Social Sciences

Good news from RPM: I just got word that the House of Representatives passed the FY2007 Budget Resolution which includes an amendment that ensures that all programs within the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill will be funded at FY2006 levels, including a 2% increase for inflation. This will mean the NIH budget will receive a $600 million increase. It is not the $7 billion proposed increase that passed in the Senate, but it's better than nothing. To read more and to read a from the Genetics Society of America, see his latest post.
President Bush's FY2007 budget included no increase in funding for the NIH. Scientists have been lobbying Congress to amend the budget to at least increase the NIH budget to keep even with inflation. You can follow the story in these posts: Lobbying the Senate Amendment passes in the Senate Lobbying the House of Representatives Amendment fails to pass in the House Budget Committee I just got word that the House of Representatives passed the FY2007 Budget Resolution which includes an amendment that ensures that all programs within the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education…
Welcome to the new edition of Animalcules! First, a few housekeeping notes. If you note the schedule, I've not yet extended it beyond June 1st. I think that, at least for the summer months, Animalcules will be a once-monthly carnival, rather than every other week. If things pick up after that, I'll change it back to the current set-up, but that will be dependent not only on entries but also on additional hosts. So, if you'd like to host in July, August, or September, drop me a line (aetiology AT gmail DOT com) an I'll get you on the schedule. Okay...on to the entries! We have a few…
NOTE (7/27/2016): People have been telling me, based on this post written over ten years ago, how Donald Trump sounds just like Vox Day. It's true. He does. It's also true that the thought of exporting 11-12 million people in 4-8 years is just as ridiculous now as it was ten years ago. I weep that so many in the Republican Party not only take this nonsense seriously but voted for Donald Trump based on a promise very much like what Vox Day described, so many that Donald Trump is now the Republican Party nominee for President. So I added this note. I also note that some of the links are dead…
This week Seed is asking the question: "Will the 'human' race be around in 100 years?" Since I suggested the question, I have a quick set of answers. I believe there are three primary categories of alternatives: 1) The rate of technological (both bio & computational) change will continue to accelerate, and "humanity" as we know it will be transcended beyond comprehension. 2) Our complex technological society will collapse as our artifactual matrix overwhelms our cognitive substrate, and the sociological response will be like that of lemmings over a cliff. We will revert back to some…
DaveScot, the lunatic who rants at Dembski's blog, has just posted an appalling complaint. He's been falsely sliming Kevin Padian as a racist, and now he's attacking Padian for saying that the religious fanatics who kill abortion doctors are contemptible. You read that right: you are not allowed to regard anti-abortion extremists who murder in their cause as bad people, or DaveScot will whine about how you are a bigot who hates Christians. It appears Kevin hates and fears religious fundamentalists of all stripes and considers them murderous fanatics. Note how he equates suicide bombers with…
Rhetorical bombs thrown at courts and judges are a common theme on the right and have been for quite some time. Any judge who rules against them is branded an "activist judge" seeking to impose "judicial tyranny". We hear constant screeds against "unelected judges" who "subvert the will of the people" (curiously, and tellingly, they were dead silent when the courts struck down California's medical marijuana law, passed by popular referendum, or when they struck down Oregon's assisted suicide law, passed twice by popular referendum). Religious right groups have held conferences to do nothing…
Drumroll, please. ScienceBlogs can now be enjoyed on the go, in podcast form. In our first podcast, Sb editors talk with Janet Stemwedel of 'Adventures in Ethics and Science,' who presents her views on plagiarism in the sciences: why it matters, who it hurts, and what, just maybe, can be done about it. The program can be found for downloading and listening in the podcast area of Seedmagazine.com, where it is described thusly: The Worst Thing A Scientist Can Do ScienceBlogs' Janet Stemwedel discusses scientists' cheating ways. Lie, cheat, steal: Scientists have been known to do all three on…
In 2001, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published their survey results of fishing, hunting and wildlife-associated recreation and estimated that there are 46 million bird watchers in the United States, making it the second most popular hobby in that country. According to a report by the New York Audubon Society, there were only a dozen bird festivals but in 1993, when the report was published, there were more than 250 every year throughout America. Why is watching birds so popular? Several reasons include the fact that birds are easily visible everywhere that humans go, and birds tend to do…
Weird finding: A mutation in a gene commonly associated with deafness can play an important part in improving wound healing, a scientist told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, today (Monday 8 May 2006). Dr. Stella Man, from the Institute of Cell and Molecular Sciences, Queen Mary's University, London, UK, said that the discovery may have implications for the treatment of a wide range of wounds, including post-surgery. ... Professor Kelsell was the first to describe the link between Cx26 mutations and deafness in 1997. "Since many…
I'm moving up a comment to the front page before the whole thread slips off the edge. The comment is from Dan Hillman and is in response to my bashing of Judge Moore and his followers. When an ally of Moore said that the polls were under-estimating his support, I joked that, ""I think he might be right. After all, how many of the braindead hicks that would vote for Moore can afford phones?" Hillman responded: That's right. It is totally impossible for people to be intelligent and have faith. And it is totally impossible for smart people to believe that justice is really a moral - and…
Seed is disseminating questions to its bloggers (I guess a la www.edge.org) so this week the question is: If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why? The invention I would choose to uninvent? I spent the weekend asking some friends. Some answers were machine guns, the atomic bomb, spam, cars ... Cars did strike something deep in me. Along the lines of Heathcote Williams' Autogeddon: If an Alien Visitor were to hover a few hundred yards above the planet It could be forgiven for thinking That cars were the dominant…
You may not know this, but today has been designated Ten Commandments Day. It sounds pretty innocuous, right? After all, why would anyone object to a celebration of the Ten Commandments? And, of course, it's every American's right under the First Amendment to celebrate the precepts of his or her religion. Nothing wrong with that. So why do I have misgivings about this Ten Commandments Day? Could it have something to do with the rhetoric on the website? For example: Is it possible that the mark of God-- the Ten Commandments was placed in America over 500 years ago? Is it possible that God…
The Powers That Be at Seed/ ScienceBlogs are initiating a new feature, cleverly called "Ask a ScienceBlogger," in which they will pose one question a week to the group of us, and we'll answer (or not) as we choose. The inaugural question was posted last night: If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why? (Why they've chosen to roll this out on a Friday, when nobody reads blogs over the weekend, I have no idea... I just work here.) Some thoughts on the question below the fold: This is the part where I reveal the…
Recently I stumbled on to this long article, titled Race and the Church, which examines racism and racial theory from a Catholic perspective. I don't have time to comment in detail. Obviously there are many issues I would have with the piece, but, I will offer that I tend to be of the opinion that the ideology of European racial supremacy was something special, and that uniqueness was connected to the rise of modern science. Xenophobia and prejudice are a common theme which unites many cultures, but the coupling of European military-political ascendancy in the 19th century with the prestige…
I'm locking horns with Reason's Ronald Bailey early next month at the following conference put on by Michael Shermer's Skeptics Society: Why are we still debating climate change? How soon will we hit peak oil supply? When politics mix with science, what is being brewed? Join speakers from the left & the right, from the lab & the field, from industry & advocacy, as we air the ongoing debate about whether human activity is actually changing the climate of the planet. Bailey and I are debating, for an hour, the question of "Distorting Science: Who's Worse, The Left or the Right?" I…
Uh-oh. Those Catholic creationists had better watch out: the Vatican thinks they're pagans. Believing that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday. Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies. He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because…
Please notice that the title of this post promises a "paranoid response", not a careful analysis. It's one of those unscheduled features of this blog. Kind of like a snow day. Yesterday's Inside Higher Ed has an article about the U.S. Senate getting kind of testy with the director of the NSF about certain research projects the NSF has seen fit to fund. Regular readers know that I think we can have a reasoned debate about funding priorities (especially when that funding is put up by the public). It does not sound to me like the exchange in the Senate was that kind of reasoned debate. From…
I just have time for a short take today. (If you need more, fortunately, Bora has posted the 33rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle for your edification. Yes, my preamble was just an excuse to plug the Skeptics' Circle one more time.) In the comments of yesterday's post about a medical student who is a young earth creationist, Karl asked a most interesting question: I hope that you saw "House" last night (on FOX, of all places). A 15 year old faith healer shows up in the hospital. At one point he touches a patient who has been dignosed with terminal (Liver?) cancer. The cancer shrinks. House…
To those who claim that we've never seen one species turn into another, I give you the Oklahoma University IDEA Club. It used to be known as the Creation Science Society. In fact, their webpage initially said: Welcome to the University of Oklahoma IDEA Club website! We are no longer the Creation Science Society. Our new name is Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness Club. That's IDEA Club for short! Voila, a perfect example of sympatric speciation that happened right before our eyes. The actual speciation event took place sometime between August 18, 2003 and October 5, 2003. Here is…