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Eric Michael Johnson

Eric Michael Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters in Evolutionary Anthropology. He pursued his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke before joining the University of British Columbia to complete a doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science.

Posts by this author

February 18, 2010
(updated below)      Image: Henri Gervex (1852-1929)     Doctor Preau Operating at the St.     Louis Hospital.Honoured SIR and MADAM, In researching the history of science one often comes across bizarre claims about the natural world that reveals the limit of knowledge available to researchers of…
February 16, 2010
   Bonobos retain juvenile traits related   to tolerance and cooperation.            Image: Vanessa WoodsHow many times as a kid would your parents tell you to grow up and act your age? It turns out that not acting our age may be the very reason why we're so successful as a species. Brian Hare and…
February 13, 2010
    Haitian girl wearing the Disney princess shirt made    in her country. Image: BBC NewsInter Press Service has just begun a new series focusing on the development loans to Haiti and the strings attached that have effectively removed the Haitian government from managing their own affairs. I…
February 4, 2010
Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig has a new article in The Nation entitled "How to Get Our Democracy Back." In the piece he challenges both the Right and the Left on the ineffective means to create real change in this country. Attempts to shrink government by conservatives or to reform…
February 4, 2010
Deconstructing Social Darwinism, Part IDeconstructing Social Darwinism, Part IIDeconstructing Social Darwinism, Part IIIHow Can Haiti Be Sustainable?Uniting Primates and Cetaceans Through PersonhoodBonobos and the Emergence of CultureCivility, Science Communication, and the White PatriarchyRobert…
February 3, 2010
As people who have been following the issue are well aware, there is a crisis of scientific literacy in the United States. Unscientific America may have had a poor explanation for why the problem exists, but it effectively announced the severity of the problem to a wide audience. To combat this…
February 2, 2010
My favorite novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, once complained about the treatment of science fiction by critics in his book Wampa, Foma and Granfalloons: I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since [publishing Player Piano], and I would like out, particularly…
February 1, 2010
Kind of Curious is hosting the latest edition of the premiere science blog carnival. Stop on in and thank him for an excellent collection.
February 1, 2010
       Image: Gideon Mendel / The GuardianJournalist William Fisher of the Inter Press Service News Agency has just used my recent work on Haiti for his story on the need for transparency and equality in the development aid that the West provides to Haiti: Journalist Eric Michael Johnson, writing…
January 29, 2010
Many of us self-styled journalists and bloggers lack formal training in what news reporting is really all about. Fortunately Charlie Brooker at BBC4 has this helpful report that can make even the novice journalist a professional reporter in no time. While this is primarily intended for TV…
January 29, 2010
     Goldberg shown here (right) "gangbanging"    with a guy who enjoys making fun of the dead.I must have done something very, very wrong. Jonah Goldberg, that noxious, infected man-tit of a human being, has just praised my work at the National Review. Referring to my series on Deconstructing…
January 28, 2010
As I wrote yesterday in my piece for The Huffington Post, the history of Western financial involvement in Haiti has been one of growing the nation's textile industry despite the fact that 70% of Haiti's annual income comes from agriculture. By emphasizing programs such as HOPE and HOPE II, the…
January 27, 2010
As reported this evening in the Boston Globe, the internationally renowned historian and bestselling author of A People's History of the United States died today while traveling in California. For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn's…
January 27, 2010
Here at ScienceBlogs we regularly take The Huffington Post down a notch by pointing out such cutting edge lunacy as vaccine denialism or pseudoscientific spiritualism masquerading as health advice. Now the latest in a long list of unsubstantiated crazy is on full display. Some writer named Eric…
January 24, 2010
Image: Idiot Box / Matt Bors And now, of course, Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network can interpret geological events as well. On January 13, just a day after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the reigning televangelist explained why God hates Haitians: And, you know, Kristi,…
January 23, 2010
Sapolsky's talk begins at 5:00 after an introduction by the Stanford Provost.The neuroendocrinologist and primatologist Robert Sapolsky has been one of my primary scientific influences and the reason I pursued my masters and PhD in primate behavior and evolution. Not only is he a brilliant…
January 21, 2010
My friend Henry Gee at Nature Network wrote a few thoughts about how issues of race, gender and communication were discussed at the recent ScienceOnline2010 conference (#scio10 for the Twitter inclined). In his post he raises what he felt were unfair criticisms to his comments about laying ground…
January 21, 2010
This is the brief presentation I gave on Saturday, Jan. 16 as part of this year's ScienceOnline conference. I was thrilled to have PZ Myers, Greg Laden and Janet Stemwedel present (the latter of whom posted her thoughts on the session). John McKay and I led a discussion on the intersection…
January 21, 2010
OK, so this wasn't really part of ScienceOnline2010, but it really should've been. Perhaps there could be a special session next year on comedy in scientific communication. Any nominations on who the panelists should be? While you think about that, here's something that actually was at the…
January 19, 2010
2. Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web (description here): Sciblings Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science and David Dobbs of Neuron Culture as well as the author of Reef Madness and the forthcoming The Orchid and the Dandelion, joined science writer extraordinaire (and duck sex…
January 19, 2010
This past weekend I was in Durham, North Carolina (my old stomping grounds) attending the annual ScienceOnline Conference that focuses on science communication in the digital age. I am pleased to report that Anton and Bora have built on their previous successes to accomplish something rare for a…
January 15, 2010
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4Richard Hofstadter wrote in Social Darwinism in American Thought that this political theory was "one of the leading strains in American conservative thought for more than a generation." In this series I have shown many of the inconsistencies that exist in the…
January 14, 2010
Scientific innovation relies on open communication and always has. It has only been through the free exchange of information and ideas that scientific pioneers have expanded the boundaries of knowledge. Through books, pamphlets, letters, journals, and now blogs, scientists communicate their…
January 12, 2010
   The Open Laboratory?! You're kidding? Woo hoo!!!!!!!!My post for Nature Network, Male Chauvinist Chimps or the Meat Market of Public Opinion? has been selected for this year's Open Laboratory as an example of the year's best online science writing. For those who have followed the developments…
January 11, 2010
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4In Quentin Skinner's celebrated history The Foundations of Modern Political Thought he writes that: If the history of political theory were to be written essentially as a history of ideologies, one outcome might be a clearer understanding of the links between…
January 10, 2010
Image: Atheistcartoons.comOf course, you can always count on World Nut Daily to explain the illogic of celebrating a victim of capital punishment while supporting its practice: The reason capital punishment was necessary, God explained, was because human life was so special. There had to be a blood…
January 9, 2010
In this TED Talk Susan Savage-Rumbaugh discusses bonobos housed in a bispecies environment that have been taught to communicate using pictographs. In the talk she suggests that biology isn't what made humans unique from nonhuman apes, but rather argues that it was cultural developments and social…
January 8, 2010
Herbert Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest" in 1852 and suggested that Darwin use it himself after he read On the Origin of Species in 1859. However, Darwin was resistant because he thought it could be misinterpreted. According to historian Thomas Leonard, Spencer then appealed to…
January 8, 2010
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4   English sociologist Herbert Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest" in 1852.As I pointed out in Deconstructing Social Darwinism, Part I scholars have begun to seriously challenge the usefulness of the term as a political theory. For example, Gregory…
January 7, 2010
Click Here to Vote Our fellow Scibling Mo at Neurophilosophy has been nominated in the science category for an award as the best producer of short real-time content on Twitter. Check him out at @mocost and make sure to vote for him at the Shorty Awards page. He's currently in ninth place and,…