cmooney
Posts by this author
April 7, 2008
Well, discussion seems to have mostly run its course on "framing science" premises II and III. I have defended them, at least to my own satisfaction. There may be some folks who still reject them, but at this point, at least for those who don't, I'm ready to continue with the argument.
So let's get…
April 5, 2008
I've been writing more for D.C. based political magazines lately--going back to the roots, I guess--and I now have a piece in the latest issue of The New Republic about why scientists need to stop taking abuse and fight back. As described in this piece, "framing science"--or, as I put it, "…
April 3, 2008
Okay, so: After reading over some ninety comments, I think I am ready to advance the framing science discussion further. Recall that I am starting from the ground up, because I believe that while I have made some errors and Nisbet has made some errors, and there has been some unfortunate…
April 3, 2008
Yesterday, though I didn't get the chance to blog it, my latest Science Progress column went up. Entitled "Just Coasting," it's about the vulnerability of the US gulf states to climate change, and how government agencies are consistently failing to do their job to prepare us for it.
The quotation…
April 2, 2008
Well, it's Wednesday, and so far I've done two posts--and gotten more than 170 comments--in the new "framing science" dialogue that I've sought to begin here. Let's briefly recap, so that I can then explain how I'll be moving forward. Meanwhile, Sheril wants to start weighing in, so expect her to…
April 2, 2008
Not that you weren't already--but if you want to be really, really outraged about the nefarious techniques used to undermine accepted scientific knowledge, you need to go get a book entitled Doubt is Their Product, by David Michaels. I just reviewed it for The American Prospect. By the end of the…
April 1, 2008
*** Not An April Fools Entry.***
Well, folks, I am deviating from my original plan in this series of framing posts that I've promised. I had wanted to launch into a long--and, I think, revealing--insider narrative account of how it is that we wound up being this polarized. But that will take me…
March 31, 2008
After taking some time to mull over the events of last week--when I saw a side of Scienceblogs.com I've not seen before, and that troubled me a great deal--I felt a strong need to clear the air. So let me say, at the outset of this first post in a series, that I speak for myself alone. There has…
March 30, 2008
I'm hitting the road this morning for a week-long, three stop trip that takes me first to Princeton, New Jersey; second to Georgia Tech; and third to D.C. The first two stops are for talks, the last is for R&R, reconnecting with old friends, and meeting up with Sheril to work on a new project…
March 27, 2008
I haven't blogged in the last few days--what happened here over Expelled has been quite a shock to my system, and I'm still trying to process it. I will have something to say about all that as soon as I'm ready, so prepare the expletives.
Meanwhile, though, I wanted to point out my latest Daily…
March 23, 2008
Read it for yourself. People actually involved in the promotion of films, like Randy Olson or this screenwriter, Kevin Miller, understand perfectly well how such a controversy helps Ben Stein. And Miller in particular ought to know: He'll surely get residuals if this film does well.
Why is our…
March 22, 2008
So now PZ getting thrown out of Expelled (and Dawkins getting in) triggers New York Times coverage.
If you ask me, this really helps the Expelled people, who want nothing more than controversy. And Dawkins completely doesn't get it:
Dr. Dawkins said the hoopla has been "a gift" to those who oppose…
March 21, 2008
...are either dead, not scientists, or not American. They are:
Albert Einstein, 6 percentBill Gates, 6 percentAl Gore, 6 percentStephen Hawking, 2 percentBill Nye the Science Guy, 2 percentBen Franklin, 1 percentThomas Edison, 1 percent
Of course, most Americans can't even identify a living…
March 19, 2008
My latest piece for Science Progress--where I am now a contributing editor--has just gone up. It's entitled "Enablers," and it's how people like us, who care about science, are often guilty of actually empowering those who who are attacking it.
A great example occurred recently with the Heartland…
March 19, 2008
That's the quandary I face tomorrow, when I'll be returning to New Orleans' Isidore Newman School--alma mater of, among others, Peyton and Eli Manning, Walter Isaacson, and Michael Lewis--to talk to the senior class.
This isn't entirely a shot in the dark, as the seniors are taking a course on the…
March 17, 2008
In its latest issue, Time magazine singles out "10 Ideas That Are Changing the World." One of those is very literal: geoengineering.
Time's piece on the subject is a bit muddled--it lists iron fertilization of the oceans as a way of reducing sunlight to the planet--but the bottom line is…
March 16, 2008
...to attend ScienceDebate2008. Watch here to see why:
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For more info from our latest press conference, see here.
March 14, 2008
We held an event at the Franklin Institute today to call attention to the debate and its local support. Sheril and I weren't on hand, but our peeps were. See here for photos, streaming video, podcast, etc. More links when we have them.
Meanwhile, below is an image of one of our fearless leaders,…
March 11, 2008
Over the past few days, it has been possible to catch the two "framing science" perpetrators jogging along San Francisco Bay under the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge.
We haven't hung out in a while, so we had a lot to catch up on. Nisbet is a former Osher Fellow at the San Francisco…
March 10, 2008
Philadelphia's Franklin Institute has just released a joint press release with ScienceDebate2008 (PDF) that serves as a kind of reminder that this thing is still on--and we're hoping the candidates will appear. It is in a critical state just before its primary, and many leading science voices in…
March 10, 2008
While we dither and dilly and dally....the Post now reports on the latest climate modeling studies, suggesting yet again that it's even worse than we previously thought and than the IPCC said...we now need to go to zero emissions very rapidly to stave off the worst consequences, and even then, it…
March 7, 2008
I did my latest Science Progress column on this subject, in light of recent research suggesting "green" biofuels like ethanol might actually be bad for the environment.
My conclusion?
...enough doubts have been raised that no one can reasonably postulate biofuels as an automatic solution to cut…
March 5, 2008
This isn't a subject I blog much about any more...after all, the "war on science" argument that I helped originate has now been made in such an ad nauseum way that it has become more or less conventional wisdom.
However, it's still worth noting when a great new piece of evidence emerges showing…
March 5, 2008
In its latest issue, Library Journal singled out 39 noteworthy sci-tech books published in 2007. Storm World was one of two chosen in the "meteorology/earth science" category.
Not sure why 39 overall were chosen, but...an honor to share a list with people like Steven Pinker, Natalie Angier, and…
March 3, 2008
I was very disappointed to see, when my latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine arrived, that it had an article by Bjorn Lomborg in it--downplaying the risk of global warming, as usual.
I started out my career working for SI, am currently a correspondent, etc...but I felt that in light of this…
February 26, 2008
Over at Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson just posted an interview with Matthew Chapman, the original guy behind the curtain of Science Debate 2008. Sheril and I have taken to calling Matthew our "fearless leader," but "fearless, selfless, deeply inspirational leader without whom this wouldn't have…
February 25, 2008
I don't have much to add to Sheril's recent post on Ralph Nader--and I certainly don't have anything nearly as clever to put up here as the Forrest Gump picture (although I will add that unlike Nader, Forrest did eventually stop running).
I will say this, though. As someone who was working at a…
February 21, 2008
Should Congressional Democrats, led by Barbara Boxer, try to get a global warming bill passed this year, even if it's the relatively moderate (and modest) Lieberman-Warner America's Climate Security Act?
That's the matter currently dividing the environmental community, and the dilemma I address in…
February 20, 2008
My latest Science Progress column just went up: It's about the strong rebuke (PDF) that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just gave the Bush administration on the subject of mercury pollution.
The good news is that the administration's sham regulatory policy for this dangerous metal…
February 15, 2008
The Southern Hemisphere cyclone season is starting to pick up. We had a Category 4 (Hondo) in the South Indian ocean last week, and this week, we have twin storms (Ivan and Nicholas) aiming at Madagascar and northwestern Australia, respectively.
I've taken the liberty of blogging on all this over…