Science & Society
Source Credibility Versus Content Hypothesis - Scientists Lose When It Comes To Environmental Issues
While the public has a great respect for scientists, they don't trust scientists, at least when it comes to issues that also overlap with politics, like the environment.
When it comes to policy-related topics, scientists have a limited effect on the public, perhaps not because people are stupid but because some in science have moved away from being trusted guides and into being advocates, which damages the credibility of science overall. And once those beliefs are locked in, they are difficult to change.
So while oil drilling is safe, scientists who say so now will go unheard because…
The InterAcademy Council Board, composed of presidents of 15 academies of science and equivalent organizations(1) representing Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, pulled no punches in assessing the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) performance during the latter part of the decade.
Despite overwhelming evidence for climate change, the IPCC issued “substantive findings” based on little proof and needs to rework its process, the independent review said. The UN…
Politics is funny business because there will always be a conflict between freedom, democracy and the Constitution and political winds blow decisions in various directions - that's the way it was written and part of why it works. Given the power of the courts to determine which part wins there will also be competition between the three branches of the federal government and it's a reason why various sides of the political spectrum should hope for balance rather than stacking the court with like-minded judges. If it becomes okay to stack the court your way it will be okay to…
Hank recently wrote a piece that dealt with the problem of a "ghost train" and a "ghost hunter" that was killed by a real train while waiting for the apparition.
Since these were amateur ghost hunters, it would be a bit much to presume that there was any actual scientific query going on, but nevertheless there seems to be a persistence of belief that ghosts are the subject of active research. However, the question to ask is whether there's any scientific basis for thinking there's something to investigate.
Because research cannot start by assuming what it will find, here is a basic…
Hank |
The Wall Street Journal took the Marc Hauser controversy (barely noticed here, because it's evolutionary psychology, which is sort of apodictically evident as bad science so we didn't react to it) and used his suspect data on monkey cognition to slap progressives.
Well, evolutionary psychology can claim to explain anything but even evo psych has to make a big leap to claim responsibility for belief that bigger government will make the world Utopia. And I am happy to slap progressives, since I am a liberal socially and a conservative fiscally and progressives are in triangular opposition…
Newswire |
NEW YORK, August 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Iconic supermodel, entrepreneur and philanthropist Christie Brinkley, will receive the 2nd Annual HBA Positively Beautiful Award from HBA Global Expo (http://www.hbaexpo.com) for her active support of Smile Train and its mission. Smile Train (http://www.smiletrain.org) provides free cleft surgery for millions of poor children in developing countries and free cleft-related training for doctors and medical professionals.
The Positively Beautiful Award was established by HBA Global to annually recognize a celebrity who uses their name and talents to…
vongehr |
When selling popular science, relativity theory is presented as weird, the quantum as unfathomable, inflation is ghostly, faster than light. Prominent scientists justify this self important glamorization. They claim it arouses the interest in science.
I believe it back-fires. It promotes esoteric mystery, the opposite of science. It promotes belief in authority, the enemy of science. They effectively say: look kid, it is too difficult for you, but see, I understand, and so you just follow my opinion, and this is nevertheless called critical thinking and skepticism because you follow what we…
Hank |
Dr. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy fame has been a Science 2.0 favorite since the moment we came online and for almost a decade prior to that. He combines wit and no-nonsense skepticism with the kind of creative reflex that makes fundamental science concepts understandable by virtually everyone who doesn't hate getting a little smarter.
Well, it turns out he has a few other fans and he finally got enough critical mass that he's getting a television show starting this weekend. We're going to endorse any science program that isn't alleging there are aliens living in the ocean or…
Hank |
It's been a strange summer for online content and Simon Owens at The Next Web asks an obvious question - should bloggers have control over ads or not?
It's a non-issue here, of course - every writer on Science 2.0 can simply choose not to carry ads on their work and no ads are shown and no money is paid in that case. Otherwise, the bulk of the revenue is paid out to writers based on traffic.
So when ad revenue is down, income per writer goes down, that's pretty simple economics - but Science 2.0 is a family and if I can get someone $20 per thousand views or $.05 per thousand views, the…
In reading one of the other posts a casual point was made regarding the relative safety of flying versus driving. It is generally assumed that flying is, by far, the safest of the two modes of travel, but is this really true? In looking at the data, it appears that the data is being skewed because of some strange assumptions that tend to favor flying.
Let me be clear that I'm not suggesting that flying is unsafe. In fact, I would argue that the two modes of travel can't legitimately be compared. Why not compare flying with swimming? or hiking? However,…