Science & Society

Neil deGrasse Tyson PhD invoked the fact he had a PhD and Tchiya Amet El Maat  did not have a PhD  to imply that he is necessarily more credible than her.   Furthermore, he used her beliefs against her.   His explanation was pure argumentum ad verecundiam, appeal to authority a logical fallacy and that it protected him for so long is part of this story.  A conclusion reached from a flawed premise, that he is an authoritative scientist and therefore he must be correct, is itself flawed.     He is not the only one scientist, or nonscientist…

Like that your child's modern baby seat can't erupt in flame? Thank the Roman military of almost 2,000 years ago. Like heating up your recyclable pouch of avocado toast points in the microwave? Thank the American military of World War II,(1) when Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer discovered their culinary benefit while working on RADAR.(2) In the 1930s, Dr. Ernest Lawrence of the University of California Berkeley had at first been jeered by fellow academics for lack of dignity when he discovered that government would throw gobs and gobs of money at you(3) if along the way you worked on things…

The Guardian, official newspaper of those in the anti-science left who still like to pretend they love science, knows what pays the bills...and it ain't science. Yes, some real scientists write there, because it's mainstream media and scientists who do outreach want to be in as many publications as they can, but for the most part Guardian editors distrust science, because their audience does. And they love celebrities, for the same reason. Why not have both in the same article? That is what they have done in letting famed scaremonger Erin Brockovich, whose claim to fame is being the legal…

In 2006, former Vice-President and global warming clarion Al Gore said we only had 10 years to stop CO2 emissions or it would be too late. More cynical people noted that he came up with that 10-year figure because it was two years from his rematch contest for U.S. President plus eight he expected to be in office. It's beyond me to know if that was ever his intent, but if it was, perhaps a Peace Prize and an Academy Award made political campaigning too petty. He never ran again. That doesn't mean his climate prediction was forgotten in pop culture. Sir David Attenborough suggests the 2016…

It may not feel like science wins often in court but it beat out activists last week. Not only did science, and Science 2.0, win, it was a unanimous decision at the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States.  And the ruling dealt a serious blow to "sue and settle" agreements with trial lawyer groups, in this case Center for Biological Diversity, along with limiting the power of the federal government to bully and intimidate landowners. The case was the Dusky Gopher Frog, and it had all the trappings of a conspiracy. Julia Roberts and Christian Bale would be…

Fox and National Geographic are investigating the allegations made against Neil DeGrasse Tyson of sexual misconduct reported on by David G McAfee. In an AP story, which does not mention the rape allegation, that she had no idea there were any allegations at all.   If one uses Google, and sets the search parameters for certain dates one can prove that MANY MANY SOURCES had written about Tchiya Amet’s allegation.   I will not use any …. card but it is very very interesting that this only gets coverage when the right kind of victim arises.    Of Course They Knew.…

Do you want to believe that your car grill is determined by your personality or that lap dancers get better tips when they are ovulating? You probably like evolutionary psychology. Want to believe that surveys of psychology undergraduates at elite schools represent humanity, without the expense and risk of dealing with real people, who can be pretty sketchy? Social psychology is for you.(1) Scientists don't think much of either and would prefer they stay in the humanities buildings, because evolutionary psychologists want to make everything about sex, while social psychologists claim there…

Women May Earn Just 49 Cents on the Dollar, is the title of an article by Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic. It's only below the fold that, after laying out lots of links and obfuscation and conflicting claims designed to make the audience believe the situation is oh so complicated that we get this quiet disclaimer: Comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges, women earn close to what men earn: Women in similar workplaces with similar titles and similar credentials make pretty much what their male peers do, whether they are fast-food employees making close to the minimum wage or corporate…

John Wiley  &  Sons Inc., the global academic publishing house with nearly $2 billion in revenue, recently got embroiled in a Twitter controversy about the efforts of one publication to go open access. Twitter outrage? Welcome to any Tuesday. Or any part of the week that ends in "day", right? Maybe, maybe not. This was enough it forced the corporation to issue a response. I learned of it when Professor Trevor Branch, of the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences, posted a screen capture of a letter from Town Peterson with his own caption reading,"So…

In his just published final book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," physicist Satephen Hawking wrote, "There is no God. No one directs the universe" but in a universe where only 6% of what must exist is even matter that can be detected, the science community is unwilling to be as definitive as he was. It may be that God is in the gaps, and different people have different definitions for what that is. Yet it may be perpetuating the false narrative that religion is on one pole and science is on another. Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of its Religion and Public…