Science Education & Policy

Though every election has high-profile female candidates and elected officials, a new paper conducted by American University Women and Politics Institute director Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox of Loyola Marymount University says that young women are less likely than young men ever to have considered running for office, to express interest in a candidacy at some point in the future, or to consider elective office a desirable profession.   The survey used 2,100 college students and showed a gap between women and men's interest in running for office; men were twice as likely as…

American education reform in the first decade of the 21st century, called No Child Left Behind, resulted in math parity among boys and girls for the first time in history. It may have taken so long because legacy education methods fight biology and not the persistent claims that there is subtle bias (hidden, stereotype threat and other sociological rationalizations), even in countries with high gender equality.  Sex differences in math and reading scores persisted in the 75 nations examined by a University of Missouri and University of Leeds study; girls consistently scored higher in…

In the current U.S. gun ban debate, both sides are claiming they care about hunters - but it is a dwindling population among Americans and that will cause deer populations to grow out of control, according to new findings in the UK, which has been banning hunting since the days of Robin Hood. In England, hunting is a pastime only for the wealthy, who can provide two well-known references when they apply with the police and satisfy that they have 'good cause' to possess a gun. The end result is the highest crime levels in the developed world and, as a study by the University of East Anglia (…

Sugar is irresistible to humans, and apparently to writers. There was no better example than this week’s vaygeshray over Mark Bittman’s column in the New York Times. Bittman, the paper’s former food columnist who rose to fame with his fast and easy recipes for modern life, got caught up in one of the biggest food battles on the planet: the sugar wars. Is sucrose good? Bad? Toxic? Addictive? Causal of illness? Bittman entered the fray with the effect of a chorizo in a Brooklyn shule: citing a new finding in PLoS One, he pronounced the study as conclusive proof that “obesity doesn’t cause…

President Obama may have a thing for northeast academics but he at least stepped out of Harvard and Yale this time, tapping MIT Professor Ernie Moniz Monday to run the Department of Energy. Moniz, a theoretical physicist and simulation expert, was in politics during the Clinton years, as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1995 to 1997 and Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from 1997 until January 2001.  Unlike his predecessor, Dr. Steven Chu, Moniz is well-seasoned in the ways of Washington, D.C. and he was rumored to be the front…

Can you buy leadership? If you talk to people trying to convince the government to give them more money, the answer is 'yes', even among scientists who know better. Since the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider, Americans have been shy about Big Physics - politicians don't trust the projections science makes on if projects can be completed at all, much less on time and on budget.  And no one has minded not having Big Physics locally except American physicists, who would rather large colliders be closer to home. It's basically science nationalism. If you wonder that the…

Each year more than 40 million Americans become sick with foodborne infections. Among those who become ill, 128,000 will be hospitalized and 3,000 will die. Foodborne illness also takes a toll on our economy: Broad estimates are that the US loses $77 billion in lost productivity due to people who become sick - adding in more estimates of economic impact a foodborne illness outbreak has on the affected industry. Usually, a great deal of effort has gone into preventing foodborne illness outbreaks. In 2010, the Obama administration got the Food Safety Management Act passed but it hasn't been…

A survey analysis finds both that the public is supportive of government action to curb obesity, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases - but don't like interventions that appear intrusive or coercive. The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) analysis also found that support was higher for interventions that help people make more healthful choices, such as menu labeling requirements, than for interventions that penalize certain choices or health conditions, such as charging higher insurance premiums for obese individuals. There's no question that government wants to use legal action…

Environmental activists make money telling us all how terrible things are; climate scientists appreciate the help promoting their data, we do have a bit of a train wreck coming at us emissions-wise, but climate scientists also know there is a risk of backlash if there are too many hyperbolic claims, and that 'green fatigue' will set in if every change in temperature and every storm is attributed to global warming. That's why even the IPCC, no wallflower when it comes to using media talking points, wishes media would not attribute local weather to climate change. And then there is the money…

Deficit thinking is the belief by elites that the public is simply unaware of or unable to understand science and that lack of knowledge prevents the right policy decision. It rarely works as a strategy. Scholars at Umeå University in Sweden analyzed public opposition to dam removal,  an increasingly common practice as old splash dams and small hydropower dams have become obsolete, and found that disagreements are not based on knowledge deficiency but are instead a case of different understandings and valuation of the environment and the functions it provides.  Dams provided…