The Wacky Wonderful World Of Alicia Silverstone Science
I can be lazy. I was famous for it as a child. I didn't bother to walk, I didn't bother to talk. When I got older, if I had to do a chore, I found a way to be a screw-up and break something. I had unlimited time for D&D and art and sports, though, and I did well enough in school to get a scholarship to college. Because those things weren't work.If only I had Alicia Silverstone as a mom, who knows how much more brain power I could have devoted to higher pursuits? Because Silverstone has figured out how to optimize everything.
Raw Milk Is Not A Libertarian Issue – And Republicans Should Not Make It A GOP One
In American politics there is a comfortable détente about which science craziness to allow under the big tents - Republicans are okay if their members won't accept evidence of climate science or evolution while Democrats are fine if their voters don't accept the science behind food, energy and medicine.Kepler – Young Earth Creationist
In the latest episode of Cosmos we got some history regarding how science has tried to converge on the age of the Earth. With that, we also got another jab at religion. Why use yet another religious contrast from hundreds of years ago to show the awesome power of science now? Is there so little actual imagination in their Ship Of The Imagination?(1)Just like with the age of the Earth, it's hard to know for sure, we only know there is a range of choices and can narrow it down as we get more data.
Despite Guns, We Are Not More Violent Than Our Ancestors
If some drug-addled sociopath shoots up a movie theater or an elementary school, there is lots of speculation about the cause. In frustration and helplessness, people search for a magic bullet - things they can ban - to keep it from ever happening again.In European countries, at least the ones where guns are banned, and in some parts of America, guns are that magic bullet.
Actual statistics don't bear out that guns are the safety issue. Scotland, England and Wales lead the civilized world in violent crime, they just have fewer murders using guns, and people are unable to protect themselves so fewer criminals get shot. Guns are banned in Italy but it would be laughable to say there is no gun violence there.
There Are Two Reasons You Got Unfriended On Facebook
20 years ago, your parents knew there were two things you did not discuss with dinner guests. Your grandparents knew it, your great-grandparents knew it. 2,000 years ago people knew it.
In 2014, we are so much smarter we no longer know it.
Maybe some surveys will help. And so to help us out, two papers address the most pressing topic in popular culture - how people feel about being un-friended on Facebook. Ironically, they found this out by surveying people on Twitter.
The Supreme Court Undermines Racial Preferences For College Admissions
In Science Left Behind I wrote a segment about a national discrimination issue that was eroding not only science, but the very notion of fairness in our culture.No, it wasn't the lack of Republicans in faculty jobs at universities. It was instead that, for decades, schools had been using skin color to routinely impede the chances for the best students to get admitted. They were using racial profiling to skew who got to attend.
This wasn't 1950s Alabama, it was - and is - mainstream academia from the 1970s on.
For Earth Day, Do Your Part: Fly Somewhere To Talk About Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Apparently the EPA has not yet discovered how to do a video conference.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that Administrator Gina McCarthy will promote President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution, slow the effects of climate change and leave a cleaner environment for future generations by doing an Earth Week Tour, flying around to talk about how we should cut emissions.
She likes to fly. When she is not flying around to save all of us from emissions, she is commuting to Washington, D.C. weekly from her home in Boston.
Delaying Keystone XL Indefinitely Sets A Bad Precedent For Scientization Of Politics
A decade ago, science academic was worked into a holy war by the belief that President Bush hated science. What were the reasons? They are hard to remember now. He federally funded human embryonic stem cell research for the first time - but he limited it to existing lines. That was a big one, for people who were never voting for a Republican anyway.It was a more gullible time. Political activists had no trouble at all spreading the belief that it was a "ban", something that would be impossible today, because we learned how to read and use Google since then.
10 years later, White House acceptance of science has not only not improved, it is worse than ever, and no one outside the kookiest fringes is blaming Republicans for it.
Natural Schmatural, We Want To Know What Our Food Doesn’t Have In It
Sid Salter, director of public affairs at Mississippi State University, writes in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that labels have gone too far.This Earth Day, Thank A Chemist
Earth Day is fast approaching and, let's face it, if you celebrate Earth Day you probably hate science. And you really hate chemists.
But there has never been a reason for it, it is simply modern chemophobia. If you ask an environmentalist if they should use a chemical solvent or baking soda to clean, they will say baking soda - but baking soda is a toxic synthetic chemical (NaHCO3) unless it is used properly, where it is harmless and biodegradable.