Science Education & Policy

Solar geo-engineering is one proposed approach to mitigating the effects of climate change - the idea being to deflect some of the sun's incoming radiation.  Ignoring the technology issues, in a world where countries can't even agree they contribute to greenhouse gases, the political uncertainties and geopolitical questions about who would be in charge of solar geo-engineering activity and its goals are daunting. A UN of climate change is the worst of all possible worlds.  Social authoritarianism may be the way to go, according to modeling work from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and…

Sociologists have found that student loans provide more help to women than they do for men in encouraging graduation from college but, on average, taking out loans makes graduation more likely for all students. Yet the debt eventually  has diminishing returns and becomes less effective at boosting chances of graduation -  about $2,000 lower for men than for women. Part of the reason may be because the job prospects for male college dropouts are better for men than women. "At least early in their careers, women suffer more than men if they don't have a college degree," said Rachel…

Science has always had a social component. Much of science is a neutral endeavor for the public good but in modern times the political component has meant navigating treacherous social and environmental policy waters.  Not an easy task when science requires help from outside its field. Different social and science fields use different methods and scientists and policy makers rarely work together.  The government has taken over increased government control of projects and funding since World War II but modern problems mean that modern types of research centers are needed, as are new…

Despite being in use for almost 20 years with no health or safety issues, controversy continues to surround genetically modified crops and their regulation. Bruce Chassy, a professor emeritus of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes that after thousands of research studies and worldwide planting, "genetically modified foods pose no special risks to consumers or the environment" and are over-regulated. Farmers have witnessed the advantages of GM crops firsthand through increases in their yields and profit, and decreases in their labor,…

Given the enormous increase in government funding and control of science and technology in the U.S. during the last few decades, it is surprising that more attention isn't paid to the policy decisions that drive the enterprise, said Daniel Sarewitz,  Arizona State University co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO) at the AAAS meeting in Boston. What appears to be missing from the equation, he added, is a focus on outcomes.  Sarewitz has commented for more than 20 years on science policy, dating back to his time working on Capitol Hill as a staff member…

The world produces a lot of food, but it is not produced equally. Agriculturally rich areas like American and Europe can fret about whether natural or synthetic toxins are on their food, and how much water a toilet flush should be, while a billion people elsewhere have inconsistent diets. Paul Ehrlich, legendary doomsday prophet, now has a new concern that will kill the planet if it is not addressed - equal rights for women.  To feed an estimated 9.6 billion people by 2050 (other estimates are that we will be in population decline by then) is not difficult. America alone is producing far…

Why are physicists thick-skinned but biologists run for the hills when the comment trolls invariably appear?  It may help to be arcane and complex - it's harder to troll hard sciences. Everyone feels like they know some biology but good luck to casual readers trying to debunk rare B_s decays in a high energy physics paper. But in biology you will invariably get comments like... "How much did Monsanto pay you to write this?" and "You can't prove this is safe" ...which can be frustrating. Brian Dunning at SkepticBlog even coined a term for it - Argumentum ad Monsantium - and has a…

Here's a good way to standardize education across the states without enraging powerful education unions and the US Department of Education: get rid of real standards. In a bit of pedagogical brilliance, California has decided to forgo algebra I, even for 8th graders, if they are not 'ready'.  And it will work, because with President Obama's killing of No Child Left Behind, despite its proven benefits in minority education and bringing parity to female math students for the first time in history, test scores (which determine money) will be based on an 'alternative' test that doesn't use…

At the start of this year, a controversial feature of President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect. Under the ACA, medical devices companies will have to pay new tax of 2.3% on gross sales. While medical devices companies have opposed the tax, saying it will hurt research and development activities, proponents of ACA say, of course, that more taxes will be good for them. In progressive economics, companies such as Hologic Inc. and St. Jude Medical Inc. will get more customers due to their higher taxes and that will boost sales of medical devices.    President…

President Obama, who was going to heal the Earth in his first term, didn't do much of that but he put climate change back on the table in his second inaugural address and a new national poll says public support for regulating greenhouse gas emissions is with him - just not with the ways he tried in his first term. The percentage of Americans who think climate change is occurring fluctuates with the weather and media coverage, so it has rebounded due to a hot summer and a storm hitting New York City media offices, according to the Duke University national online survey. It is at its highest…