Posted inCulture
July 4th: It’s Summer And It’s Hot
[To be sung to the obvious tune] I have a sad story to tell you It might upset you a bit Last night I walked on the sidewalk And it…
Posted inPhilosophy
Heartland Institute Accomplishes Act To Self Once Thought Physically Impossible
At the risk of losing the argument before it begins, let me ask you two questions. Number One: What do Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse-tung, serial killer and eater Jeffrey Dahmer,…
Posted inCulture Statistics
Why Republicans Deny Science—And Reality: Request For Help
Update The link to Sam Harris's abysmal study are now provided. That is the (modified) subtitle of the sanctimoniously self-satisfied Chris Mooney's new book, "The Republican Brain: The Science of…
Posted inCulture Philosophy
Tennessee Votes To Teach Uncertainty In Science. Result?
What do you think of this? Tennessee has enacted a law (HB 0368-SB 0893) which states (emphasis mine): This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary…
Posted inCulture Statistics
Do Conservatives Distrust Science More Than Liberals?
Science versus Scientism That, anyway, is the latest question making the rounds in the science wars. The simplistic answer, the one de rigueur on campuses and newsrooms, is "Yes." Why,…
Posted inStatistics
Climate Denial And Slavery
A common trope among academic philosophers, academic sociologists and the like---people without training in physics, that is---is to compare skepticism of the most shocking climate prognostications with belief in, and…
Posted inStatistics
Heartlandgate Versus Climategate
There are some key differences between Climategate 1.0 and 2.0, where emails from scientists and their hangers on were leaked, and Heartlandgate (am I the first to use this appallingly…
Posted inStatistics
Bad Astronomer Does Bad Statistics: That Wall Street Journal Editorial
Remember when I said how you shouldn't draw straight lines in time series and then speak of the line as if the line was the data itself? About how the…
