Science & Society
Hank |
If you get rich suing people, your days going after Big Tobacco are basically over. The tobacco companies have been sued for everything by now and the people who still smoke know what they are doing, and the risks, and they are willing to pay an ever-increasing amount of taxes to fund government employee unions. We can't really blame corporations for that any more.
Luckily, the food industry could soon take its place. Not because they have done anything wrong, but rather because we live in a culture where a dizzying cross-section of people assume anyone working for a corporation must be…
Hank |
A new advocacy organization devoted to food and health issues and claiming to be nonpartisan gave 50 politicians perfect 100 scores - and all 50 of them were Democrats. At the bottom of their scorecard? All Republicans.
The most adorable thing I read on a recurring basis is that anti-biology, anti-vaccine and ban-happy social authoritarians are "bipartisan". The entire public is on board with banning Big Gulps, we are told, and the same guy then endorses a candidate because his city had a hurricane before the election. Yet we never actually see those issues being bipartisan…
Hank |
If you think global warming deniers are anti-science about the environment, take a look at environmentalists. While the former are only anti-science about one thing, environmentalists are increasingly on the wrong side of lots of science issues.
Journalist Fred Pearce is an environmentalist and a journalist but even during the real nadir of science journalism, the mid-2000s, he was never an advocate or a cheerleader. He always asked the uncomfortable questions, even about people whose side he was on, and he brought new science issues to light while doing it. He has been right for doing…
Hank |
They are not buying into global warming except they care about the environment more than anyone ever did before. They will eat healthier than previous generations, provided the products are in pouches and not cans and can be purchased in vending machines and be...microwaveable. Except it needs to be slow food and locally grown.
What's up with Millennials? More importantly, what is up with marketing people and all their conflicting beliefs about Millennials?
Well, the first thing that could be tripping up marketing types who want convenient labels for people is they aren't even buying into…
Organic is often described as the "fastest growing segment of the food supply;" however, recent data fails to support that claim.
The USDA recently released its second major survey of the US organic farming industry with data from 2011. The obvious question was "what has changed in the three years since the last big survey in 2008?" The answers are somewhat surprising (see graph and description below):
Farms: The number of farms growing most organic crops has dropped by 20-30% for most crops (not graphed)
Acres: Although the crop mix has changed, the…
Hank |
A little over a year ago I wrote about the continued disturbing trend in government subsidies of 'magic rocks' while claiming they were science - in that instance, commercial solar companies that were being propped up by American taxpayers, with little or no due diligence, because the president and his Energy Secretary said we were in a 'race with China' to produce cheap solar panels, when China has no unions and no environmental policies and therefore a much lower cost basis. The only way to make up that financial delta was to have government funding, we were told, but common sense people…
Hank |
The scientization of politics is taking a cultural or political world view and rationalizing it using science. Since it is election time in America, it has been open season on Republicans, with social scientists, who are around 99% Democrats, looking for ways to convince people to vote for their candidates - but they want to look impartial doing it.
The latest tool in that cultural arsenal is a shocking misunderstanding of biology - all biology, from genes to hormones to epigenetics. It happened again in Nature this week. Now, Nature has endorsed President Obama, this is no shock…
700 scientists and academicians have signed petitions calling on French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini to release research data he claims is evidence for health problems associated with biotech crops.
The petitioners are from every continent and represent more than 40 countries. They are urging transparency in the promotion of sound science on important issues of public health and join calls by regulatory bodies including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to Seralini and his collaborators at the Committee for Research&…
vongehr |
A court in L'Aquila, Italy, handed six-year-prison sentences to members of a national "Great Risks Commission". Residents noticed increased seismic activity. They were used to tremors, because L’Aquila sits on a major fault line, and they clearly noticed differences. Despite the increase in both size and frequency of the tremors, the scientists rejected the possibility of a major earthquake:
“It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, …”
Six days later, the disaster struck. The L'Aquila 2009 earthquake killed over 300 people and left 1,500 injured…
Italy is a beautiful, crazy country. Take today's verdict, which condemns seven scientists (Franco Barberi, Enzo Boschi, Mauro Dolce, Bernardo De Bernardinis, Giulio Selvaggi, Claudio Eva, and Gianmichele Calvi) to six years of prison, plus a huge fine, for allegedly reassuring the population about the unlikelihood of an earthquake on the eve of the devastating shock of April 6th, 2009, which caused 309 deaths and destroyed most of the mid-size town of L'Aquila, in central Italy.
The seven members of the "Large risks committee" in charge in 2009 have been "proven" guilty of multiple homicide…