Via Dan Vergano at USA Today: Summer is the season for comic book heroes: Green Lantern, Captain America and of course, the late physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman doesn’t have a movie out for August, but this month brings the debut of the graphic novel Feynman by writer Jim Ottaviani and illustrator Leland Myrick. In classic comic book form, they chronicle the mind-blowing adventures…Continue Reading…
Question: What do earthquakes in Washington D.C. have to do with brain cancer and cell phones? You can find the answer in this excellent interview with a scientist at BoingBoing. Meanwhile, over at Stoat’s thread on this cell phone/brain cancer issue, here’s a great observation that has not yet been made in any of the discussions,…Continue Reading…
The Washington Post has a regular column called “The Fact Checker,” by Glenn Kessler, a longtime Post reporter. It’s a relatively new feature. Earlier this year, Kessler described the column’s origins and purpose: My colleague Michael Dobbs started the column during the 2008 [Presidential] campaign and now, in 2011, The Washington Post is reviving it as…Continue Reading…
Randy Olson, in response to this post, offers an unstinting and thought-provoking commentary on science communication. Olson is a marine biologist turned filmmaker. One of his movies is called Flock of Dodos, which might best characterize his view of the science community–with respect to their overall communication skills. Although critical of scientists, Olson also offers some constructive suggestions below. Have a read and let’s discuss….Continue Reading…
A wildlife ecologist seeks to tame them.
In its current issue, The New Yorker has an excellent piece on the prevalence of (unconscious) bias in scientific studies that builds on this recent must-read piece in The Atlantic. And to some extent, Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker article builds on this story he did for Wired in 2009. Anyone interested in the scientific process…Continue Reading…
Speaking of contests, Orac has winnowed a list of “terminal terminator cranks” into the top three and asks readers to pick a winner: Anti-vaccine loons Tobacco/secondhand smoke denialists Anthropogenic global warming denialists
There’s an interesting food fight taking place at ScienceBlogs. Orac is dismayed that Coby Beck allowed his father to “hijack” his blog with this “case against flouride” post. Orac is all over the irony of this. I have to agree. It’s akin to Coby handing over his blog to an anti-vaxxer.
This is the second post of what will be a three part series on the terminology used in the climate debate to define individuals and groups of people that share a common position. The first post surveyed responses from science and environmental writers on two common terms used in the climate debate: “skeptic” and “denier.”…Continue Reading…
What to make of this latest study charting American ignorance? Well, let’s see. Are we flunking history? Check. Are we flunking geography? Check. Are we this flunking basic science? Check. So it should come as no surprise that Americans are a wee bit challenged on the basics of climate science. I have two questions: Do…Continue Reading…