updates

For the second time in under a year, I'll be heading to Amherst tomorrow, this time to give a speech at Hampshire College. The deets: Thursday, April 206:00 PM-7:30 PMHampshire CollegeFranklin Patterson HallEast Lecture HallAmherst, MA 01002 Here's a link to a campus map. I'm going to be trying out some new material in the talk, should be fun. I hope those in the area can make it.
I'll be speaking on Tuesday at what looks to be a great event hosted by George Mason University's cultural studies Ph.D. program. Here's the roster of talks (for more details see here): Who Owns Knowledge? A Symposium on Science and Technology in the Global Circuit 9:00-10:20 AM: States of Knowledge: Science in Political and Institutional Contexts CHAIR: Daniele Struppa (Mathematics, GMU) Hugh Gusterson (Associate Professor of Anthropology, MIT): "Do Nuclear Weapons Scientists Matter Anymore? Military Science After the Cold War." Itty Abraham (Research Fellow, East-West Center; SSRC): "…
Basic Books has just published The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius, by Harvard historian of science Joyce Chaplin. I got to read the book in galleys and it was excellent. From his studies of electricity and storms to his charting of the Gulf Stream, Franklin was easily this nation's first great scientist. I was happy to endorse this book and have a blurb on the back which reads as follows: Joyce Chaplin's book is as electrifying as her subject. For those alarmed by the current rift between scientists and our political leaders, Franklin's life reminds us…
Not that you shouldn't drink liberally on other days...but seriously, I'm speaking in DC this Wednesday night at a Drinking Liberally event. It should be a heck of a lot of fun. Vital details: Mark & Orlando's, Wednesday, April 12th, 7:30PM. There should be a book signing after. And then, er, drinking liberally....
In case anyone was wondering why I didn't blog yesterday, I was traveling--and a long day on the road culminated in a very well received speech at Bowling Green. I'd say there were over 200 people present. They laughed at my jokes. Now I'm off to Michigan State for another one of these events....meanwhile, the Bush administration just keeps giving me more fodder with this latest Washington Post piece about NOAA and GW...not to mention that Nature is reporting that the Energy Department is ditching its scientific advisory board, which had served for over 30 years. Not a week goes by, it seems…
Sometimes I hear a slight bit of trash talk about how my "war on science" message goes down smoothest on the two left coasts. There's some truth to the claim, but I certainly haven't been avoiding other parts of the USA--and my events this week prove it. I'm doing the heartland, the swing states--Ohio and Michigan. (Granted, I'm still speaking on college campuses, which are little left coasts of their own.) Anyway, here's the rundown: Wednesday, April 57:00 PM-8:30 PMEdward Lamb Peace Lecture followed by Book SigningBowling Green State UniversityBowen Thompson Student Union Theater, Room…
Over at the excellent blog Crooked Timber, a lengthy and extremely productive seminar discussion has just gone online about my book, with contributions from John Quiggin, Daniel Davies, Ted Barlow, John Holbo, Steve Fuller (of Dover evolution trial fame), Tim Lambert, Henry Farrell, and John Quiggin again--all followed by a lengthy response from yours truly. I'll have more to say on this soon, but I hope you will dig in to this excellent discussion, starting out with the seminar introduction by John Quiggin....
I have just found out that an edition of The Republican War on Science is coming out in South Korea, and I have to write an introduction to it. I'm supposed to address the book to South Koreans, and obviously I should say something about the central issue of embryonic stem cell research--but beyond that, I'm at a loss. I don't know anything about how the South Korean government relates to science, for example. I know enough to know that many South Koreans are concerned about the state of affairs in the U.S., but I doubt that's enough to really write an authentic introduction. I am suddenly…
I am psyched to be among the list of speakers for a great upcoming conference on "Bioethics & Politics: The Future of Bioethics in a Divided Democracy," sponsored by the Alden March Bioethics Institute of Albany Medical College. Other confirmed speakers include: Nigel CameronArthur CaplanAlta CharoEric CohenRichard DoerflingerJames FossettJeffrey KahnGlenn McGeeDavid MagnusJonathan MorenoAlicia OuelletteSean PhilpottWilliam F. MayWesley SmithBonnie SteinbockGerald and Paul Root WolpeLaurie Zoloth You will note that the event represents both the left and the right. It's this July 13-14.…
Again, I'll be speaking this Wednesday at an event sponsored by the Alliance for Science in Vienna, Virginia at 7:30 pm. Details here. Hope some of yous can make it....
This has been a good couple of weeks. I've just learned that Mother Jones has been nominated for a National Magazine Award in the "public interest" category for their May 2005 feature on global warming, which included an article by yours truly about ExxonMobil and conservative think tanks. Anyway, we're up against Elizabeth Kolbert's three part New Yorker series on global warming in this category, so winning hardly seems assured--but, again, it's an honor to be nominated.
A new group called the Alliance for Science is bringing me out to Vienna, Virginia, for a talk next Wednesday night, the 22nd. For those in the DC area who haven't been able to make it to an event yet, this is a great opportunity. Further information here, and I'll have another reminder next week.
I just learned that I have, like, three weeks to make all changes to my book in time for the paperback version--and to write a new introduction to boot. So much has happened in the world of politics-and-science since late August when RWoS first came out in hardback that the notion of comprehensively updating would be a futile endeavor. Instead, most of the new information will be contained in the new foreword. But, inevitably, there are numerous things that will need changing because they are dated or no longer true. For instance, in the book I asserted that Bush had not yet taken a position…
Dear friends: I'm ecstatic to announce that my first book was just named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize for 2005 in the category of "science and technology." The five finalists are: Sean B. Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (W.W. Norton) Mariana Gosnell, Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance (Alfred A. Knopf) Brad Matsen, Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss (Pantheon Books) Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (Basic Books) Diana Preston, Before the Fallout…
I'm leaving Westchester this morning and heading down south to stay with my brother, his wife, and their we-think Tibetan terrier in Crown Heights. On Thursday I'm heading into the city for I-can't-say-what-yet, but suffice it to say that I will be posting some news on this blog relating to that soon. Meanwhile, all of you who haven't already, meet my brother Davy, via this article that mentioned him in the New York Times: HEADLINE: Picking a Guitarist, Fluent in Monk and More BYLINE: By NATE CHINEN DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 BODY: The organizers of the Thelonious Monk International…
It's high time that I make a note about how comments are handled on this blog. This has been made particularly urgent by the fact that I was until recently getting an overwhelming amount of spam comments, which in turn led me to up the spam filter, which in turn led some real comments to be miscategorized as spam...and so forth. Big headache. Hopefully all of the real comments have now been published, and hopefully my spam filter will not swallow up any more of them. However, there will be times in the future--and in fact there have been times in the past--when certain non-spam comments do…
Again, I'm speaking tonight at SUNY-Purchase, aka Purchase College of the State University of New York. Then I'll be in New York for a couple of days, followed by Atlanta. Blogging could be a mite spotty, but I know you'll all bear with me.
I've managed to fill up the next three months--and especially April--with a number of speaking engagements, including my first real swing through the Midwest, with talks at Bowling Green (April 5), Michigan State (April 6), and Kalamazoo College (April 7). Meanwhile, there are also some really fun events coming up, like a D.C. "Drinking Liberally" (April 12) and, of course, the Yearly Kos science panel in Vegas (June 9). Please see here for a complete listing of everything that's been scheduled so far--some 14 events in different parts of the country over the next several months. Meanwhile,…
A while back I appeared on the Tavis Smiley Show on PBS, and pretty much everyone who saw said it went very well. But little did I know, at least until now, that there's an official transcript of the show available. You can check it out here. Meanwhile, you can also listen here.
While in Boulder, I appeared on the "How on Earth" Show--I think it went pretty well. You can listen here. My segment begins around minute 7:00.