Science & Society

Professor Richard Dawkins, the bestselling author who has been wrong about biology as often as he has been right, is taking Edward O. Wilson, Science 2.0's favorite myrmecologist, to task for his latest book. "I am not being funny when I say of Edward Wilson's latest book that there are interesting and informative chapters on human evolution, and on the ways of social insects (which he knows better than any man alive), and it was a good idea to write a book comparing these two pinnacles of social evolution, but unfortunately one is obliged to wade through many pages of erroneous and…

Americans are being beat by Asians again.  Asians do better on international standardized tests, their economies are better; heck, they are even robbing us of that last stronghold of American dominance - obesity. The Chinese have gotten a level of fat in one generation that it took Americans 200 years to accomplish.  Typical overachievers. Of course, America tries to find ways to fight back.  Good luck getting into college if you are Asian and not brilliant.  Many Asians give the advice that, if you are half Asian but with an American last name, check Caucasian and not…

What does it take for Fritz Vahrenholt, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hamburg, a former German environment minister and one of the fathers of the German environmental movement (and, unlike everyone at Desmogblog.com, who simply write character assassinations the moment people deviate from their worldview, has actually devoted a lot of time and money to replacing fossil fuels) to lose faith in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? It took working with the IPCC.   In February 2010, I was invited as a reviewer for the IPCC report on…

MMS ( Miracle Mineral Solution) is getting some much needed attention in the skeptic community, as well as the autism community. Created by a man named "Bishop"Jim Humble, who runs his own Genesis Church, it is a potent industrial bleach which when used as recommended by Humble both orally and rectally can cause serious side effects, serious enough that the FDA has issued a strongly worded news release: FDA NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release: July 30, 2010Media Inquiries: Elaine Gansz Bobo,             301-796-7567…

Henry I. Miller, M.D., physician and molecular biologist, is the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and was at the NIH and FDA from 1977 to 1994. He is, basically, a longtime knowledgeable insider into How Things Work. And he isn't a fan of how things work at the National Science Foundation. Hey, neither am I.  I once got a press release from them stating they had funded two academics to create a "Science 2.0" and I wrote one of the researchers getting the money to ask what they were doing and he deferred to the…

This November, Californians will vote on an initiative that would require any food containing ingredients derived from genetically modified crops to be labeled as such. Backers of the “California Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act” are pitching it as a matter of providing information to consumers, who, they argue, “have a right to know what’s in the food we buy and eat and feed our children, just as we have the right to know how many calories are in our food, or whether food comes from other countries like Mexico or China.” I have no concerns about the safety of GMOs. But I support…

Too often we see the "anti-science" label being tossed around and invariably we get behind our respective barricades and prepare for the barrage of arguments thrown at each side. However, the question we should be asking is why a different point of view should automatically be considered "anti-science".  After all, how is "anti-science" even manifest?  Is it simply the denial of facts?  Is it simply the denial of research? I suppose that any of those might be sufficient to consider someone anti-science, yet for people to have an opposing opinion, doesn't it suggest that exactly…

People never fail to amaze me: when they think they are anonymousthey will say the nastiest things to each other.  I have been reading a number of the commentson articles about evolution vs creationism and global warming.  Those opposed to the science presented havebecome like Rabid Dogs attacking the author of the article rather than thesubstance of the article. In learned debate, the party resorting to an ad hominemattack is acknowledged to be boors who have no manners AND have lost thedebate. When you result to a personal attack on the author it is clear you havenothing further…

I think I've got it. The reason why we, as evolutionists have such difficulty in speaking to creationists is because the idea of it is so far removed, so abstract - indeed, so patently wrong - that we have literally no idea where to start. [This stems from a comment that I was writing which has spiralled out of control. I thought I'd siphon it off into another blog post, as the other thread is bloated enough as it is]I think of the amount of hours that I spend studying the intricacies of fossils and their evolution.  I look at the career of people like my colleague Dick Aldridge has put…

The fair trade movement  is in its seventh decade but has an internal problem.  Fair trade, as a concept, sought originally to make sure small people got a fair deal - a Mennonite visiting Puerto Rico saw the poverty levels of people there and decided to help them make more money, rather than advocating to give them government handouts (I know, I know, zany religious types).   The movement was born and extended to food crops, often grown by small farmers in Central and South America. That led to fair trade co-ops, so that individual farmers could have more leverage in…