Public Perception of Science
tqa | December 6, 2009
Sheril Kirshenbaum and DrHGG recently wrote posts expressing their disappointment at the selection of authors that Richard Dawkins included in the Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Neither of them was pleased that only three female authors were included in a book that featured 83 excerpts of writing by scientists.
Dawkins explained, in a comment left on Sheril's post, why the numbers worked out the way they did:
It is a collection of writing by good scientists, many of them dead and very distinguished. I am not one of those who thinks men are genetically better equipped than women…
tqa | March 3, 2009
The Guardian just announced that it's brought on four new columnists. These particular columnists are unusual, in that three of them are working scientists, and the fourth is an ethicist specializing in science and medicine. All in all, I think this could be a good move. The coverage of science by the mainstream media has not been outstanding of late, and giving working scientists a platform to talk about science might just help.
If I sound less hopeful than you expected, there's a reason. Unsurprisingly, the Guardian is describing their new columnists in glowing terms. Unfortunately, one…
tqa | February 25, 2009
I've already talked about the basic dishonesty Bobby Jindal exhibited when he took a swipe at the mention of "volcano monitoring" in the stimulus - Jindal claimed that there was $140 million in there for "volcano monitoring", when it's actually only one of a number of projects listed under that line - but there's something more important that I didn't discuss. I took a swipe at the messenger, but what about the message? Jindal may be a liar, but that doesn't make him wrong.
He is wrong, of course. He delivered the argument dishonestly, but the argument still fails on the merits. Volcano…
tqa | February 20, 2009
In his opening remarks for the latest entry in our ongoing debate about public financing for science, Timothy Sandefur suggests that after this post, we move on to concluding remarks. That strikes me as a reasonably good idea (and not just because he's generously offered me the last word). We may not have yet reached a point where we're talking past each other, but we're definitely getting dangerously close to that point.
After reading through Tim's latest post, I'm going to respond to his points out of order. I'm going to start out by looking at the more concrete examples that we've been…
tqa | February 19, 2009
In a recent and very widely distributed AP article, Seth Borenstein manages to do a pretty good job of misunderstanding what's going on with Comet Lulin. In a relatively short column, he manages to generate confusion about the location of the comet, mangle the name of a fairly well-known star, and totally flunk with his explanation of the comet's tail. It's not the worst science writing I've ever seen, but it definitely falls well into "massive fail" territory.
I'm going to take a minute or two and correct the most glaring of his errors, but then I'd like to get into something more…
tqa | February 18, 2009
"Children are our hope for the future."
THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE, said Death.
"What does it contain, then?"
ME.
"Besides you, I mean!"
Death gave him a puzzled look. I'M SORRY?
Terry Pratchett
"Sourcery"
Bad Astronomy Blogger Phil Plait has written one of the most fantastically, outrageously, manically, humorously depressing books I've ever read, and I'm almost certain I mean that as a compliment. Death From The Skies provides a veritable smorgasbord of potentially deadly astronomical delights, each more exotic than the last. It's like having every Discovery Channel "The Sky Is…
tqa | February 7, 2009
A series of articles just published in The Sunday Times reports that it appears likely that Andrew Wakefield falsified much of the data that was used in the 1998 Lancet article that first identified the MMR vaccine as a potential cause of autism. If the charges leveled by the paper are remotely accurate, Wakefield is guilty of homicide - perhaps not legally, but certainly morally. If previous claims made by the paper are accurate, Wakefield may have acted for financial gain.
If even a fraction of the accusations leveled by The Times are true, Wakefield engaged in absolutely outrageous…
tqa | October 21, 2008
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
Saul Alinsky
Rules for Radicals
This is the beginning of a promised (and late) series of posts discussing Saul Alinsky's 1971 book Rules for Radicals. Alinsky started out in community organizing in the 1930s, working in Chicago's infamous "Back of the Yards" neighborhood. Rules for Radicals is a how-to guide for organizing, based on the…
tqa | October 5, 2008...keep an eye on the left sidebar of this blog. There's a listing there of the times and dates when the prize announcements will be made. If all goes well, the list will be automatically updated with the names of the winners, as soon as the announcements are made.
The first announcement, for the winner or winners of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will be made sometime after 09:30 GMT tomorrow. Feel free to use this thread as an open thread for discussing speculation on who it might be, and for commenting after the winner is announced.
tqa | September 8, 2008
Last week, right around the time that Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin were mocking community organizers at the Republican Convention, I found myself talking about how community organizing can help us become more effective when it comes to dealing with issues where science and politics intersect.
I think this is something that we really need to do. The political groups that are opposed to science are typically very well organized. This is true for the anti-evolutionists, it's true for the global warming denialists, it's true for the anti-vaccinationists, and it's true for the anti-…
tqa | August 29, 2008
I'm sitting in the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution right now, at the Nature Network's Science Blogging 2008 conference. There are about 100 people in the room, 90% of whom I don't recognize at all. 90% of the people I do recognize are people I've met for the first time somewhere in the last two days. There's a list of the attendees and their blogs on the conference website. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't had the chance to read all of those blogs yet.
At the same time, it's also great (in a way) that I don't know who most of the people are or where they blog. If nothing else…
tqa | May 5, 2008
Since the beginning of March, I've been putting in a lot of time at a part-time job. I needed to get out of the house a lot more than I had been, and a friend needed people for his smoothie cart business. It's not rocket science, but it's not all that bad a way to kill time while making a little bit of money. It's also given me some insights into various aspects of life that I hadn't spent much time thinking about.
One of the insights involves just how many people there are out there who are on diets that they absolutely don't understand.
I've lost count of the number of people who have…
tqa | April 22, 2008
On Sunday, Chris Mooney and Randy Olsen both tried to make the case that Ben Stein's "Evolution Caused the Holocaust" movie was a success at the box office. Both of them have been rather spectacularly condemned for calling Expelled a success, but I'm not sure that they're entirely wrong. I just don't think that they took a hard enough look at some of the issues involved.
Let's start with the basic facts. Expelled hit theaters on Friday. It was aggressively marketed prior to release, and opened on 1,052 screens - the most ever for any documentary. On Sunday, estimates suggested that the…
tqa | March 6, 2008
Henry Gee and I have been talking, on our blogs, about how the public views science, and what can be done to change that. That's hardly a new topic for scientists. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen or heard the topic discussed. It's a water cooler conversation topic at universities and government labs. It gets raised on email lists, discussion boards, and blogs. It's featured in journal editorials, at seminars, and at conferences. There's a widespread consensus that we could, should, and must do a better job of talking to the general public. On this issue, the consensus is…
tqa | March 5, 2008
For the next few weeks, I'm going to be busier than normal - I'm picking up a few bucks by working for a friend who has a beverage concession at the Houston Rodeo. I'm mentioning this in part because working at the Rodeo has inspired a few thoughts that are relevant to a blog discussion that I've been having with Nature editor Henry Gee. I'll probably have my response to his latest post up sometime after I get home from work. His post focuses on how scientists have been getting scientific information to the public. He focuses on the problems with the media's usual treatment of science, and…
tqa | March 2, 2008
In a post over at the Nature Network, Henry Gee notes that over the last twenty years, he's seen "an increase in ... a siege mentality among scientists". He's probably right. When there's a horde of angry, armed people outside your walls, and they start settling in and making themselves at home, you might start to wonder if you're looking at a siege. When the catapults come out and rocks, stones, jars of burning oil, and diseased animal carcasses start flying over the walls, the folks inside often feel besieged. By the time the attackers disappear in the middle of the night, leaving behind…
tqa | February 11, 2008
When fellow ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet announced that he had put a panel together to talk about "Communicating Science in a Religious America" at this weekend's AAAS conference, he was greeted with what I'll generously call widespread skepticism among many of the bloggers here (including me). Nisbet, you see, is a well-known opponent of what's sometimes referred to as the "New Atheism". His own talk will focus on the "New Atheism". And he included nobody on his panel who is actually a "New Atheist".
A little while ago, he posted a copy of a press release describing another one of the…
tqa | January 7, 2008
Chris Mooney's recently-published article in Seed magazine has stirred a bit of discussion about the role of the Presidential Science Advisor, and just who would be a good choice for that position. Of the two questions, the first is probably the more important, but the second is more fun to argue about - at least for the few people who are more or less fluent in the who's who of the scientific community. Several people (including Chris) have already suggested names. I've got a few to suggest, too.
Of course, it really is necessary to talk about the job description first. The role of the…
tqa | December 11, 2007
Last night, in Oslo, Al Gore delivered a simple, powerful message. It's a familiar message to anyone who has watched him speak since 2000, or watched his movie, or read his books. It's simply a call for nothing more or less than the need for all of us to accept responsibility for the effects of our actions:
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the…
tqa | December 6, 2007
With all of the renewed fuss the Discovery Institute is trying to stir up over the Gonzalez tenure thing, this seems like a really good time to talk about the role of money in the tenure process. I'm not going to do this because the money issue is one that the Discovery folks are frantically trying to distract attention from (they are) or because Gonzalez's inability to land external funds means that he'd be a very weak candidate for tenure even if he wasn't involved in ID (it does). I'm going to look at the role of money in the process because it's hugely important, for more reasons than…