Social Sciences
pharyngula | October 13, 2008This is just the craziest thing I ever heard. Politics where you can actually have politicians who don't believe in god, and where you can talk about removing the privileged status of religion from the legislative body, and where all the major political parties have organized representation by freethinkers? Yeah, and they also have gumdrop trees and rivers of chocolate and beer volcanoes, too, I bet. Where is this magical place? Middle Earth, maybe? Nah, it's called England — which I could be persuaded is also a mythical fantasy land.
There is a great tradition of free thought in the…
razib | October 13, 2008Photo credit: AP
In light of last week's posts about why human evolution continues, I think it is critical to make concrete the reality of reproductive variance. It seems highly likely now that Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant again. This might be a moot point if she has an abortion, though now that the word is out the public relations fall out might reduce the likelihood of that choice. The behaviors and outcomes of the lives of the Spears sisters are in the public spotlight, so let's leverage this into an illustration of evolutionary theory. Last year I wrote Jamie Lynn Spears: it runs in…
evolvingthoughts | October 12, 2008
As I recall it, Australian history was deadly dull. Most of it could have been taught in a single half-year, with time to cover the second world war to spare. That's what happens when a very few individuals live on a continent for (at that time) less than two centuries, most of which is tied up with much larger colonial and imperial matters.
But nascent cultures and countries have to establish themselves, and the prevailing nationalisms of the past 50 years in Australia have meant that school students were force fed this material over and over. I always wanted to know about Europe and…
oracknows | October 11, 2008NOTE: This post, which is related to a discussion of Dr. Paul Offit's Book Autism's False Prophets, originally appeared over at The ScienceBlogs Book Club. However, now that the book club for this particular book has concluded, I am free to repost it here for those who may not have seen it and to archive it as one of my own posts. Besides, I know the antivaxers are more likely to see it here...
One of the major points made by Dr. Offit in Autism's False Prophets is how badly the media deals with scientific issues and stories in which science is a major component. Indeed, he devotes two full…
choofnagle | October 10, 2008Gautam Naik covers an interesting development in Switzerland. Scientists there must now justify the ethics of genetic research on plants:
Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. He eventually got the green light.
The rule, based on a constitutional…
palmd | October 9, 2008This may ruffle a few feathers, but I've decided to cross-post this one. --PalMD
As a physician, I have a lot of politically conservative colleagues. Much of this stems from our experience with the government. The influence of Medicare helps set prices, which we are not at liberty to change, and affects how we practice. On the other hand, Medicare is usually pretty good at paying its bills---except when it doesn't. If our costs go up, say in increased rent, we can't raise our prices. And if we get together with a group of doctors to try to negotiate fees, it can be considered collusion…
sb admin | October 9, 2008As a physician, I have a lot of politically conservative colleagues. Much of this stems from our experience with the government. The influence of Medicare helps set prices, which we are not at liberty to change, and affects how we practice. On the other hand, Medicare is usually pretty good at paying its bills---except when it doesn't. If our costs go up, say in increased rent, we can't raise our prices. And if we get together with a group of doctors to try to negotiate fees, it can be considered collusion, and as such, illegal. So we're in a bind.
On the other hand, the current…
tetrapodzoology | October 8, 2008
It is unfortunate that I just do not have the time to do any 'proper' blog writing at the moment. Winge winge winge. So I'm going to do a bad thing, but something that I've been advised to do, and something that lots of other people do anyway: I'm going to start re-publishing old Tet Zoo articles from ver 1. We'll call this 'From the archives'. If you're a long-time reader then, sorry, you're going to be seeing old stuff that you've seen before. But if you're a new "I've only known about Tet Zoo since it's been on ScienceBlogs" reader, well - ta da! The article here is the very first full-…
razib | October 8, 2008The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality:
We examine empirical evidence for religious prosociality, the hypothesis that religions facilitate costly behaviors that benefit other people. Although sociological surveys reveal an association between self-reports of religiosity and prosociality, experiments measuring religiosity and actual prosocial behavior suggest that this association emerges primarily in contexts where reputational concerns are heightened. Experimentally induced religious thoughts reduce rates of cheating and increase altruistic behavior among anonymous strangers.…
sb admin | October 8, 2008Nevada's OSHA has found that the death of a carpenter was caused by the contractor's pressuring employees to put construction speed before safety. Lyndal Bates, 49, was working at the construction site of a new casino in the Las Vegas strip last June when he mistakenly attached his safety harness to a piece of scaffolding that he was tearing down. Nevada OSHA has cited the contractor, Marnell Corrao Associations, with 5 violations related to the incident, for a total of $11,000. Marnell, not surprisingly, is appealing the ruling. The Las Vegas Sun has more on the dangers facing…
clock | October 8, 2008Atomic-resolution Views Suggest Function Of Enzyme That Regulates Light-detecting Signals In Eye:
An atomic-resolution view of an enzyme found only in the eye has given researchers at the University of Washington (UW) clues about how this enzyme, essential to vision, is activated. The enzyme, phosphodiesterase 6 (PDE6), is central to the way light entering the retina is converted into a cascade of signals to the brain.
Green Fluorescent Protein Pioneers Share 2008 Nobel Prize In Chemistry:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008 jointly to Osamu…
jstemwedel | October 7, 2008Let's wrap up our discussion on the Martinson et al. paper, "Scientists' Perceptions of Organizational Justice and Self-Reported Misbehaviors". [1] You'll recall that the research in this paper examined three hypotheses about academic scientists:
Hypothesis 1: The greater the perceived distributive injustice in science, the greater the likelihood of a scientist engaging in misbehavior. (51)
Hypothesis 2: The greater the perceived procedural injustice in science, the greater the likelihood of a scientist engaging in misbehavior. (52)
Hypothesis 3: Perceptions of injustice are more…
razib | October 6, 2008Updated: Follow up post End Update
I've already the covered Steven-Jones-evolution-is-ending story at my other weblog. I notice that John Wilkins has also objected to Jones' exaggerations. When I initially read the quotes from Jones in The Times I was alarmed, but wondered if his position was being taken out of context or misinterpreted. I emailed a prominent evolutionary biologist who I suspected would know Jones well enough to clarify this issue. My correspondent responded that Jones really does believe this, and he finds Jones' ideas as ludicrous as I do (adding for good measure he doesn'…
oracknows | October 6, 2008Sometimes I have to look for blog ideas, trolling through various alternative medicine sites, medical news sites, or science news feeds or my medical and science journals. Sometimes ideas fall on me seemingly out of the blue. This is one of the latter situations. This time around, as I do twice a month I was perusing the very latest issue of Cancer Research, hot off the presses October 1. As I did so, it didn't take me long to come across an article from the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia entitled Vitamin C Antagonizes the…
clock | October 5, 2008
Originally written on September 1, 2006, re-posted today to raise more dust ;-)
There has been a lot of commentary online about the Inside Higher Ed article about an UCLA primate researcher who quit his research due to being terrorised by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the follow up article about the steps UCLA and other Universities are taking to ensure the safety of their faculty and staff:
The announcement by Abrams follows an upswing in activities in which UCLA professors who work with animals have been targets. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a…
edyong | October 5, 2008
We like to think that we are masters of our own fates. The thought that others might be instead controlling our actions makes us uneasy. We rail against nanny states, we react badly to media hype and we are appalled at the idea of brainwashing. But words and images are not the only things that can affect our brains and thoughts. Other animals - parasites - can do this too. According to research by Kevin Lafferty from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, could be influencing human culture across the globe.
Toxoplasma gondii is a single-…
jstemwedel | October 3, 2008
Americans for Medical Progress has produced a new DVD titled Veterinarians - Speaking for Research. (You can get your own free copy at the Americans for Medical Progress website.)
You might consider this DVD a follow-up of their previous DVD, Physicians - Speaking for Research (reviewed here). However, the two are pretty different, perhaps suggesting some differences not only in the intended audiences for the DVDs (veterinarians vs. physicians) but also in the concerns of the segments of the public each set of professionals is likely to encounter.
In this post, I'll first discuss…
sheril | October 3, 2008Today we're both off to The Salk to participate in The Science Network's ongoing annual conversation known as Beyond Belief. This year's theme is 'Candles In The Dark':
Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark is the third in an annual series of conversations: an ongoing project to foster and promote the use of reason in formulating social policy. This year, we are asking participants to propose a Candle -- a potential solution to a problem that they have identified in their area of expertise or informed passion.
In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan wrote:
Science is more than a body of…
oracknows | October 2, 2008Note: The central idea for this post is the same as that of a post I did a few months ago. However, given some of the assertions and comments made by Dr. Offit in Autism's False Prophets, I thought they were worth discussing again, especially given how many readers are around who aren't regular readers of mine.
One of the major points made by Dr. Offit in Autism's False Prophets is how badly the media deals with scientific issues and stories in which science is a major component. Indeed, he devotes two full chapters, Science and the Media and Science and Society, to a lament that…
laelaps | October 2, 2008
Supposed human footprints from the "Old Red Sandstone" of Missouri. From Voices From the Rocks.
I mention these facts to show how easy it is for one to be led astray, when every possible phase of the subject is not carefully studied. Let us, therefore, attend strictly to detailing facts of observation, and they are sure to lead to a correct solution of all problems within the compass of the human mind. - Unknown author, from "Impressions of Human Feet in Sandstone," Proceedings of the Indiana Historical Society
Fossil footprint fraud isn't anything new. For nearly 200 years (if not longer…