cmooney

The anti-research types get a lot of mileage out of arguing that embryonic stem cell research has been hyped. In general, I think they greatly overstate the case, but we must admit--and I certainly do--that some pro-research statements have been made that are really beyond the pale. Perhaps the…

Folks, I'll be appearing tomorrow night on The Tavis Smiley Show, on PBS, for a pretty thorough interview about the themes of my book. I had to do the interview by satellite, which is always a bit challenging, but I'm told it came off pretty well. For my local network, WETA, the show is on at…

The Times is reporting today that the Vatican is not so anti-evolution after all--thank goodness--but that's not what's intriguing about the article from my perspective. I couldn't help noticing this sentence from the middle of the piece: There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that…

It's good to have friends. In this case, specifically, Jason Rosenhouse, who has taken on a few of my critics for me. The gist is this: Some conservatives, in response to my arguments in The Republican War on Science, have been trying to make it look as though "intelligent design" is not so…

I've never been impressed with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, but I did not know he was this batty. From the Washington Post: [Nagin] said "God is mad at America" and "is sending hurricane after hurricane" because He disapproves of the United States invading Iraq "under false pretenses." I agree with…

We hardly knew ya! In the long history of American monkey trials, your rather puny attempt to undermine evolution--the case was quickly settled in our favor once the inevitable legal threat came down--may be worthy of a footnote. Or maybe not. It really depends on whether or not other creationists…

This post is basically a pile-on. We're already flogging National Review over its promotion of Tom Bethell. So why not rub it in? In The Republican War on Science, I outline conservative attacks on science in a variety of areas. Not surprisingly, it turns out that many of the leading strategies are…

I feel kinda bad: Rasmus at RealClimate has gone and done a massive post in response to an idle question I asked on my old blog about whether an Amazonian drought could be definitively linked to climate change. (Answer: Not at this point, if ever...) The post, though, really shows the virtue of…

I've been going on and on lately about the adult stem cell partisans and what's wrong with their arguments. But underlying those arguments, I suspect, is something deeper. These advocates just don't seem to share the scientific mindset when it comes to embryonic stem cell research. Some of them, I…

Man, the Amazon.com reviewers just keep doing my work for me. Consider the latest takedown of Tom Bethell's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. It's lengthy, thorough, and written by a libertarian who says he's in similar territory to Bethell politicially. But instead, the reviewer says…

Well, I've been here at ScienceBlogs.com for a few days now, and would like to reflect a bit on the experience. Overall, I must say, I'm overwhelmingly pleased. I'm a technical moron and my old blog was held together with spitballs and sealing wax. It had big technical difficulties. By contrast,…

Go over to the Carpetbagger Report for the sad truth. USA Today itself has some good science writers; they must be aghast at this behavior by the weekend magazine. The most appalling thing is that the offending article ran under the banner of "science"....

I know I'm about a year late on this, but it was only recently that I finally watched the notorious Sci-Fi Channel version of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea cycle. LeGuin has complained at length about how the adaptation destroyed her novels. I heartily agree. The Sci-Fi version simply invents, out of…

As I've noted previously, there have been attempts to question the scientific peer review process following the Hwang Woo Suk scandal. But a Rick Weiss article in the Washington Post over the weekend helpfully explains why it's naive to think that peer reviewers can catch this kind of chicanery:…

I was watching CNN the other day, and saw a segment they had on the latest "intelligent design" case out of California (no link available). My impression? Whew: We're going to win this one easily if it goes to trial, because once again, the creationists aren't smart enough to cover their tracks. It…

I must say, I'm kinda proud of myself. The very first book that I've ever blurbed is now out. It's by Cristina Page and it's entitled, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Sex, Virtue, and the Way We Live Now. For me, Page's book was a revealing look at what's really driving the Christian…

Yesterday, extending a public debate that I participated in earlier in the week, I criticized some arguments by Reason's Ron Bailey and started to criticize some writings by the Discovery Institute's Wesley Smith. I'm pretty much done with Bailey (see our exchange here), with whom I really don't…

The New York Sun covered my event last Tuesday, and it's a pretty interesting read. Check it out. It gives a pretty good sense of the tenor of the discussion that went on. Meanwhile, I'll have my second post about the substance of the issues discussed at the debate shortly (the first one was here).

Bush was in New Orleans yesterday, the day we learned that the federal budget deficit is going to be $ 60 billion more than expected, thanks to spending related to hurricane Katrina. Of course, that $ 60 billion hardly represents the only economic impact of the hurricane. For example, there are the…

This Friday the 13th, I'll be sleeping in, then getting some work done, and hopefully taking it easy in the evening. It wasn't always so. Back in college I used to party on these days, making a point of floutting all kinds of hoary old superstitions, and (at least theoretically) buying myself an…

I have started to assemble a new blogroll for this new blog--the one on my last site was extremely outdated. My general policy is going to be that I will not list blogs that are right here at ScienceBlogs, simply because anyone reading the site is naturally going to see what the other participants…

The three way debate/discussion on science and politics hosted by the Smith Family Foundation on Tuesday night was an interesting event, to say the least. It was in some ways a difficult discussion for me, because the other participants, Ronald Bailey and Wesley Smith, are much more inclined than I…

It's by Matthew Nisbet, and it's about the changing politics of the stem cell issue in the wake of the Hwang scandal. The gist: The public had grown quite supportive of embryonic stem cell research, but the 2004 electoral campaign polarized the issue, and now the Korean fraud story has potential to…

If an alien from Mars arrived on Earth, visited the United States, and wanted to understand the issues that exist at the intersection of politics and science in this country, he, she, or it would have a problem. You see, there are two popular books out that have garnered significant public…

Well, here I am, now officially blogging at scienceblogs.com, with its whizzbang technical features and its awesome collection of other science bloggers. I have little doubt that this site will become a dominant--if not the dominant--locus for science blogging on the web. Just check out the folks…

I have already confessed to you about a serious, debilitating weakness of mine: I like to watch crap action movies to let my mind rejuvenate itself after I've been working for a while. I don't care how bad they are, as long as they're well produced, and as long as they allow me to escape. Some…