It goes like this: 1. You fear something. 2. You find a hypothesis to justify your fear. 3. You block stuff that doesn’t support your case. That’s from Tim Minchin, who concisely describes the process that leads anti-GMO opponents and apparently many greens to support destruction of an agricultural experiment, that as John Timmer notes,…Continue Reading…
Wired magazine has an interesting interview with biologist and science entrepreneur Craig Venter, who, as Wikipedia describes, is most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. The discussion is wide-ranging. At one point, Venter…Continue Reading…
There was talk that the much maligned (but heavily trafficked) Huffington Post gained some journalistic cred after it snagged a Pulitzer Prize this year. We should keep in mind what makes the Huffpo engine run. As the LA Time’s Tim Rutten wrote: The bulk of the site’s content is provided by commentators, who work for…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, in a post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I said that Chris Mooney’s “new book argues that Republicans are genetically wired to be anti-science.” In an email to me, Chris asserted that this characterization “misrepresented” his book, which is called “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, global warming was debated on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher show. Now let’s first be clear on something: When it comes to science, Maher is a riddle of contradictions. He’s a fierce proponent of evolution (he’s been given an award named after Richard Dawkins) but he’s also a serial spouter of…Continue Reading…
The Peter Gleick shocker is dominating conversation in many science circles this week. That’s understandable. It’s as if he emptied a can of lighter fluid on an already flammable climate debate. To make matters worse, the most partisan and shrillest voices are fanning the flames in spectacular fashion, as they downplay/justify/praise Gleick’s action. It’s tribalism…Continue Reading…
Savage Minds reminds me of Ed Carr’s commentary on peer review from late December. (Carr is a geographer who I interviewed recently for Yale Environment 360.) Here is a provocative excerpt from his post: I have found peer review to often function as a means of policing new ideas, slowing the flow of innovative ideas into…Continue Reading…
The prestigious journal Nature has published a special supplement on traditional Asian medicine (free access). Financial sponsorship for it came from the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center and the Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co, which is described as a herbal medicine manufacturer which aims to help people make the most of their natural powers of healing…Continue Reading…
There’s no question about it: science reigns supreme today. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that we collectively take empirical evidence more seriously than we used to. What it means is that science has become increasingly debased, just another partisan tool that an increasing number of people take no more seriously than advertising claims about who has…Continue Reading…
When I saw this recent RFKJr Huffington Post column, titled “The Fracking Industry’s War On The New York Times–And The Truth,” I tweeted: RFKJr has waged war on truth w/his anti-vax nuttery and cape wind nimbyism. If you’re unfamiliar with this history, read here and here. On Cape wind, RFKJr is simply hypocritical. But his anti-vax…Continue Reading…