Science & Society

The environmental movement has been successful, according to humanities scholars at Michigan State University. Certainly that is where the money is. Though environmental groups and pro-science groups are industry and politically funded, only the pro-science groups are dismisses as industry-funded, despite that fact that one group, Union of Concerned Scientists, has more funding than all pro science groups in America combined.  Environmental groups are so successful at public relations they are getting credit for reducing greenhouse gases in America, instead of a switch from coal to…

Decades ago, the American Council on Science and Health said that saturated fats were not as bad as was being portrayed and replacements would be worse. Natural Resources Defense Council and other scare-story-of-the-month groups had sided with yet another ban on food to get mainstream media attention and said anyone who disagreed must be a shill for Big Bacon. They wanted everything replaced with trans fats. Now, science has been proven correct again and anti-science groups look foolish. The FDA has found partially hydrogenated oils have no value and some risk, so they are going to be banned…

Pope Francis can claim many firsts; he is the first non-European Pope since 741 AD, the first from the Americas and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. Given his nuanced positions on science issues like climate change and agriculture, some might also consider him the first scientific Pope. That isn't correct, but he may be the most scientific in history. Francis is not scientific due to credentialism, he does not have any advanced degree in chemistry. Instead, he is scientific by behavior. Nothing says that more than his recent Encyclical Letter ("Laudato Si’"). A casual reading may…

Vermont's somewhat odd GMO warning label law, which made sure to exempt anything that would impact Just Label It yogurt millionaire Gary Hirshberg's supply of dairy and import things like alcohol, restaurants and the Whole Foods deli section, is about to cost consumers millions of dollars. He won't name the chemicals in his supposed natural flavor yogurt but he says if it has no GMOs, it must be healthier. And Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is also denying science. He had a response to concerns about the cost of obeying the law in Vermont - “Just label your products. All of them nationwide.”…

Child fitness levels are falling at an even faster rate than first feared - and it has nothing to do with obesity, according to a new study. Of more than 300 pupils aged between 10 and 11 who took part, the researchers expected that children with a lower BMI would do better than the heavier children they measured six years ago. But the follow-up to a 2009 study showed child fitness declined by 8% over the previous ten years - yet the children they tested were actually thinner than those measured in 2008.  Lead researcher Dr. Gavin Sandercock of the University of Essex explains, “Our…

There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence, according to a rather ridiculous claim by doomsday prophet Professor Paul Ehrlich, the same author of the Population Bomb who has been saying this same thing since the 1960s.  Ehrlich and fellow hysterics Anthony D. Barnosky of the University of California at Berkeley, Andrés García of Universidad Autónoma de México, Robert M. Pringle of Princeton University and Todd M. Palmer of the University of Florida, say there are threatened species, too many humans, and issues with habitat.…

I’m generally optimistic about the ability of the world’s farmers to continue to feed the growing population, and also to satisfy the increased food demand of the growing middle class in previously poor countries. That hope is based on the amazing track record of innovation by farmers and their technological supporters that I have witnessed over the past four decades. I do, however, have some significant concerns about trends and factors that may compromise the farming enterprise over the next critical decades. My “concerns” fall into four major categories, and I will unpack each of them in…

Working women are "leaning in" and supporting more females in leadership roles, but a new study finds that having a female manager doesn't necessarily equate to higher salaries for female employees. Instead, women can sometimes take an earnings hit relative to their male colleagues when they go to work for a female manager. Does that mean women don't think as much of women as men do?  Most sociologists and business academics claim that female managers are "agents of change" who act in ways that reduce the gender wage gap, but a new study found no support for this assertion. In fact, a…

Partnerships with multinational companies like Coca-Cola in child health programs can work to help save lives but decades of well-funded public relations campaigns against corporations by NGOs has turned letting companies fund programs into an ethical minefield. ColaLife, a charity formed by British couple Simon and Jane Berry, worked with Coca-Cola to learn about the distribution channels the company uses in developing countries. With this knowledge, they devised a system to ensure life saving treatments reach children with diarrhea in remote parts of Zambia. Within a year, their program…

Some of the nation's largest businesses encourage employees to travel to large U.S. medical centers for complex elective surgical procedures. As part of these medical travel programs, companies negotiate lower prices for patients to receive high-quality surgical care at some of the nation's premier hospitals. But many participants must travel long distances - sometimes hundreds of miles from home - to reach destination hospitals, meaning it can be difficult to return should complications arise. Up to 22 percent of surgical patients experience unexpected complications and must be readmitted…