Unscientific America

If you are a regular reader of ScienceBlogs you will have already stumbled upon several reviews of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future. Janet Stemwedel of Ethnics & Science probably has the most thorough reviews, while P. Z. Myers' 'exchange' with the authors, Sheril Kirshenbaum & Chris Mooney, had the most 'spirit.' Chard Orzel of Uncertain Principles put up a short & sweet positive impression which covers the major points in Unscientific America very well, as well as the overall thrust of the book. Of course as Chad noted If you read Sheril…

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum have released a new book entitled, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. Mr Mooney and Ms Kirshenbaum also co-author the blog, The Intersection, a Discover Magazine online. I was fortunate to receive a review copy from the publisher but must admit, sheepishly, that the book has sat unread beside my home office desk because of other responsibilities. The advance paperwork says it is to be released officially on 20 July. So, my plan is to get to it this weekend and get some magnitude of a review written. During my relative…

Greg Laden, trying to toss a line between the "New Atheists" and 'Accommodationists" who are currently squabbling about a dust-up featuring PZ Myers v Chris Mooney & Sheril Kirshenbaum (who apparently rough Myers up a bit in their book Unscientific America), writes: Now, I just want to make this point: I learned early on (when I was still an altar boy) that where religion and life conflict -- where the religion was not doing a good job at explaining the bits and pieces of life that were not making sense -- it was OK to drop the details of the religion part and chalk it up to mystery. I'…

Two emigrants from ScienceBlogs to Discover Blogs, Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer, are on Bloggingheads.tv. The focus is the new book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, coauthored by Chris & Sheril Kirshenbaum. A comment from below seems appropriate: I remember an interesting (if apocryphal statistic) about radiation levels in the UK - you could get a higher radiation dose from living in the relatively undeveloped and unspoilt Cornwall than from living next to Sellafield (the UK's nuclear processing plant, aka Windscale) simply because the granite rocks…

Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum 209 pages,$24 (US) Basic Books, I wish I'd written this book. Its subject matter is exactly the thing that gets me going. The tension between science and irrationality was the original inspiration for this blog. There are a few elements that I would have approached differently, of course<> But my quibbles are minor and none detract from the the book's primary strength: solid, concise writing that wastes no ink or paper (just 132 pages, not counting endnotes) getting to the heart…

Today, we move to our new home at Discover Blogs: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection While we have immensely enjoyed being a part of Scienceblogs, we've decided together that it is time to move on. Our tremendous thanks go out to Seed for hosting The Intersection since 2006 where we've been honored to share the network with such an esteemed community of bloggers--many of whom have become good friends. While we're excited to join Carl, Phil, and Sean, it is a bittersweet decision as we will miss the Sb 'family' tremendously. Of course, we will never be far--the blogosphere has no…

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 Green Doomsayers" column, and also making a broader point about why we need standards in science-centered journalism and commentary. I'm extremely heartened that the Post ran the piece, and has at least allowed me to correct Will--or, to "debate" him. Without further ado, the oped begins like this…

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 have made the error. I certainly don't mind him pointing that out; but when you also get something like this--"I've bitched and complained about the sorry state of popular science writing for years. Here's another textbook example..."--I get uppity. The sorry state of popular science writing is not a…

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 America comes out, we'll both be traveling up and down the country (mostly the coasts, as usual): Lynchburg, VA Randolph College Annual Thayer Lecture: "The War on Science is Over. Now What?" Monday, March 16 7:30 PM-8:30 PM The Wimberly Recital Hall, Presser Hall Web site Jupiter, FL Scripps Howard…

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 suggest that anyone interested should get a copy of Snow's amazing little 1959 lecture. This is the edition that I own, and I highly recommend it. Why is C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" argument so influential and cited? Ironically, it has in part to do with the conflict that resulted after F.R. Leavis…

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: Science journalists will make far less mistakes if they aren't writing!

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 University lamenting the gap between scientists and humanists, or as he called them then, "literary intellectuals," and suggesting it was a grave threat to policymaking and to the future. We believe this is still a deeply important and resonant argument, and so we got in touch with the New York Academy of…

My post last week about the death knell of science journalism prompted some incredible responses. Here's Larry Moran, putting it more bluntly than I expected, and enunciating an opinion we'd better hope does not prevail: Seriously, most of what passes for science journalism is so bad we will be better of without it. Maybe the general public would have been more interested in science if science journalists hadn't been writing so much hype about "breakthroughs" for the past twenty years. Maybe the public would have been more interested in science if so-called "science" journalists hadn't been…

Over at Science Progress, I've been involved in putting together not one but two items timed for Darwin Day. The first is an op-ed coauthored with my prof here at Princeton, D. Graham Burnett, who teaches Darwin. We argue for historical nuance, which leads one to reject the idea that Darwin should be considered an icon of conflict between science and religion. In fact, we call that idea "a hackneyed story, lacking in historical nuance and ultimately running counter to the project of drawing helpful lessons from the life of one of history's greatest scientists." A brief excerpt: ...Science-…

Thanks for Eric Roston for being tech savvy enough to capture this.

My latest Science Progress column is up: It makes the case that Stephen Colbert is the heir to Johnny Carson in terms of talk show promotion of science. It also includes various lame and stupid talking points that I made up and didn't use on the show, such as the following hypothetical Q&A responses: Didn't scientists start the "war" in the first place? Didn't they commit acts of aggression? Yes, if you mean by learning things. Why should I care about science? Because America is really good at it--much better than France. Is there really a "war" on science? Where are the bodies? Well,…

Here it is: */ The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Obama's New Science Policy - Chris Mooney Colbert Report Full EpisodesColbert Report Tickets Paul McCartney AppearanceMore Funny Videos I'll have more to say about the whole experience in my next column....thanks to everyone who wrote in with positive words about the segment.

You can watch it here. Tons of funny stuff in Colbert's segment on science, which starts roughly at 6:15 and runs to roughly 10:45. I was on for about three minutes, and was instructed: "No monkey business. No evolution." Of course, even though Colbert plays a rightwinger who thinks with his gut rather than his head and doesn't trust book learning, the truth is that his show features a ton of science content and, indeed, is doing vastly more than most other parts of the media to improve the role of science in our culture. I was thrilled to be on.

In two days, my favorite co-blogger will be appearing on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to discuss the 'war on science' and how the Obama administration can fix it. With the nation abuzz over the stimulus package, melting ice shelves, and new cabinet appointments, it's a timely subject, no? Chris has already shared some ideas at Slate.com and during his recent Bloggingheads diavlog with Carl Zimmer.  It's also a topic and we explore comprehensively in Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. So with a lot more to come, tune in Monday night!

As we've announced, our new book due out this Spring will be entitled Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. We're in the final stages of editing the manuscript and will be able to say more about its content very soon, but for now, we're excited that we can finally show you the cover...