Science & Society

'Creationism' is a confusing term.  In science, militant atheists will intentionally call all religious people 'creationists' and then complain creationists are anti-science, even about the religious people who are not anti-science at all.   'Young Earth' creationists think we were created in whole form 6,000 or so years ago and believe paleontology and biology are some test of faith but commingling the terms is intellectually dishonest.   Politics makes even otherwise smart scientists do bad things. It's the same scam progressive militants pulled regarding 'stem cell research…

Harry Lonsdale called me out of the blue last year,saying that he would be passing through Santa Cruz and wanted to discuss an idea he had. Well sure, I said, so we picked a day for him to visit. I had never heard of Harry, but when he showed up, right on time, we immediately hit it off. Harry turned out to be one of those rare people who are full of energy and ideas, generous and willing to share, someone who gets things done. He would have been wonderful in politics, and in fact ran twice as a Democrat for Oregon's senate seat, losing close races to Mark Hatfield. (He wrote a book about his…

Almost only devote religious people like Obama are allowed to climb to power in the West. Germany’s chancellor Merkel had to play down that she was a physicist in order to ensure the voters trust her to be aligned with the obsessions of her “Christian Democratic Union”. In China, scientists decide at the highest level for many years. Science bloggers dream about secular people in the most important political positions, of science having effective influence "up there". While they yearn, secular scientists occupy the most important political positions in the most important country in the world…

Recently I became aware through Sullivan's post at LBRB that Autism Speaks was sponsoring the National Autism Association's national conference and that Andrew Wakefield was speaking at this conference, along with a long list of proponents of less-than-scientifically-backed treatments. Given my strong commitment to evidence-based practices when it comes to treating any child with any kind of disorder, the list of speakers at the NAC is, at the very least, disappointing. It's also a mixed bag of presenters, similar to the ASA's list of speakers at their national conference…

I haven’t had a TV in my life for the past few years. So, when I finally caught video clips from Cairo last week, I was astounded. Still images, no matter how provocative, miss so many dimensions of the conflict: the shouts and chants, the simmering resentment and dogged commitment, the flying stones and sounds of gunfire that turned a relatively peaceful protest violent. I find myself checking the news more often now, hoping that the Egyptian military remains ambivalent, fearing that the body counts will rise. For many of us, the walls of the Stanford bubble are thick and opaque; we can…

I think it's heartening that people are starting to talk about careers for PhDs past Academia. I've worked in science, I've worked at the edges of science, and I've worked outside of science.  For those wanting to work in science, I've given career advice and talked about the day to day.  And yet I've also talked about the many alternatives (same link).  Others outside of Science2.0 are also starting to chime in.  In this Guardian article, they note: there are several steps that those with doctorates can take to make themselves more attractive to potential employers. In…

Facebook made an interesting move this week when it reversed its policy to allow drug companies to maintain pages closed to comments, and I am really curious how this will play out in the near and far future. Pharma companies are heavily regulated in what they can say to doctors and consumers, and also in what they have to report to the FDA. For example, a pharma company can talk to a doctor about using a particular drug but that discussion is confined to what is on the drug's label - that is, the condition for which the FDA approved the drug. Anything else, and you're talking about a drug…

Look, we all know smoking is bad for you by now.  We don't need to spend billions of dollars telling people that but an entire industry has been built around getting people to stop, and it is primarily funded by penalties on tobacco companies and taxes.   It's a truly parasitic relationship but it isn't going anywhere and anti-smoking groups need smokers to stay in business.  Apparently so do some researchers. Some have blamed the culture for smoking continuing to happen despite common sense.  No less an authority than Meathead from "All In The Family" (Rob Reiner, a…

I have said many times I think people are terrifically smart; they know a lot of science, though they tend to frame it through their politics.     The numbers bear me out - science literacy in adults has tripled since I went to college but even that was framed in a "it's not enough" context by some science writers and while there are 65 million people just in the US who are interested in science, the perception by scientists is that people don't care. Prof. Chad Orzel at Scienceblogs reaffirms this point again.  His outlook, and that of his peers on Scienceblogs, is fairly…

Here's a trivia question; what's the longest alliance in history? Unless you went by the title, you were probably stumped.  Maybe you believe it is England and Portugal at 638 years.   You were unlikely to guess Scotland and France but a University of Manchester historian says she has uncovered evidence which shows a defensive alliance  between Scotland and France (against the English, naturally) might never have formally ended – potentially making it the longest in history. In a paper to be published next year, Dr. Siobhan Talbott argues the Franco-Scottish Auld Alliance of…