Politics
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Belief vs. Understanding
From a fine dissection of the (religious) right’s view of evolution over at Science And Politics: I do not believe in evolution. It is not something you believe in or not: it is something you understand or not…. Evolutionary biology is sitting on such large mountains of strong evidence collected over the past 150 years…
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There is power in a Union?
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My great-grandfather moved to the US from Russia in the years before the First World War, in part forced out due to his trade union activities. Although working at a University isn’t exactly the equivalent of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, or my great-grandfather’s construction sites in New York City, I was pleased to find out…
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Followups
Hunter Thompson: Rich Cohen’s Gonzo Nights recounts Thompson’s sad end, subsumed in the persona he created through drinking, drugs — and his words. For Women in Sciences, Slow Progress in Academia: Women applying for a postdoctoral fellowship had to be 2.5 times as productive to receive the same competence score as the average male applicant….…
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The Way We Live Now
In 1987, at the height of the Reagan era, LA’s greatest punk (?) band, X, released what even then we knew would be their swan song, See How We Are. X were never ashamed of the poetry in their rock’n’roll, and in the title track they use it to remind us that the political is…
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Fear, Loathing, Politics
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I pulled out my dog-eared early-80s paperbacks of the now-late Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Great Shark Hunt just before watching my downloaded versions of The West Wing (the current season showing in the US, not three seasons behind like here). Hunter Thompson was a politics junky (and memorably…
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Kyoto, day 1
Today, the Kyoto protocol on Climate Change comes into effect. It’s a start, albeit a meager one. As George Monbiot points out in the Guardian No one believes that this treaty alone – which commits 30 developed nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 4.8% – will solve the problem. It expires in 2012…
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Hubble redux (not)
Following up on my a previous posts about the future of the Hubble Space Telescope and on manned and unmanned space exploration: By now the web has discovered that the Bush administration has decided to remove funding for Hubble Space Telescope servicing (robotic and human) from the next budget. Of course, the purity of the…
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Discrimination or difference? Harvard Chief’s foot remains in mouth
From The New York Times: The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, who offended some women… [and men!] …at an academic conference last week by suggesting that innate differences in sex may explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers, stood by his comments yesterday but said he regretted if they were…
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Green Oxford turning sludgy grey?
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According to the BBC, Oxford University (where I’ve heretofore been proud to be a long-term part-time visitor in Astrophysics), presently the fourth largest consumer of green electricity in the UK is considering moving back to fossil fuels. More specifically, it’s hired `”energy-purchasing consultants” Epal’ (whom I can’t find anywhere on the web, strangely) to investigate…
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Evolution: still fact
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional: “An anonymous reader writes ‘MSNBC reports that a judge in Atlanta, GA has ruled that a sticker placed on all textbooks in Cobb County stating that ‘Evolution is a theory, not a fact,’ is unconstitutional, and ordered that all stickers be removed.’” (Via Slashdot.) Meanwhile, here in the UK, not…
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