Politics
pharyngula | April 18, 2007You're bored with it? I'm bored with it. All bored now. But since the discussion is still going on everywhere, and I'm frothing rabid (as everyone knows) and always ready to snarl and bite even when (especially when?) I'm beset with ennui, I'll call your attention to Greg Laden again. He's pointing out that Nesbit/Mooney have poorly framed — I swear, I never want to use that word ever again — their argument for the evolution-creation conflict, which might explain why they are being so poorly received by some of us who are focused on that ugly mess. That, and the fact that parts of their…
clock | April 18, 2007Its' early in the process, and many are reluctant so far....but, one person said he'd consider it (you can still recommend that Diary if you wish) - Rep.Brad Miller (D - NC13). I hope he does. If he does, I'll knock doors for him. Why?
He's a blogger. And he chairs the new House Committee on Science and Technology, with subpoena power.
He came to the Science Blogging Conference in January and is the person that every Democrat, every North Carolinian, every blogger and every scientist should want to see move from the House to the Senate and, in the process, oust Sen.Dole from politics.…
oracknows | April 18, 2007I remain confused.
Yes, I know that people who don't like me very much or at least don't like the message that I lay down here day in, day out, week in, week out probably aren't surprised at this startling admission, but I don't mean it in a general fashion (although no doubt those aforementioned people will take it that way). No, in 10 days or so since I first weighed in about it, I remain confused at the vociferously hostile reaction that Chris Mooney's and Matthew Nisbet's recent article in Science, Framing Science, and their follow up article published on Sunday in the Washington Post.…
j7uy5 | April 18, 2007The
first two posts in this series are
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/04/things_that_affect_you_pdufa_a.php">here
and
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/04/things_that_affect_you_pdufa_a_1.php">here.
The final editorial in the NEJM's three-part series on FDA reform takes
it's title from a line in the Institute of Medicine report:
href="http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3793/26341.aspx">The Future of
Drug Safety: "This [is] a golden moment of opportunity to
improve fundamentally the way FDA regulation
considers and responds to the evolving understanding…
sb admin | April 17, 2007This is an edited version of an earlier post. I came to realize from the response to it that I had inadvertently pulled out a canard that colored the post into something that was different from what I intended. The post is almost entirely intact, but I've deleted (and replaced) the last paragraph, which is what changed the post from what I really wanted to say into something that had a lot of people reacting to what wasn't my main point, and which ultimately gave an impression that I was arguing something different from what I was.
It's terrible and tragic news, what has happened at…
grrlscientist | April 17, 2007Wow, a new study by a group of Australian scientists has found that the national suicide rate increases when political conservatives are in power. They found that middle-aged and older people were most at risk, and that when Conservatives ruled both state and federal governments, men were 17% more likely to commit suicide and women were 40% more likely to kill themselves. Why is there such a powerful and significant effect?
"There is a strong relationship between socio-economic status and suicide," said lead researcher Professor Richard Taylor, of the University of Sydney, Australia. "We…
evolvingthoughts | April 17, 2007
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, a survivor of the Holocaust and renowned scientist, died in the massacre trying to block the gunman's entrance into the room, and in so doing probably saved some of the students who were able to leave via the window of the second story room.
drorzel | April 17, 2007Mike Dunford didn't like my previous post, and says that it's important to talk about gun control right now:
But we also cannot forget that people are dead. We cannot forget that people have been murdered. We cannot forget that many - too many - lives have been brought to a sudden, random end. We cannot forget that these deaths were not necessary, that they could have been avoided. [...]
How, in good conscience, could we possibly be expected to shut up right now?
I managed to edit all the f-bombs out of yesterday's post, but this annoys me. I'm not sure exactly which straw caused the fatal…
evolvingthoughts | April 16, 2007
It is always a Very Bad Idea, as Pooh Bear might have said, for a foreigner to comment on another nation's internal policy after a tragedy. As I am inveterately attracted to Very Bad Ideas, being a Philosopher of Little Brain, this does not deter me. If one cannot comment on gun policy after a tragedy like this, when can you?
First thing is the necessity for weapons in a civil society. I do not mean a society run by gangsters (or gangstas), or one in a Somalian warlord condition, or the Wild West, but a well-ordered civil society. One in which order is maintained with a balance of civil…
Contemptible ghoul #2: Evolution and atheism are to blame for the school shootings at Virginia Tech?
oracknows | April 16, 2007PZ Myers has identified contemptible ghoul #1, Debbie Schlussel, who has decided that it must have been a Muslim terrorist who carried out the horrific school shooting today at Virginia Tech (and is now backing off as more information comes out, as she claims that students should have been allowed to have guns on campus).
Here's contemptible ghoul #2, Ken Ham over at Answers in Genesis, who blames the evil of the school shooting on atheism (of course!) and--wink, wink, nudge, nudge--evolution, even though he "isn't saying that," if you know what I mean:
We live in an era when public high…
grrlscientist | April 16, 2007I am sure that Gonzales is thankful today, despite the fact that a group of conservative Bush supporters are clamoring for his resignation. Why? Gonzo is being granted a reprieve from his coming congressional appearance due to the Virginia Tech shootings. Instead of appearing in front of congress tomorrow, as originally scheduled, he will be appearing on Thursday.
Leahy said the shooting deaths of 33 people including a suspected gunman at Virginia Tech was "a matter where our whole nation is going to be grieving tomorrow, and many individual members of both bodies (of Congress) will be…
drorzel | April 16, 2007Like everybody else, I'm horrified by the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. It's the sort of nightmare situation you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.
Of course, the bodies aren't even cold yet, and already the blogosphere is a-flutter with people touting this as proof that the US needs to change its gun laws in one direction or another. I'm not going to link to them, but I've already seen three or four pieces using this to push one side or the other of the gun control debate, and I have a simple message for those people:
Stop. Please, just stop.
For the love of God, show a little tact, and…
grrlscientist | April 16, 2007Tomorrow, Gonzales will be lying through his teeth to the American public, but today, on the eve before tomorrow's spectacle, a group of conservatives and longtime Bush supporters wrote a letter to the White House, calling for Gonzo's resignation. Will Bush ignore his own supporters' demands to keep this lying power-hungry pustule around?
The two-page letter, written on stationery of the American Freedom Agenda, a recently formed body designed to promote conservative legal principles, is blunt. Addressed to both Bush and Gonzales, it goes well beyond the U.S. attorneys controversy and…
sb admin | April 16, 2007NOTE added 04/17: from the response I've seen, and from the all-out assault Chad directed at me and others, it's clear to me that I made some mistakes in my original post, undermining what was my main by inadvertently pushing a hot button or two. I leave this post here in the interest of honesty, but please read the updated version of this post instead of this one!
It's terrible and tragic news, what has happened at Virginia Tech. Given that, this entry is probably coming at an extremely insensitive time, given what I'm going to say-- but on the other hand, I really believe that it is at…
clock | April 15, 2007On Neurophilosopher's blog, I saw this, one of the winning cartoons from the 2006 Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest, drawn by Reva Sharp from Warren, PA (btw, you have only about a month to send in your entries for the 2007 contest):
The image obviously mocks the relationship between the published peer-reviewed papers and the data they are based on, putting a negative spin on the way we all frame our scientific communication for the audience of peers, something that both Orac and I addressed previously.
But the cartoon also depicts how many participants in the debate,…
grrlscientist | April 15, 2007One of the first things that Paul Wolfowitz did upon entering into his new job as President of the World Bank was to cut a lucrative deal for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. Riza was working at the World Bank when he arrived so, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he arranged that she work at the State Department and be paid a substantial raise; $200,000 over five years.
But regardless of what the WB's staff think regarding Wolfowitz's fate, it is the shareholders who will ultimately decide his fate. For the moment, the finance and development ministers at the spring meetings are…
j7uy5 | April 15, 2007This
is a continuation of the first post,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/04/things_that_affect_you_pdufa_a.php">Things
That Affect YOU: PDUFA and AERS. PDUFA is
the Prescription
Drug User Fee Act. AERS is the
href="http://www.fda.gov/cder/aers/default.htm">Adverse
Event Reporting System.
The PDUFA is up for review soon, as it expires in September.
If it expires, 40% of the funding for premarketing drug
approval
will disappear.
This has been covered only minimally by the mainstream media.
There is an article on Bloomberg.com (
href="http://www.bloomberg.…
oracknows | April 15, 2007Heh.
Although it's apparently been making the rounds over the Internet, I had never seen this list before until Andrew over at Flavor Country posted A Dictionary for the 9/11 "Truth" Movement, which, if you've ever read the comment thread (223 comments!) after my one major foray into discussing the true idiocy that is the 9/11 "Truth" Movement, you will immediately realize to be pretty darned close to the truth.
A few key examples:
Alternative theory: Something so wacky that even Twoofers don't give it much credence (e. g. holographic planes, pods).
Brainwashing: non-conspiratorial thinking,…
evolvingthoughts | April 15, 2007
A bunch of topics that I can't be stuffed blogging in detail, but are important:
Larry Arnhart and Roger Scruton, both Darwinians (see previous post) and conservatives, justify the existence of religion as a social cohesive force. I wonder, though, as a Darwinian (see previous post) and a not-conservative, why we can't use the values and rituals of social justice and morality as a cohesive force, especially given that religion can only cohere a society by excluding and marginalising those who disagree with it. That said, we can invert the issue and say that a function of religion is to…
evolvingthoughts | April 14, 2007
Hank Fox at Unscrewing the Inscrutable has posted an Atheist Declaration of Rights. With two minor changes I reprint it below the fold.
Nonreligious Declaration of Rights
1. Freedom from Fear and Hate:
In every part of a secular society, the nonreligious have the right to live free of fear for their personal safety, their homes, pets and possessions. The nonreligious have the right to be safe from public hate speech and vilification.
2. Freedom of Speech:
The nonreligious have the right to freely speak of atheism in public, or to publicly display characteristic messages or symbols, without…