Policy
drorzel | March 16, 2009EurekAlert offered a press release from the American Physical Society over the weekend that may indicate that someone in the press office has won a round of drinks:
The American Physical Society (APS) is elated that the Senate has approved the FYO9 Omnibus Bill, which will allow scientists to continue cutting-edge research that will lead to innovation, job creation and economic growth for the United States.
"Elated" is not a word I expect to see in a press release. I suspect. Somebody in the press office may just have won a bet.
drorzel | March 3, 2009Back before things went pear-shaped this weekend, Jonathan Zasloff had a good post about why "clean coal" is important:
I think it's terrific that the Coen Brothers are making funny, effective ads against relying on "clean coal" as part of the US energy program. But I worry that the clean energy community is really missing the boat here.
Clean coal research and development is absolutely crucial in fighting climate change not for us, but for India and China. India has the fourth largest reserves of coal in the world -- most of it very dirty, with high ash content. It currently imports 70%…
drorzel | February 27, 2009Via email, Mike Steeves points me to an Ars Technica article about a Thomson Reuters report on the "decline in American science":
The US is beginning to lose its scientific dominance. That's
the message from Thomson Reuters, the people behind EndNote and impact factors.
According to a report in their publication ScienceWatch, the US' science
output is in a shallow decline at the same time that Asia is in the ascendancy.
If it sounds like you've heard that before, you've been
paying attention. Back in 2006 the National Science Foundation's biennial
Science and Engineering Indicators report…
drorzel | January 29, 2009As noted in the previous post, I'm supposed to be moderating a panel at Boskone the weekend after next, with the title:
Global Warming: Facts and Myths, (and all that jazz)
This is not my usual line, but then, I don't have to provide expert commentary, I just need to steer the discussion. Still, it would be good to have some idea where to steer it, so I will throw this out to the larger ScienceBlogs community:
What should I make sure to talk about in a panel on global warming facts and myths?
Of course, there are some additional constraints:
1) I'm looking for general discussion topics, not…
drorzel | January 28, 2009The American Physical Society has sent out another of its email alerts encouraging people to write to Congress in support of more funding for science. Actually, they're urging people to send two messages: a thank-you to Speaker Pelosi for the generous science funding in the House stimulus bill, and a letter to your Senators asking for more funding.
The explanation from the message:
As you may be aware, the U.S. Congress is currently formulating a
stimulus package to help spur the recovery of our economy. In
addition to the tax cuts in the draft packages being discussed,
the packages include…
drorzel | January 18, 2009Looking for a way to kill some time on a Sunday morning? You could do worse than yesterday's bloggingheads.tv Science Saturday conversation between Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer:
It's a wide-ranging conversation, covering what to expect from the Obama administration, artifical life, the possibility of life on Mars, Sanjay Gupta, and the future of science in the media. It's like a Sunday-morning talk show, only with smart people.
drorzel | January 14, 2009A few years ago, the after-dinner speaker at the DAMOP conference banquet was Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger. As I wrote at the time, I think it's safe to say that he didn't make a positive impression on the audience. It also sparked a rather lively discussion afterwards, that some people speculated was the reason for the veiled threats we got the next year.
The Corporate Masters have just published an exclusive post-election interview with Marburger. I read it with some interest, mostly to see if it would change my impression of him.
I have to say, it didn't. Not only does he…
drorzel | December 19, 2008...to answer a two-minute web survey asking about what scientific issues are most important to you. The blurb announcing it is:
What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you'd like to learn more about. They invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can find that survey here.
In the 2-minute survey you'll be presented with a list of topics and asked to select the five that matter most to you. At the end, you can see how your…
drorzel | November 7, 2008Looking over my scheduled posts for today, I see that there isn't anything stridently political. Not wanting to shock the systems of readers still coming down off the election, let me add my voice to the chorus of ScienceBloggers expressing concern over the idea of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
This is not a knock on his qualifications, or him as a person. As I understand it, he has done great work, and he spoke here a few years ago, and was very generous with his time considering he had a cold that made him sound like a duck.
The problem is, his…
drorzel | October 30, 2008Via Facebook, of all things, a message reporting a conversation with Representative Bill Foster (D-Fermilab), talking about the best ways to encourage Congress to take science seriously. First, he addressed what's been done in the past:
On the effectiveness of the APS letter-writing campaign:
*Recently I sent my chief of staff to a meeting of about 70 House chiefs of staff. He asked, how many of them were aware of the APS letter-writing campaign. Only two others were aware of it.
*These campaigns are a form of spam, and there are lots of groups involved in them. For many small-group issues…
drorzel | October 29, 2008Steinn asks a provocative question:
has science blogging done any good?
I can think of science policy issues where blogging has made a contribution, and the general spread of information and communication done by blogs has probably had some impact, but has any actual science been directly impacted by blogs, or discussion on blogs? I am hard pressed to think of concrete examples.
I think this is a badly framed question. That is, I think it's a mistake to define "good" for science to exclude science policy questions and the general spread of information. It's a very common mistake, mind, and…
drorzel | October 21, 2008Chris Mooney will be visiting Union tomorrow (I'm picking him up at the airport in a couple of hours). He'll be speaking to a couple of classes and then giving a presentation about science and politics in the evening.
If you have any questions that you've been dying to ask Chris, and haven't been able to get him to address on his blog, leave them in the comments. If they're reasonable, I'll see if I can get answers during one or another of tomorrow's events.
drorzel | September 30, 2008Via FriendFeed, I came across an article by Deepak Singh on attention and science, which spins off a long rant by Kevin Kelly on the idea that Where ever attention flows, money will follow. Deepak writes:
Attention can be driven by many mechanisms, marketing being the most effective one. The key is gaining sufficient mindshare, which is often accompanies by a flow of capital. In science, the money follows topics of research that have mindshare. Similarly people fund companies in areas that generate mindshare for whatever reason.
The question I often ask myself, both from my time as a marketer…
drorzel | September 29, 2008In the comments to last week's science majors follow-up post, commenter Jim G calls me out:
OK, I agree with that 100%, and I'm sure everyone who reads this post has observed the phenomena you mention dozens of times or more. But I wonder whether you have a proposal, or if you're just pointing out the problem. With no snarkiness intended, to change this we need something a bit more concrete than "it's the fault of the kids/parents/media/poverty," or "someone needs to spend more money" to fix it.
Really, I'm curious. I don't want to clutter up your blog with my own theories; but this is your…
drorzel | September 28, 2008There's an interesting exchange over at the Reality-Based Community around the topic of "earmarks" for science, like the grizzly bear DNA study McCain keeps mocking. Michael O'Hare argues that science should not be funded by earmarks:
Almost any piece of scientific research, especially in biology, that isn't called "Cure cancer!" is liable to the kind of ignorant ridicule lobbed at these. Sure, some research is deeply silly and some is not worth doing. But that non-specialists can make fun of something from its title means nothing, and these japes indicate only the smug ignorance of the…
drorzel | September 25, 2008In email this morning from the American Physical Society, a call for a financial bailout:
Congress has not passed any FY 2009 appropriations bills and is now
finalizing a Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep the government
operating when the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2008. The
House is expected to consider the bill on Thursday or Friday of this
week. The CR, according to the latest information, will remain in
effect until March 6, 2009 and would keep all federal programs
operating at FY 2008 levels, except those granted waivers. At this
time, science is not on the waiver…
drorzel | September 18, 2008There's an article in yesterday's Inside Higher Ed about the supply of scientists and engineers, arguing that there is not, in fact, a shortage:
Michael S. Teitelbaum, a demographer at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, looked at what he called five "mysteries" of the STEM work force issue. For example, why do employers claim a shortage of qualified STEM graduates while prospects for Ph.D.s remain "poor"? Why do retention and completion rates for STEM fields remain low compared with students' aspirations? Why is there a "serious" funding crisis at the National Institutes of Health after its…
drorzel | September 16, 2008(Over the course of this week, I'm going to post a handful of things about talks that struck me as particularly interesting at last week's conference. The order will be chosen based on how much time I think I will have to write them up, given SteelyKid's demands for attention...)
On Thursday, the Science in the 21st Century conference featured a lawyer. Well, a law professor, anyway-- Beth Noveck of the NYU Law School gave a talk on Science in Government 2.0 (FriendFeed microblogging). This wasn't as odd as you might think at a Web 2.0 kind of meeting, because she talked about her involvement…
drorzel | September 15, 2008As you might have guessed from yesterday's tease, the folks at ScienceDebate 2008 have now managed to get answers from the McCain campaign (to go with Obama's froma few weeks ago). Which means that while you may never see them answering science questions on a stage together, you can put them head-to-head on the Web, and see which you like better.
Of course, the key question regarding McCain's answers is "How long does it take him to mention elements of his biography?" The answer: There are 186 words before you get to:
I am uniquely qualified to lead our nation during this technological…
drorzel | August 31, 2008As you have no doubt seen by now, if you read any of the other blogs on ScienceBlogs, the Science Debate 2008 group has gotten Barack Obama to answer their 14 questions on science issues. John McCain has apparently promised answers at some point in the future.
The answers are, well, pretty much what you would expect. For example:
What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?
Ensuring that the U.S. continues to lead the world in science and technology will be a central priority for my administration. Our talent for innovation is still the envy…