cmooney
Posts by this author
March 21, 2009
My oped is second only to a roundup of business news, as of 4 pm ET. See here.
The op-ed has generated some 440 comments, too, at last count. I wonder if we will hear anything further from Mr. Will....
UPDATE: Scratch that, as of 7 ET, it is the number one article on the website....
March 21, 2009
As any reader of this blog knows, I was for a while very critical of the Washington Post editorial page amid the George Will affair. Now, my view has changed.
Today the Post publishes, replete with links to many scientific sources, my op-ed answering three claims Will made in his now infamous "Dark…
March 20, 2009
Nothing else matters today. Nothing except what is going to happen in the very last episode of Battlestar, which has been running since 2004 and now culminates in a two hour extravaganza. We know the Battlestar is about to jump into the Cylon colony to rescue Hera, the human-Cylon hybrid child,…
March 19, 2009
Ed Brayton, who I admire greatly, has a post that runs afoul of my "death of science journalism" sensitivity meter. You see, Ed came across a National Geographic story that says something dumb about "carbon dating." Ed is surely right on the point of substance, and National Geographic should not…
March 18, 2009
My latest Science Progress column contemplates this question, in the wake of a spot of news that doesn't seem to have caused any uproar (yet)--namely, that DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is apparently holding an event to discuss the prospect of geoengineering the climate.
As…
March 15, 2009
It's been a while since I had a good string of talks lined up--it's harder, I think, to do a lot of them from the West Coast. But now I'm back east and about to embark for the first two of these four upcoming appearances; so mark them down if you're in the area. And of course, when Unscientific…
March 13, 2009
There were some great comments on our last post announcing the "Two Cultures" 50 year anniversary conference at the New York Academy of Sciences. I wanted to build on that discussion, but haven't gotten around to it until now.
So let's address some of the more noteworthy points; meanwhile, I also…
March 12, 2009
Yale Environment 360 interviews the renowned New Yorker journalist, who blames the media and scientists alike for our staggering failure to deal with this issue. Here's a long quotation:
e360: We've talked about journalists and generally the challenges in conveying this issue to the public. But…
March 12, 2009
A really great Issues in Science and Technology article by Sheril and our ScienceDebate2008 colleague (and CEO) Shawn Otto is now available online here. It is a look back at the unprecedented ScienceDebate initiative and the not inconsiderable impact it had on the campaign--despite numerous hurdles…
March 11, 2009
I don't know how I missed this earlier in the week. But you really know science journalism is in danger when the Boston Globe, at the center of all things biotech, decides it can't have a science/medicine section any longer.
But maybe at least Larry Moran will be rejoicing. Think about it this way…
March 10, 2009
Amid the big stem cell news, the second half of what the president did yesterday--in essence, order his science adviser to conduct a government-wide scientific housecleaning--has gotten less attention. But it's remarkably important if we want to get over the science problems of the Bush years. In…
March 10, 2009
Over a year ago, we had an idea: We were doing a book that discusses the work of the British physicist-novelist C.P. Snow, and the 50 year anniversary of his world famous "two cultures" argument was coming up--May 7, 2009. Precisely 50 years earlier, Snow had delivered a lecture at Cambridge…
March 9, 2009
In the looking glass world of some conservatives and contrarians, the Democratic war on science continues today....just see here for proof.
Not only has our new president reversed Bush's stem cell policy, and directed his science adviser--who really, really needs to be Senate confirmed--to "…
March 7, 2009
So, I have to say I find this funny.
On the one hand we have the current, perverse attempt to forecast all the ways in which Democrats and scientists are going to fall into big conflicts soon, now that the Dems have so much power. The idea here is to construct a false equivalence between the…
March 6, 2009
I've got a piece up on the website of The Nation about why we should be glad Sanjay Gupta won't be the Surgeon General. Basically, there are aspects of his medical coverage that I don't think are very consistent with what we want in the nation's doctor. A brief excerpt:
And then there was the time…
March 6, 2009
A lot of people right now are striving desperately to establish this notion. Neil Munro's big story in the latest National Journal (here, subscription) is the latest example. In essence, it postulates a bunch of new rifts that are going to open between scientists and Democrats now that the latter…
March 5, 2009
That's the word on the street. The poor guy would have had to take a massive pay cut.
Hmm...do folks think this is a good or a bad thing?
March 5, 2009
I realize I am a little bit late to this party. But recently (here, there, and everywhere) all of ScienceBlogs was abuzz about Sen. Tom Harkin's complaint that various complementary and alternative remedies are not being validated by the NIH office supposedly designed to do so--namely, the National…
March 4, 2009
My latest Science Progress column sets Bobby Jindal's latest comments mocking volcano monitoring in the context of longstanding attacks on individual scientific grants--which goes all the way back to Senator William Proxmire's "Golden Fleece" awards, if not further. While this tradition is to some…
March 4, 2009
Mike Dunford has the details, based on Congressional Quarterly's reporting. There are apparently multiple senators blocking two of Obama's key science appointees from taking their posts. This is outrageous--a totally new kind of "war on science"--and we need a full court press. Details here.
March 3, 2009
We can if we're Fox News. Or Matt Drudge.
These people use any snowstorm as reason to cast doubt on global warming. It's as predictable as...well, no, it's a lot more predictable than the weather.
I really regret that important global warming protests and actions always seem to be timed so that…
March 3, 2009
The Washington Post (the news part) reports that the man who is now one of my senators, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, has placed a hold on the nominations of John Holdren and Jane Lubchencho, and won't allow them to be voted on. Reportedly, "Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate…
March 2, 2009
At a time when there is big controversy going on concerning George Will's February 15 column, why on earth did this scientific institute--centrally involved in the issue--not leave their refutation of Will concerning sea ice up on their website?
You can see it in the Google cache here. But it is…
March 2, 2009
I just sent Fred Hiatt a roughly 900 word oped, with references, that I believe soundly refutes George Will's three central climate science claims from his February 15 column. I also make a larger, more resonant point. I hope the Post will publish the column--but you folks will see it in some form…
February 27, 2009
In the wake of the latest developments in the George Will scandal, I sent him this:
Dear Mr. Hiatt,
[Introductory Comments]...I believe what I've called the "Republican War on Science" continues, and the George Will saga represents a stunning example. In my opinion, the Post editorial/oped
page…
February 27, 2009
George Will wrote another deceptive global warming column. It's full of utter nonsense, retracts nothing, and pathetically tries to defend his previous errors:
The column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken.
This I can only call a lie. A…
February 26, 2009
It pains me to blog this. I think Andrew Revkin is one of our best science journalists, and I don't criticize him easily.
That might also explain why my taking a stand here is a bit tardy.
Nevertheless, I, like many others, think Revkin really blew it with this article, which begins with the…
February 26, 2009
This is big stuff--and thank goodness the Washington Post still handles global warming well in the news pages, if not on the editorial/op-ed page.
The Obama administration has made an ingenious move: Its soon to be revealed budget relies, for revenue, upon the idea that Congress will pass cap and…
February 25, 2009
Obama really laid it down last night, no? He clearly said that even with the economy crushed, he wants a cap and trade bill to cut greenhouse gases this year. I know it's a campaign promise and all, but I seriously wouldn't have been surprised to see some de-emphasizing of this priority in light of…
February 25, 2009
My Science Progress column is now up: I try to set the George Will scandal in the broader context of what's happening in the media:
We often hear that "technology" is what's killing newspapers--innovations like Craig's List have destroyed the in-print classified advertising market; people have…