Social Sciences
We may believe in some doctrine of evolution or some idea of progress and we may use this in our interpretation of the history of centuries; but what our history contributes is not evolution but rather the realization of how crooked and perverse the ways of progress are, with what wilfulness and waste it twists and turns, and takes anything but the straight track to its goal, and how often it seems to go astray, and to be deflected by any conjecture, to return to us - if it does returns - by a back door. [Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History, Penguin, 1973 (1931), 24…
This is absolutely unacceptable. 6 medical workers are on trial in Libya under the accusation of infecting children with HIV, and if convicted they could be executed. While expert testimony and scientific evidence was presented at the trial, this evidence was thrown out from a combination of miscommunication and what appears to be political bias.
Declan Butler from Nature reports:
Lawyers defending six medical workers who risk execution by firing squad in Libya have called for the international scientific community to support a bid to prove the medics' innocence. The six are charged with…
tlambert |
The Guardian reports
In a letter earlier this month to Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil, the Royal Society cites its own survey which found that ExxonMobil last year distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society says misrepresent the science of climate change.
These include the International Policy Network, a thinktank with its HQ in London, and the George C Marshall Institute, which is based in Washington DC. In 2004, the institute jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels…
There is, it appears, a nice discussion going on over at a post that Ben recently put up regarding the use of nuclear energy. And quite a few of the commentary take a stance that the ideal for citizens to consume less, is at best unrealistic and at worst an impedent to our right towards progression.
I'm not sure if this sits well with me. It seems too easy to say that because humans have needs to expand, to produce more, to (dammit!) play around with charts and the like so that consumption needn't slow down, then why ask for the sacrifice? Indeed, no-one is really going to do it anyway.…
thescian |
Thanks to gaddeswarup who linked to Current Science, an academic science publication in India, I went over to read the current issue. Featured in it under "Astrology and science" is a letter from R V Karanth (of the Geological Society of India), who was commenting about an earlier article on astrology. I quote,
It is true that astrology is unscientific, at least for those who do not believe in it. I being a `non-believer' vehemently used to argue against the belief in astrology and wearing stones for astrological purÂposes. Nevertheless, of late, I have a feeling that believing in…
bcohen |
Link to a great article in the New York Times yesterday about satire, irony, sarcasm, and our modern world. It's by Wyatt Mason, who is a contributing editor at Harper's.
"Satire, then, signals both the sickness and health of a society in equal measure: it showcases the vigor of the satirist and the debility of the satiree. As such, we might conclude, in America, that its abundance suggests a normal balance of destructive yin and creative yang, a human need to view the most vexing frailties of a culture through the liberating prism of lampoon."
All told, it's a good narrative that gets…
This weekend, I read a couple of stories about people teaching about evolution. As you might expect, these generally aren't articles that fill me with joy.
The first is an article from Jacksonville, Texas that explicitly compares two local junior colleges, both associated with religious groups.
Lon Morris junior college is affiliated with the Methodists, and the chair of the department is Linda Allen.
“I teach evolution. Science is looking for natural causes to natural phenomena, it isn’t in the business of looking for supernatural reasons for things occurring,” said Assistant Professor Linda…
tfk |
Many years ago, the University of Chicago invited Amartya Sen, who had recently won a Nobel Prize in Economics, to come and speak. He appeared beside Gary Becker, a distinguished professor of the University's famed economic department, and an adherent to the "Chicago School of Economics." At one point, after the speeches, a question was posed about how the two would define the role of economics in society. Becker gave what is probably his standard Econ 101 introduction, explaining how economics studies how rational human behavior influences the aggregate behavior of markets, etc. After…
The other day, I put up a small question about history. What better place could there be to put my answer, but in the form of a fractal? Patterns seem to almost repeat themselves. Sweeping changes result from a single, initial circumstance. Each point is connected to another, within the same set. Are these descriptions of events in history, or the rules defining a rippled Julia set?
Or perhaps the rings of a tree?
The trunk of a cottonwood tree, showing rings formed over many years. Cottonwood trees (below) line the bank of Walnut Creek, which appealed to Sarah H. Church when she arrived…
"Archbishop of York"? What kind of silly, made-up title is that?
The Archbishop of York has said British Christians should see Muslims as allies in the struggle against secularism.
In a speech at York Minster, Dr John Sentamu said British Muslims were not offended by Christianity and preferred it to a secular state.
Or maybe he was just mistranslated? Apparently not.
It has often been Muslims, as well as leaders of other faiths, who have joined with Christians in refusing to accept the creeping secularisation that would replace 'Christmas' with 'Winterval', and remove references to faith…
tsmith |
The new vaccine against the human papilloma virus is something I've discussed a time or ten here. Reaction to the vaccine by many religious groups has morphed with time, from outright resistance to a more common stance right now that they're accepting of the vaccine, but don't want it to be mandatory. Well...
Michigan legislation would require girls to get HPV vaccine
Michigan girls entering the sixth grade next year would have to be vaccinated against cervical cancer under legislation backed Tuesday by a bipartisan group of female lawmakers.
The legislation is the first of its kind in the…
j7uy5 |
GARDASIL®,
the vaccine intended to prevent infection with
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papilloma_virus"
rel="tag">human papillomavirus (HPV), was
controversial even before it was
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/18/health/main1628221.shtml">approved
by the FDA.
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/31/MNG2LFGJFT1.DTL">Debate
rages on use of cervical cancer vaccine
Rob Stein, Washington Post
Monday, October 31, 2005
(10-31) 04:00 PDT Washington -- A new vaccine that protects against
cervical cancer has set up a…
Since I reported yesterday on a letter in Science describing the current decline in funding of NIH (National Institutes of Health) R01 grants, several others have chimed in as well. PZ Myers of Pharyngula gave the post a mention, and Mike the Mad Biologist as well as Orac of Respectful Insolence gave their own detailed commentary.
Here's what Mike had to say:
For faculty, many of whom have guaranteed salaries if they are tenure-track or tenured, this is an inconvience. For those whose salaries are dependent on this funding, this is far, far worse.
In the medium term, this is really going to…
drorzel |
Dylan Stiles is blogging from the American Chemical Society meeting, as only he can. He's got three daily summary posts up (one, two, three), with more presumably on the way for however long the meeting lasts.
Personally, I can't make heads or tails of the scientific content, so I can't tell you whether any of the stuff he's posting about is actually interesting to normal humans. He's way into it, though, which makes even the incomprehensible bits fun to read. Or maybe I'm just sleep-deprived.
revere |
There are many ways to kill innocent people. Suicide bombings against Israeli and Iraqi citizens we hear about. The starvation and strangulation of a whole population is one we don't. From The Independent:
Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily…
Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. [Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, 611]
A question I have wondered about for a long time is this: why do people become creationists? I mean, nobody is born a creationist (or an evolutionist, or a Mayan cosmic-cyclist, etc.). These are views that one acquires as one learns and integrates into society. But we live, notionally, in a society in which science has learned more about the world in 300 years than in the prior million or so. So, why do people become…
razib |
In the annals of they had to do "research"?, Researchers identify 'male warrior effect'":
In experiments with 300 university men and women students, Van Vugt and his team gave the volunteers small sums of money which they could either keep or invest in a common fund that would be doubled and equally divided. None of the students knew what the others were doing.
Both sexes cooperated in investing in the fund. But when the groups were told they were competing against other universities, the males were more eager to invest rather than keep their money while the number of women contributing…
clock |
Global Changes Alter The Timing Of Plant Growth, Scientists Say:
Different plant species mature at different times. Scientists studying plant communities in natural habitats call this phenomenon "complementarity." It allows species to co-exist because it reduces overlap in the time period when species compete for limited resources. Now, in a study posted online the week of Sept. 4 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ecologists working at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve report evidence that climate change may al ter this delicate balance.
Mother Deer Cannot…
clock |
Fifth in the five-part series on clocks in bacteria, covering more politics than biology (from May 17, 2006):
In the previous posts in this series, I covered the circadian clocks in Synechococcus, potential circadian clocks in a couple of other bacteria, and the presence of clock genes (thus potentially clocks) in a number of other bacteria. But what happened to the microbiological workhorse, the Escherichia coli? Does it have a clock? Hasn't anyone checked?
Believe it or not, this question is colored by politics. But I have to give you a little background first. Latter half of the 19th…
terrasig |
Next month, the family Pharmboy is headed down to Beluthahatchee, Florida, to help celebrate the 90th birthday of famed human rights legend, Stetson Kennedy, the subject of some Woody Guthrie lyrics put to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco. Among ScienceBloggers, I've learned that Janet and Steinn are big Billy Bragg fans and Josh is a big Woody Guthrie fan, so it seems apropos to celebrate Mr Kennedy here. This is one post I've been meaning to move over here from the old blog, where it first appeared on 15 May 2006.
[I'm currently on the road and I've somehow screwed up the code for…