emjohnson | 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 the past. However, sometimes a case comes up that seems to be a genuine mystery even today. Such is the case for this eighteenth-century woman who was afflicted for two years with what her doctor referred to as "hairy crustaceous substances" that were voided in her urine.
On July 16, 1733 a Mr.…
emjohnson | 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 colleagues have just released a video (see below) showing a bonobo juvenile voluntarily helping another individual out of their cage to share a few delicious treats. In their study, to be released March 8 in Current Biology, the Duke researchers wanted to see if bonobos would choose to share with…
emjohnson | 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 spoke with IPS reporter William Fisher last week and this morning appeared on WZBC in Boston to discuss this story. This is the little known history of Haiti and forms the backdrop to why the earthquake that hit this island nation has been so devastating.
According to Fisher's article:
It is an unusual…
emjohnson | 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 government by liberals have been useless because the underlining problem has not been addressed: the power of corporate lobbies that control policy.
In an earlier post (see: The Shadow of Scientific Opinion) I quoted the education reformer and philosopher John Dewey:
[P]olitics is the shadow cast on society…
emjohnson | February 4, 2010Deconstructing 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 Sapolsky on the Uniqueness of HumansDeconstructing Social Darwinism, Part IVThe Huffington Post Publishes the Craziest Things
emjohnson | February 3, 2010As 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 problem it will take a a great diversity of tactics including education, popular culture, involved parenting, economics and political will. Everyone who cares about this issue should use the skills they have to both draw attention to the crisis of scientific literacy and seek positive solutions.
One…
emjohnson | February 2, 2010My 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 since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
Science fiction films have often received the same treatment. However, two of the surprise nominees for Best Picture this year are none other than James Cameron's Avatar and the South African alien apartheid action film District 9…
emjohnson | February 1, 2010Kind of Curious is hosting the latest edition of the premiere science blog carnival. Stop on in and thank him for an excellent collection.
emjohnson | 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 in The Huffington Post, notes that "Haiti has a historically unhealthy dependence on foreign commerce and finance, from the colonial days of the sugar trade to the current assistance provided by developed countries."
"Now the same politicians and financial elites that helped create this mess are…
emjohnson | 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 journalists, I think there are some effective strategies that can still be gleaned from knowing just what professionalism is really all about.
H/T David Wescott
emjohnson | 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 Social Darwinism Goldberg writes:
This is a very comprehensive assault on the prevailing understanding of "social Darwinism." Eric Michael Johnson's essay is a bit too rambling at times, but it is very welcome and good reading nonetheless.
Readers of my book might remember that I have nothing but…
emjohnson | January 28, 2010As 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 United States has increased the profits of American companies, but the livelihood of Haitian workers has decreased at nearly the same rate.
[A] 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service found that "assessments of the effectiveness of Hope I, however, were disappointing." Since 2004 Haitian…
emjohnson | January 27, 2010As 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 best-known book, A People's History of the United States (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers -- many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out -- but rather the farmers of Shays' Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.
I…
emjohnson | January 27, 2010Here 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 Michael Johnson, who clearly thinks he's so self important as to include his middle name, has published an article called "Haiti's Political and Economic Earthquake" on the US and World Bank role in maintaining Haiti's poverty.
Since 1990 there have been two US-supported military coups, a series of…
emjohnson | January 24, 2010Image: 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, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story.…
emjohnson | 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 researcher and writer, he's also a genuinely kind and supportive guy. Back in 2001, as an undergraduate, I wrote what was then my first fan letter to a neuroscientist. To my surprise he wrote back and we had an ongoing correspondence. He even recommended a piece of writing I had sent him to his editor…
emjohnson | January 21, 2010My 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 rules to enforce civil conversation in science blog posts:
I make the point that civility can be encouraged by laying out ground rules - as John Wilkins says on his admirable blog, Evolving Thoughts - and I hope he won't mind my quoting it in extenso:
'This is my living room, so don't piss on the…
emjohnson | 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 between open access and scientific innovation. See the program description here and these posts for more information. In John's section he emphasized how the early history of scientific publishing was one where individual researchers simply pooled their letters into journals and shared them with one…
emjohnson | 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 conference.
emjohnson | January 19, 20102. 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 enthusiast) Carl Zimmer and cell biologist/blogger John Timmer for an excellent discussion of what science journalism means in the age of the internet.
The take home message was that science journalism is in a state of flux. What had previously been traditional journalism in which the reporter…