Science & Society

Michael Massing at The NY Review of Books weighs in on the future of news organizations in the era of blogs: The practice of journalism, far from being leeched by the Web, is being reinvented there, with a variety of fascinating experiments in the gathering, presentation, and delivery of news. And unless the editors and executives at our top papers begin to take note, they will hasten their own demise. He goes on to show some very successful examples of blogging: hybrid journalist bloggers (trained journalists who blog, but also use the tools of traditional journalism to promote their…

A group of researchers from Indiana University's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research (CHPPR) say they have found that support for government health insurance for individuals under age 65 remains virtually the same regardless of how the plan is described or how involved the government would be.   So support is not a 'framing' issue, public relations or political roadblocks, it seems to be a fundamental disagreement about what the government can and cannot effectively do - and that falls along political party lines. Many have argued that public support of a government-…

Folsom, CA – August 11, 2009 – On Monday, August 17th at 1:30PM in Hensill Hall 113, attendees of the 90th Annual Pacific Division Meeting of the AAAS in San Francisco will get to learn about the latest efforts in science communication from some of the brightest minds in the field. The symposium is called “Good Science is Only Part of the Job: Communicating Science to the Public.” (Online link: http://www.sou.edu/aaaspd/2009SANFRANCISCO/Symposia09.html#15). As science has become a larger part of the cultural landscape, researchers have frequently found themselves navigating the difficult…

I finally got around to reading Carl Sagan’s The Variety of Scientific Experience, a volume edited by his wife, Ann Druyan, and based on a series of Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology that Carl delivered in 1985 at the University of Glasgow. The title of the book is a direct reference, and gentle challenge, to William James’s somewhat frustrating The Variety of Religious Experience (also based on a series of lectures, those presented at the University of Edinburgh in 1901). Although James’ text is a classic in psychology and philosophy, James drew a rather simplistic…

I recently read an article regarding a specific therapist's idea for a movement to treat World of Warcraft players with video game addiction.  These types of articles are not uncommon, World of Warcraft (WoW) currently has millions of subscribers worldwide so there is an interest in anything WoW related.  But the article piqued my interest when the quotations seemed to suggest that online video game playing, World of Warcraft specifically, is akin to dangerous antisocial behavior.  In the late 90s I had my first experience with Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (…

Last week I posted a column on cost accounting. But I didn’t say it was about cost accounting, and nearly eight hundred people read it.   Let’s try a (ahem) “scientific” experiment, starting with this announcement: This column is about cost accounting too. I’ll share the readership numbers with you next week! Among the first things we teach students of business operations are the cherished principles of incremental cost (cost resulting from an action taken, minus costs that would have resulted had the action not been taken), opportunity cost (cost relative to the next…

Ploughing through the Codex just now, I come across this (with particular reference to MRSA), by Brigitte Nerlich of the University of Nottingham, England: Words matter in public health ... media coverage of hygiene and cleanliness in hospitals tended to portray doctors and nurses engaged in a heroic "battle" against "intelligent super bugs. This was personified by the modern matron wielding the weapon of "cleanliness." Interviews with hospital matrons revealed a gap between the media portrayal and the reality on the wards. Matrons said that the limitations in their authority over…

The existence of a Higher Being, whom we commonly refer to as God, has always been a highly debated topic. On one hand are the religious people, firmly believing that God is watching over us from the heavens. On the other hand are the nonbelievers, skeptics and rationalists, persistently stating the absence of any concrete evidence to ascertain that God is real. This causes me to ponder upon what Friedrich Nietzsche once said – “Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?” The purpose of religion is to serve as a spiritual medium through which man can aspire to attain…

The Commonwealth Fund,  a private foundation devoted to health care reform, has issued a report saying that President Obama's proposed health care plan would help more than 13 million uninsured young adults ages 19-29 gain coverage. Young adults often lose insurance when they graduate from high school or college or turn 19 and are dropped from their parents' policies.   The Commonwealth Fund claims that in 2007, nearly 30 percent of this age group, or 13.2 million, were uninsured—an increase of 2.3 million since 2000. With the unemployment rate currently at 15 percent among 20-24…

As you might imagine, I get a lot of press releases.  As I have said here before, I like getting them because it's difficult for me to know all the good things happening out there, especially if an organization lacks the budget to hire an expensive PR firm.  A little proactive work helps get your message out. Sometimes, in an unintended consequence, I make fun of the releases I get, like the organization that sent me a release about their group devoted to 'living smaller' and saving the environment (Live Small, Live Better - And They Really Mean Live Small).   I thought I…