RIP to Professor Murray Gell-Mann, who passed away last week and was famed (including a Nobel prize) for quark theory. I never met him, but if you spent time at Caltech you probably did. He was not like Einstein, I am told, he was approachable if you were a young scientist, but you had to know what you were talking about. A few years ago I taught a class there, invited by my friend the...
read moreThe Laura and John Arnold Foundation was created by a hedge fund magnate to devote some of their Wall Street wealth to education reform, public pension reform, criminal justice reform, dietary policy, and improving reproducibility in science. Those are all positive things, so why last year did they also give money to one of those most corrupt, hate-filled, lying, mercenary organizations in...
read moreIf you are in a hurry, I will save you some time. Do not walk, fly at 20,000 MPH to your nearest theater or Fandango or however you get IMAX tickets and see "Apollo 11."I want to be the first to congratulate Todd Douglas Miller on his 2020 Academy Award, because unless someone pumps out a documentary about a minority transgender person with their heart on the outside who escapes North Korea and...
read moreIn 2011 I wrote a book with Dr. Alex Berezow of RealClearScience in which we noted the common cause among the anti-vaccine, anti-energy, and anti-GMO communities. They shared common beliefs about distrust of science and I made a challenge; I said if I drew a radius around a Whole Foods, I could predict with high accuracy how those people with those beliefs voted.read...
read moreAnti-science activists are having a field day on social media, happy that a rather poorly designed study can let them claim that human sperm is being damaged by modern pesticides, even though the study found nothing of the kind. read...
read moreOrganic Consumers Association has opened a new front in their culture war against science - now they say organic food itself is too science-y.Don't they represent organic farmers? No. Unlike Organic Trade Association, the mainstream trade group created to help organic corporations gain market share, Organic Consumers Association is a fringe group that was created to tear down science they oppose...
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