Politics
grrlscientist | July 11, 2010tags: Top Catholic Priest Accused of Sexually Abusing His Own Sons, ethics, religion, catholicism, Catholic Church, television, criminal activity, news, pedophilia, child rape, Pope John Paul, Marcial Maciel Degollado, streaming video
This video explores the question; "how much money would you want in exchange to be raped and sodomized throughout your childhood years?" This is a question that I also would like answers to. Any thoughts?
On one hand, I am completely sympathetic to this guy's situation, but on the other hand, I cannot help but wonder how a man who was raped as a child by his…
grrlscientist | July 10, 2010tags: Stephen Fry on Catholicism, Intelligence Squared Debate, religion, catholicism, Catholic Church, poverty, sexuality,homosexuality, AIDS, HIV, condoms, pedophilia, child rape, culture, Stephen Fry, streaming video
Stephen Fry provides his very articulate and thoughtful opinion on Catholicism and the Catholic Church at the Intelligence Squared Debate.
grrlscientist | July 9, 2010tags: 1945-1998, nuclear weapons testing, Multimedia artwork, Isao Hashimoto, streaming video
This video documenting worldwide nuclear weapons testing and use is a multimedia artwork that speaks to all of us, regardless of which language we use. It's fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
Multimedia artwork by Isao Hashimoto [contact: hashi123 [at] amy [dot] hi-ho [dot] ne [dot] jp].
2053: This is the number of nuclear explosions conducted in various parts of the globe (excluding both tests by North Korea, on October 2006 and May 2009).
About this artwork [paraphrased]: This piece of…
jrosenhouse | July 8, 2010Yesterday afternoon I checked my e-mail and found something from the ScienceBlogs management. Apparently there was to be a new blog around here sponsored by PepsiCo. that was to focus on nutrition and other food related issues. I only skimmed the e-mail and did not really think much about it. I am still on blog vacation, after all, and I wanted to get back to my other work.
Later in the day I decided it was time for a break. Figured I'd check in with my favorite Science Blogs and see if anything was happening. Turns out, something was.
Apparently a lot of my fellow bloggers were up in…
drorzel | July 8, 2010Kevin Drum has done a couple of education-related posts recently, first noting a story claiming that college kids study less than they used to, and following that up with an anecdotal report on kids these days, from an email correspondent who teaches physics. Kevin's emailer writes of his recent experiences with two different groups of students:
Since the early 1990's, I have pre and post tested all of my introductory mechanics classes using a research based diagnostic instrument, the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation. This instrument is based on research by Ron Thornton at Tufts that…
pharyngula | July 8, 2010It's easy. Bait your hook with stupid.
It's true, we're a sucker for that stuff, although it does have a downside. We'll come up, swallow the bait, follow the line to its source, devour the poor fool holding the pole, and then waddle off, all fat and smug. It's our nature, we can't help it.
So, for instance, an Indiana politician who is considered a potential presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, talks about atheism.
People who reject the idea of a God — who think that we're just accidental protoplasm — have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications — which not all such folks…
catdynamics | July 7, 2010I just had an ice cold Pepsi this afternoon.
It was 35+C (ok, in the mid-nineties), I had just come back from a long hot walk through the kidfest day at the Artfest and I just had to have it.
It was so refreshing, and cool, and invigorating. Why it was exhilarating.
Don't know about the "Aids Digestion" bit - 'course it was Diet... not the same, eh?
It will, probably, be the only pepsi I have this month.
So, us physical science bloggers can be like total sluts, what with Pepsico having bought a blog on scienceblogs.com and many of the other bloggers quitting or suspending operations.
Not.…
esiegel | July 7, 2010"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful." -Mark Victor Hansen
Last week, the Obama Administration unveiled their new National Space Policy for the United States of America. This is the first national space policy since Bush's policy from 2006.
Do you remember what the main stated goal of the Bush administration was? To "…
emjohnson | July 6, 2010At ScienceBlogs we value our independence. Just consider the recent posts over the laughable PepsiCo nutrition blog to see how seriously people take this. But one thing that would never happen is for anything we write to be edited without our consent.
As I wrote yesterday, I am disappointed in the Huffington Post's decision to grant a public stage to David Klinghoffer, Senior Fellow at the intelligent design "think tank" known as the Discovery Institute. DI is a self-avowed propaganda vehicle seeking to "wedge" religion into public schools. Once HuffPo handed him the megaphone…
grrlscientist | July 6, 2010
It's taken me a few hours to cool off enough to write coherently and without using (too much) profanity after I learned that ScienceBlogs added a corporate PR "blog" about nutrition written by PepsiCo. I think I've learned all I care to know about corporate "food" giants' definition of what is "nutrition" by being confronted daily by a flock of hugely protruding bellies and jiggling posteriors everywhere I go (yes, even here in Germany). I would link to that "blog" so you can see what I am talking about but quite frankly, I don't want to send any traffic to them. I think you can find them…
jstemwedel | July 6, 2010I noticed a short item today at Inside Higher Education about Mike Adams, an associate professor of of criminal justice at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington , who is suing the university on the grounds that his promotion to full professor was denied due to his conservative Christian views. (Apparently, this legal action has been underway since 2007.)
I know very few details of the case, so I'm in no position to opine about whether Adams should or should not have been promoted. But there's one element of the case that seems to be legally interesting:
But part of the judge's…
drorzel | July 6, 2010As I am still getting lengthy comments at the Chris Mooney post accusing me of making unreasonable demands on scientists, I thought I should spell out as explicitly as possible what skills I think scientists ought to have. This probably won't solve the problem, but it'll give me something to point to the next time I get asked.
So, what communications skills should scientists have? The answer depends on what kind of science you're going to do, and what you want to do with it.
First and foremost, though: If you want to be a successful scientist, you need good communications skills. Full stop.…
emjohnson | July 6, 2010My response to David Klinghoffer's piece in the Huffington Post has just been published:
Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin. They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the Nazis to implement a widespread policy of artificial selection within the Fatherland. However, these claims are as baseless as was the so-called "science" that the Nazis employed.
The latest example of this ignorance disguised as revelation was recently published on The Huffington Post by a Senior…
emjohnson | July 6, 2010Image: via PZ Myers
PZ Myers has a new post condemning Discovery Institute ideologue David Klinghoffer's recent post connecting Darwin to the eugenic policies of Hitler. He trots out some of the same points that have been refuted time and again.
Darwin elaborated a picture of how the world works, how creatures war with each other for survival thus selecting out the fittest specimens and advancing the species. In this portrait of animal life, man is no exception. Any animal that strives to preserve the weak, as man does, is committing racial suicide. "Thus the weak members of civilized…
eklemetti | July 5, 2010
Serpentine (as known as serpentinite), the current (and potentially soon-to-be ex-) state rock of California.
This does not have a direct connection to volcanoes, but it sure is about geology and the science in the news. State Senator Gloria Romero of California has sponsored a bill to change the California state rock from serpentine because, as she claims:
"[Serpentine] contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos, a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma ... California should not designate a rock known to be toxic to the health of its residents…
illconsidered | July 5, 2010Check out Peter's latest Climate Crock:
Oh those hysterical enviro-wacko-loons...
palmd | July 4, 2010It's worth re-reading this remarkable document from time to time, especially given that it says something very different from what many on the Right and in the Tea Party seem to think. It does, for example, give special importance to representative government; that is, in fact, one of the main purposes of the document. It does not call for a "right" to toss away any government someone disapproves of but lays out specific grievances and makes its declaration through the representatives of the people, not by mob action.
The document's wording was very carefully developed and has specific…
grrlscientist | July 4, 2010tags: The Invention of Religion, humor, comedy, satire, funny, silly, fucking hilarious, interview, religion, Ricky Gervais, streaming video
This amusing video features Ricky Gervais explaining how everything you need to know about religion can be found on a Pizza Hut pizza box.
The Invention of Religion.
grrlscientist | July 3, 2010tags: Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win, Diane Sawyer, Stephen Hawking, interview, science, religion, streaming video
World News Anchor, Diane Sawyer, asks physicist Stephen Hawking about the biggest mystery he'd like solved. He said, "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something rather than nothing".
grrlscientist | July 3, 2010tags: Federal Officials Suspend First Amendment Rights for Coverage of Gulf of Mexico Disaster, First Amendment Rights, Gulf of Mexico, BP, oil spill, oil spill clean-up efforts, relief efforts, disaster relief, US Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, mainstream media, streaming video
What. The. FUCK. As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, mainstream news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials -- working with BP -- who are blocking access to the sites where…