/Speeches/Faith_In_America"
rel="tag">Faith In America" Address.
I noticed in particular the posts on
href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007/12/freethinker_sunday_sermonette_76.php">Effect
Measure,
href="http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/12/romneys_terrible_speech.php"
rel="tag">Matthew Yglesias, and
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/12/…
gregladen | December 13, 2007Sorry about the O'Reilly video, that must have been difficult to look at. So, to make you feel better, have a look at this:
grrlscientist | December 13, 2007tags: Huffington Post, OffTheBus project, presidential campaign 2008
I have been working on another story for the Huffington Post as part of their OffTheBus project. This story is about the upcoming presidential elections (Alas, I am simply a volunteer reporter, no money is entering my pockets). Tomorrow's job? I am calling several Iowa state representatives and interviewing them about the Republican presidential hopefuls, because we're interested in learning more about how the Republicans are organizing throughout Iowa and we want to learn more about their position on the candidates. The…
jrosenhouse | December 13, 2007Chris Matthews, from last night's Hardball. His guest was talk radio host Racheal Maddow.
MADDOW: Well, it's two sides of the same coin, as far as I can tell. And the real substantive story here is that almost all of the Republican candidates have argued against the separation of church and state, have argued for it to be less, have argued that it's been overdone, that there ought to be more religion in the public sphere and that candidates' religion ought not to be just seen as a private matter, which is what Kennedy argued in 1960.
Once you cross that line, one you say that religion…
gregladen | December 13, 2007Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (a Christian Right non-profit "think" tank founded by James Clayton "Jim" Dobson) blames the secular media for home schooled Matthew Murray's deadly rampage in Colorado. According to Perkins:
"It is hard not to draw a line between the hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians and evangelicals in particular and the acts of violence that took place in Colorado yesterday."
Sources:
Colorado shootings blamed on "secular media"
Fundamentalist Christian Uses Colorado Shootings for Political Gain…
gregladen | December 12, 2007Director: Dominic Howes & Joel Weber
THE LISTENING PROJECT
Screening will begin at 7:30 PM with 84 minutes of film, followed by a Q and A with the filmmakers.
The Official After Party will continue right next door at Stub and Herbs where you can continue to mingle with the filmmakers and local film community. Fearless guests will also have the chance to have everyone listen to them, as they rock out to GUITAR HERO. Be ready to be aurally stimulated the entire night as Fearless Filmmakers turns TWO!
Who: Featured Filmmakers include Executive Producer Jim Pohlad, Co-Directors Joel Weber…
grrlscientist | December 12, 2007tags: science, public policy, politics, federal funding, research, reality-based government, 2008 American presidential elections, ScienceDebate2008
I have spoken with quite a few people from CraigsList and other places regarding the logistics and goals for ScienceDebate2008, and have found that there are plenty of misperceptions as to what scientists wish to accomplish. In short; ScienceDebate2008 is not a "science pop-quiz" that demands that the presidential candidates regurgitate a bunch of scientific theories and formulae on television.
Instead, ScienceDebate2008 is focused on…
gregladen | December 12, 2007He's trying so hard to be Ronald Regan that it makes me throw up a little bit inside my mouth. You have to just see it to believe it.
gregladen | December 12, 2007There is quite a bit of activity in the blogosphere about this initiative. Have a look...
Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock has worked his encyclopedic magic to make a magic encyclopedia of related posts, here.
Denialism Blog is not in denial about the importance of this initiative, as can be seen here and here.
The Los Angeles Times has this:
Whether the issue is global warming, embryonic stem cell research, ballistic missile defense or the future of the world's oceans, the same bass line thumps in the background: Sound political decision-making relies, more than ever before, on…
pharyngula | December 12, 2007In a field of nightmares, it takes a special person to elevate themselves to the position of the worst of the worst…and Huckabee is that special person.
Here's his special take on the purpose of his presidency…
I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives…I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.
And here is his special rationalization for denying gays equal rights…
I don't think the issue'…
denialism | December 12, 2007Reiterating our previous call for this debate, I'd like to point out two articles that have come out in the past day, that may address some of the negative commentary here.
The first is Chris Mooney and Lawrence Krauss at LA Times.
The second, by Sheril Kirshenbaum and Matthew Chapman at HuffPo. Note, I consider the Huffington Post a den of denialist iniquity, supporting the lies of Chopra, Kirby and various other conspiracy mongers. But I will consider this an act of saint-like walking amongst the sinners to spread the good word of science. Further, she does a pretty good job addressing…
drorzel | December 12, 2007EurekAlert had a press release yesterday regarding a new study on the training of middle-school math teachers. It's not pretty:
Middle school math teachers in the United States are not as well prepared to teach this subject compared to teachers in five other countries, something that could negatively affect the U.S. as it continues to compete on an international scale.
[...]MT21 studied how well a sample of universities and teacher-training institutions prepare middle school math teachers in the U.S., South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Bulgaria and Mexico. Specifically, 2,627 future teachers were…
jstemwedel | December 11, 2007I was reading John Timmer's post on Ars Technica about the call for a presidential debate on science and technology and found myself surprised at how many of the commenters on the post think such a debate would be a terrible idea.
It's not just that the commenters think that the presidential candidates would use all their powers to weasel out of taking clear stands that might get them in trouble with one constituency or another. There are quite a few commenters who make variations of this argument:
I don't see this as being a very good idea. These people are POLITICIANS, not scientists. I…
gregladen | December 11, 2007How people respond to the U.S. government's attempts to censor some war-related images comes down to whether or not they are supporters of President Bush, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Ohio State University surveyed 600 people and asked them if they were interested in viewing photos or videos of the caskets containing dead U.S. soldiers arriving in the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan .
The catch was that, prior to being asked whether they wanted to view the images, half of the survey respondents were told about a U.S. government policy which prevents the widespread…