Category Archives: Science

Continental Drift and Popular Science

We redefined marriage, gender, and lunch. Then we repealed evolution by making it illegal for a species to go extinct. The same people who deride fundamentalist extremists as being anti-science when they deny the validity of the theory of evolution equally deny it when they assume they are bigger than nature. Now we are well about to repeal…


Read the full entry

John Peter Zenger Rots in Hell

The great great great great,etc, grand nephew of Vincenzo Maculani, Vincenzo Maculani XVI, Girolamo Savonarola professor of climate science at George Wallace University appeared before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology yesterday. He explained to the committee why the RICO statutes should be used to prosecute those who argue against the settled science of climate…


Read the full entry

Mammography Screening in Switzerland

The May 22, 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has a perspective piece that is even more instructive than its authors and the journal’s editors realized: ‘Abolishing Mammography Screening Programs? A View from the Swiss Medical Board’. It describes the process that the Swiss used to evaluate the scientific foundation for the…


Read the full entry

Quotation of the Day

The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits. Albert Einstein


Read the full entry

On Climate

July of this year was the hottest July in US history. This  heat, as usual, was attributed by some to man-made global warming. Interestingly, this July was substantially cooler than last July in Lubbock where I live. Go here for all the data. What does this prove? Nothing other than selectively choosing data can give you almost any result…


Read the full entry

The First Artificial Cell?

Last month the news media heralded the creation in the lab of the first artificial cell. This work was a great achievement, but it wasn’t the creation of an artificial cell. What was done at the J Craig Venter Institute was creation of an artificial bacterial  chromosome that was successfully transferred into a bacterium where…


Read the full entry

Sea Levels 81,000 Years Ago

Climate scientists have used sea levels past and present to help predict those of the future. Temperature affects land ice; increased land ice will lower sea levels while the melting of this ice will raise these levels. Thus increased sea levels (secondary to ice melting) reflect a warmer global temperature. The scientific debate about what…


Read the full entry

Skeptical Science

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. Richard Feynman When I sit on a tropical beach I like to read a fat book. Therefore, while recently on vacation, I started a big book on the history of Western science. It’s a good popular account of…


Read the full entry

Categories

twitter facebook rss