Imagine what the reaction would be if it were 2006 and President George W. Bush had an environmental report on his desk from government scientists and chose to ignore the data and stall in order to placate his entrenched constituencies.Well, we do know, because that's exactly what happened. What is different in 2014 is the reaction from all of the people who insisted Bush - and all Republicans -...
read moreIn the latest episode of Cosmos we got some history regarding how science has tried to converge on the age of the Earth. With that, we also got another jab at religion. Why use yet another religious contrast from hundreds of years ago to show the awesome power of science now? Is there so little actual imagination in their Ship Of The Imagination?(1)Just like with the age of the Earth, it's hard...
read moreIf some drug-addled sociopath shoots up a movie theater or an elementary school, there is lots of speculation about the cause. In frustration and helplessness, people search for a magic bullet - things they can ban - to keep it from ever happening again.In European countries, at least the ones where guns are banned, and in some parts of America, guns are that magic bullet.Actual statistics don't...
read more20 years ago, your parents knew there were two things you did not discuss with dinner guests. Your grandparents knew it, your great-grandparents knew it. 2,000 years ago people knew it. In 2014, we are so much smarter we no longer know it. Maybe some surveys will help. And so to help us out, two papers address the most pressing topic in popular culture - how people feel about being...
read moreIn Science Left Behind I wrote a segment about a national discrimination issue that was eroding not only science, but the very notion of fairness in our culture.No, it wasn't the lack of Republicans in faculty jobs at universities. It was instead that, for decades, schools had been using skin color to routinely impede the chances for the best students to get admitted. They were using racial...
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