An irregular exploration of the struggle between the power of rational discourse and the scientific method on one hand, and the forces of superstition and dogma on the other.
James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle
in the Dark,
by Carl Sagan
(A
review)
The Doubter's Companion:
by John Ralston Saul (Excerpts)
Skeptic Magazine: www.skeptic.com
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal: www.csicop.org
A poem by Yehuda Amichai:
The
Place
Where We Are Right
The Meaning of the
Island of Doubt
By doubting we come to inquiry; and through inquiry we perceive truth.
--- Peter Abelard
Undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance.
-- Richard Dawkins
As for evolution, it happened. Deal with it.
-- Michael Shermer.
May 5, 2008
Category: climate
Got the Monday blues? Then find five minutes to brighten your day by playing what I call spot-the-slander on the Heartland Institute's list of "500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming." The rules are simple:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:06 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Everything Marine
In a rare treat on the usually quiet and contemplative Island of Doubt, I now bring you the 12th edition of the Carnival of the Blue, a celebration of all things wet and wonderful. Islands are only islands, after all, if they're surrounded by water.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 6:30 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 3, 2008
Category: politics
It wasn't easy keeping my 18-month-old son out of trouble in the crowd that had gathered yesterday to hear Hillary Clinton speak. But it was worth it, if for no other reason than the opportunities to hear presidential candidates deliver their message unfiltered and unedited are rare out here in western North Carolina. Of course, I was disappointed with what I heard on Hendersonville's Main Street. But the little guy didn't do any damage to himself or anyone else, or anyone else's dog, and I did come away with something to think about.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:14 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 1, 2008
Category: climate
Climatologists probably need to take a stiff drink before they open the papers (or fire up their web browsers) the morning after their studies appear in print or online. Two if the studies involved say anything interesting about global warming. Today's coverage of a Nature paper that predicts a decade-long, regional cooling trend for Europe and North America is sure to give the authors the jitters.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:51 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: cetacea
You'd think that the vice-president would have better things to do than try to make life difficult for one of the most endangered species on the planets. But then, you'd be wrong. Via Talking Points Memo, we learn that Dick Cheney's office has been refusing to let the federal government establish new speed limits for boat traffic in northern right whale territory.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 6:53 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 30, 2008
Category: climate
It's hard to say just when humanity stopped trying to prevent climate change. Some say only a few prescient individuals ever really took the threat seriously until the dramatic events of 2012. But by then, of course, it was too late to do anything about it. Still, if we have to pinpoint a specific time that the public conversation began to switch from how to avoid catastrophic global warming to learning to live with the consequences, 2008 would be as good a candidate as any.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:35 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 26, 2008
Category: evolution
I nominate this review of Expelled as the best yet. It's by Ken Hanke, film critic of the Asheville Mountain X Press, the alternative weekly in western North Carolina. The summary is priceless — "An interminable, shockingly bad and completely irresponsible slab of propaganda masquerading as fact." And the review is full of gems like:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:38 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 24, 2008
Category: humor
Warning: Anyone who takes this post seriously please resist the temptation to comment.
Over the reported objections of John McCain and national GOP officials, North Carolina's state Republican party is about to run a campaign ad attacking Barack Obama for consorting with Jeremiah Wright. The ad disingenuously implies that Obama was sitting in the congregation when Wright made some of his more inflammatory remarks condemning America, even though there is no evidence to suggest that Obama was anywhere near the church at the time. Why are these kinds of dirty campaign tricks invariably the product of a Republican? Can science provide some insight? Perhaps.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:28 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 23, 2008
Category: climate
Just about everyone assumes that there's at least 200 years worth of coal left in the ground. This makes fears about greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming all the more acute, coal being the most carbon-intensive of the fossil-fuels. But what if popular estimates of coal reserves are no more accurate that what the oil companies are telling us about oil? What if, in other words, peak coal is as real a possibility as peak oil?
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:31 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: medicine
Defenders of science and reason everywhere are shocked and appalled that Obama and Clinton have bought into the bogus notion that the science on autism and vaccines is "inconclusive." As plenty of other SciBlings have pointed out, the science is most definitely not inconclusive. (Aetiology Tara's take is straight to the point, but see also Orac and PZ.) There is no link between the two. So now all three presidential contenders have joined the ranks of the irrational fear-mongers. Or have they?
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:25 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 22, 2008
Category: medicine
Just in case you needed a reminder of what's wrong with America:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:06 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 20, 2008
Category: science culture
This three-part series on radical skepticism and the rise of conspiratorial thinking about science, by Daniel Engber, in Slate, is required reading for anyone interested in the role of skepticism in science and society. It's called "The Paranoid Style in American Science."
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:57 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 19, 2008
Category: Sci-culture
Much has been written, here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, about the media's willingness to give a couple of kids their 15 minutes for challenging scientific orthodoxy, despite the fact that in both cases, the young Galileo-wannabe figures were dead wrong. Now someone has finally summed it all one in one pithy sentence:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:38 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 18, 2008
Category: climate
It is hard to think of a better example of doublespeak. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal editorial on George W's climate change speech and came to the exact opposite conclusion of what really happened. I know the WSJ editorial page has been hostile to reality for years when it comes to climatology, but this goes beyond the pale:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:19 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 17, 2008
Category: climate
If there's one thing every environmentally minded American can agree on, it's the complete failure of the Bush administration to recognize the severity of the climate crisis. (Greenhouse-gas emissions stablilization by 2025? You've got to be kidding.) But sometimes it seems that's all we can agree on. Take the ongoing squabbling between Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress (with some help from Dave Roberts at Grist) and the Breakthrough gang (Ted Nordhaus, Michael Schellenberger and Roger Pielke Jr.) Their mutual sniping and name-calling was amusing for all of five minutes. Now it's time they shook hands and got back to what matters: convincing the powers to get off their butts and do something.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:19 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 16, 2008
Category: technology
The European Space Agency devoted some computer time to this representation of all the space junk orbiting the earth.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:23 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 15, 2008
Category: climate
I'm sure James Hansen has better things to do with his NASA paycheck than hire a lawyer to sue a 16-year-old over a libelous statement on her website. Give the amount of time he's spent crafting public letters to governors, prime ministers and corporate CEOs, though, perhaps he could find the time to write a small note expressing his concern to the parents of Kristen Byrnes of Portland, Maine.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:59 AM • 66 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 14, 2008
Category: climate
For once, playing the role of unofficial in-house organ for the Republican Party is pays off in the scoop department. The Washington Times is reporting this morning George W. Bush is about to call for legislation that would do something about the country's greenhouse gas emissions. The story is short on details. All we really get is:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 1:19 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 13, 2008
Category: climate
It will be interesting to see how the climate change pseudoskeptics spin the latest research from Kerry Emmanuel. He's the guy whose 2005 paper suggesting climate change is making tropical cyclones stronger prompted the use of the "Hurricane Katrina=global warming meme. Al Gore even used the image of a hurricane emerging from a smokestack to promote An Inconvenient Truth, and his slide show included a large section on a causal connection. But now Emmanuel admits he might have been wrong.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:22 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 9, 2008
Category: climate
Al Gores' climate crisis slide show has a new tenor and his appeal has a new focus. And in my not-so-humble opinion, it's a welcome shift that makes up for a serious deficiency in his previous attempts to change the world's thinking.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:23 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 8, 2008
Category: religiosity
The idea of holding a presidential candidates debate on the role of science in running the country was always a long shot. But those behind Science Debate 2008 must be crying in their coffees this morning with the news that Clinton and Obama have agreed to a CNN-televised forum a week from Sunday on -- wait for it -- "faith, values and other current issues."
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: climate
New York City's political elite have thumbed their noses at common sense, rejecting a plan to impose an $8 traffic fee on cars and trucks entering the Manhattan core during peak hours. I could understand if NYC was a guinea pig for downtown traffic levies. But that's not at all the case. In fact...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:44 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: science culture
Could it be that all this talk about how best to frame argument is pointless? It would if our capacity to change our minds in the face of new information was genetically determined.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:51 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 2, 2008
Category: Sci-culture
Do you want to know what I really think about "framing science?" You do? Good. I'll tell you. Here's the problem with framing science. The problem with framing science is ...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:15 AM • 57 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 1, 2008
Category: climate
The fundamental question facing climate crisis activists is how to go about convincing the world to change its energy production and consumption habits. I still haven't found good answer to that. But Joe Romm has produced a magnificent primer on the challenges involved in changing those habits over at Climate Progress. There we learn why nuclear power won't be a serious player in whatever "clean" energy mix we come up with, why the Pacala and Socolow "wedge" strategy supplies only a conceptual tool instead of a useful guide to the required transformation, and why we have to start down that path yesterday.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:27 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 31, 2008
Category: climate
It would appear that the staff at the Competitive Enterprise Institute don't like being called liars. I don't blame them for that. No likes being caught in the act. In a recent post dealing with the CEI's latest television ads attacking those of us who are worried about climate change, I made that charge. The good news is I managed to provoke the institute into wasting some of its corporate sponsors' money by spending the time it takes to respond to my charge. The bad news is they're still lying.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: humor
A little April Foolishness now. Please help me fill in the blanks. Correct entries must come from television or film.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:56 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 28, 2008
Category: climate
Not only is Al Gore -- and by extension every member of his Climate Project army of slide-show presenters, including me -- wasting everyone's time trying to wake up the world to the perils of climate change, but the whole mission could actually be making things worse. That's what you'd have to conclude if you buy the results of a study of public attitudes that just appears in the journal Risk Analysis.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:30 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 27, 2008
Category: evolution
I generally don't bother to draw attention to intra-ScienceBlog warfare, but all hell is breaking loose as our little corner of blogosphere tries to come to grips with the wisdom of telling it like it is. I think it goes to the heart of what may be the fundamental question plaguing American progressives: How does one go about changing the mind of someone who has rejected reason?
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 10:03 AM • 39 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 20, 2008
Category: humor
Bob Carroll of The Skeptic's Dictionary, has produced a theme song for skeptics. Well, OK. He stole the music from Leonard Cohen. "The Tower of Song" becomes "The Tower of Woo." Actually, I think he's drawing on Bob Dylan at bit, too. From the Infidels album, which would be appropriate.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 18, 2008
Category: Sci-culture
Arthur C. Clarke, proposer of the geosynchronous communications satellite, author of more than 100 books and third member of the ABCs of science fiction, is dead this day at 90. My favorite of his novels was The Fountains of Paradise, in which the idea of an elevator all the way to that same geosynchronous orbit, is explored. What a guy.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 6:32 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 17, 2008
Category: evolution
Shortly before taking his last breath, the late William F. Buckley heaped praise on The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, a new book by mathematician and intelligent-design evangelist David Berlinksi. This will likely encourage certain segments of the population to buy Berklinski's book, which is a shame.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:59 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 14, 2008
Category: climate
The protocols of polite company would discourage labeling anyone a liar, but it is hard to come up with a more appropriate way to describe those who receive their paychecks from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This conservative think tank has in the past proved themselves to be enemies of reason and democracy. To that list we will have to add the truth, what with the appearance of its latest television ad designed to undermine support for action on the climate crisis.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 12, 2008
Category: technology
Unless you're a fictional misanthrope who also happens to be the best medical diagnostician on the planet, telling people they're idiots isn't the best way to get ahead. How then do we get the message across to those stubborn folk who insist upon talking on their cell phone while driving? And it's not a few stubborn individuals — every second car and truck on the road seems to be driven by someone whose attention is measurably distracted by wireless telephony.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:06 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: misc
If you'd like to join a sort of Scienceblogs elite reader club, you've got two days to send me an email. Each blog here can nominate two readers for access to one massive club account on del.icio.us. You'll be asked to tag (using del.icio.us bookmarks) three ScienceBlogs posts per week that are especially worthy of sharing with the rest of the blogosphere. They don't have to be from this blog--though that would be nice. Those posts will then run into an RSS feed that will be displayed on the homepage. If you want to be part of the process, email me by Thursday night: jamesh (at) scienceblogs (dot) com.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 10, 2008
Category: climate
The atmosphere is lethal
But I will fear no evil
Because it's not too late,
It's not too late. -- T-Bone Burnett
Marvelous musician and cracker-jack producer that he is, (responsible for last year's stellar Alison Krauss-Robert Plant collaboration), T-Bone may be dead wrong when it comes to doing something about the climate crisis. So conclude a quartet of researchers from Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. The problem is, we may have waited too long to start bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:45 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 9, 2008
Category: religiosity
For its inaugural issue, the new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal Time and Mind has seen fit to publish a paper suggesting that Moses, among others of his time, didn't actually commune with any god, but was simply high on a local psychotropic plant extract. Ya think?
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 1:47 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 5, 2008
Category: climate
Time was when what we call science was known as "natural philosophy." For the last couple of hundred years or so, however, science has become something quite different from the other branches of philosophy. Modern-day philosopher-scientists like Janet "Adventures in Science and Ethics" Stemwedel could very well take issue with this, but it seems to me that recombining the two is no longer feasible. Thus we have the problem of Climate Debate Daily, a web aggregrator of arguments for and against doing something about global warming.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:44 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 4, 2008
Category: climate
Further to recent chatter about how silly it is to mistake blasts of cold weather for a reversal of long-term climate change, here's the latest missive from James Hansen:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:00 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 3, 2008
Category: climate
An unlikely trio has just made available the results of their quasi-scientific survey of climatologists, who were asked how much they agreed with the latest report from the IPCC. It makes for fascinating reading, even if its response rate of less than 10 % is a bit disappointing. Despite attempts from some quarters at spinning the results to suggest the climate change "consensus" is weaker than often described, the survey actually finds remarkably strong support for the notion that we are headed for trouble.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 3:54 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 1, 2008
Category: medicine
Add to the long list of reasons not to support John McCain's bid for the U.S. presidency his inability to distinguish between medical science and ignorant fear-mongering. By accepting the discredited link between vaccines and autism, McCain has shown his judgment falls far short of that required for the head of a modern nation-state. Orac jumped on the story early this morning and I feel compelled to help spread this a widely as possible, in hopes of doing my bit to inoculate the country against the threat posed by a McCain presidency.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 8:31 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 29, 2008
Category: climate
It's almost not worth mentioning, but Mount Kilimanjaro exemplifies the central weakness of the climate change pseudoskeptic's case. Does it matter how much snow lies at the top of Africa's tallest peak? No. And for the same reason that it doesn't matter that this past January was particularly cold in some parts of the world. It all goes back to the difference between climate and weather. So, one more time, here goes.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 2:58 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 27, 2008
Category: climate
Joseph Romm of the Climate Progress blog makes a case this week in Salon for the retirement of the term "consensus" when it comes to discussion the science of the imminent climate crisis. It's an Interesting proposition, and although I suspect it's ultimately doomed to fail, worth examining.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:59 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 26, 2008
Category: medicine
Another study purports to find that, for most people, Prozac and the other members of the antidepressant family of pharmaceuticals are no better than sugar pills. Expect Big Pharma to object, but not too loudly. At least, don't expect them to expend too much effort and money denouncing the findings. We've heard this before, and it would seem that neither patients nor the doctors that prescribe antidepressants care much about whether or not the drugs actually do what their makers claim they do.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:59 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: climate
It's got to be one or the other. How else to explain the latest attempt by GM vice Cchairman Bob Lutz to attract attention to himself and his company, which continues to hemorrhage money? "Global warming is a total crock of shit," Lutz reportedly said told journalists at a Texas restaurant. "I'm a skeptic, not a denier."
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:42 AM • 80 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 21, 2008
Category: ecology
Plenty of fuss has been made in the past few weeks over a New York Times investigation into the health risks of eating sushi, with tuna, and more specifically, bluefin tuna, painted as the biggest villan. The problem is the level of mercury in the fish, and mercury is a nasty neurotoxin. The fuss is over whether the risks of poisoning your brain outweighs the benefits to your heart from all those healthy omega-3 fats tuna offers. But there's another way to resolve the dilemma that seems to have been overlooked.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 9:50 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Sci-culture
I have no idea if there's a new team of editorialists at Nature or if the old team has simply decided it's time they started to stir the pot. But they've been an ornery lot of late, and this swipe at the Canadian government's failure to respect science's contribution to society is a welcome wakeup call:
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 7:43 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 20, 2008
Category: religiosity
According to the BBC, "an Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently." Whoa.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 4:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: climate
British Columbia's right-of-center government has just introduced a carbon tax, making it the second jurisdiction in North America, after Quebec. It's hard to believe, coming from such an administration, but perhaps this is a sign of things to come. On the other hand ...
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 11:51 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 19, 2008
Category: climate
Towards the tail end of Michael Specter's rambling feature on carbon footprint accounting in the latest issue of New Yorker, we are reminded that the single most effective and cheapest way to bring down atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels is preserving and restoring tropical rainforests. We're hearing that a lot these days, and with good reason.
Posted by James Hrynyshyn at 12:16 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks