Harry's Place

News of the death of F. Sherwood Rowland, the scientist who first warned that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in spray cans and air conditioners were destroying the earth’s protective ozone layer, has got me thinking again about the recent and disturbing politicization of science.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was possible for scientists to report that [...]

University of Maryland physics professor Bob Park writes:
Two years ago, e-mail files of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were hacked and selectively posted on the web. Rupert Murdoch newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, expressed shock at the “criminal conspiracy” and “scientific blacklisting.” The “gate” suffix was added to invite [...]

As I understand the Louisiana Science Education Act, no teacher in the state would be forced to do this.
On the other hand, no teacher could be disciplined or fired for doing it.
As I reported in April, a similar bill has received overwhelming support in the Tennessee legislature.

I suppose Bill McKibben would fit some people’s definition of an “environmentalist wacko.”
And he does have a sometimes-annoying tendency to hector– on display in this op-ed piece in The Washington Post in the wake of the tornado Sunday that devastated large parts of Joplin, Missouri, and left more than 120 dead.

I think environmentalists do [...]

Simply print, clip and put in your wallet. But read the fine print first.
–Israel developed a drug that delays Alzheimer’s and helps Parkinson’s patients.
–Two out of three common Multiple Sclerosis drug treatments were developed in Israel.
–Israel developed a revolutionary pill for diagnosing diseases of the digestive system.
–Israel developed a device for identifying unwanted substances in [...]

At his What’s New website, University of Maryland physicist Bob Park writes:
I was still recovering from a serious overdose of royals when I learned that the Prince of Wales was in Washington, DC this week to promote sustainable farming. Back in the UK, the Daily Mail charged Prince Charles with secretly lobbying ministers for homeopathic [...]

By Andrew Murphy
The pugnacious Sam Harris has written a rather extraordinary book, The Moral Landscape which tries its best to lay the foundation for a moral and ethical 21st century without the need of religion or religious based ethics. Harris is certainly not the first nor the last to try and take on such an [...]

Eighty-six years after the famous Scopes trial, Tennessee lawmakers are still trying to ensure that the state’s public school students are not brainwashed by the Theory of Evolution.
John Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was arrested in 1925 and tried on charges of violating what was then a state law against the teaching [...]

Just a few weeks before the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, Republicans in the US House of Representatives voted, with exquisite timing, to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from programs that deal directly with responding to potential nuclear threats and disasters.
The National Journal reported:
With 135 total nuclear reactors in [...]

From What’s New, the website of University of Maryland physics professor Bob Park

The Science and Technology Committee of the UK Parliament released a report urging the government to withdraw funding and licensing of homeopathy. It is unlikely to happen; even the Queen has her own personal homeopathist. This year is the 200th anniversary of Samuel [...]