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Environmentalists, What Are You Asking From Dedmoroz Lenin For Earth Day This Year?

Tomorrow is Earth Day. It is also Lenin's birthday. That's not coincidence. The leader of...

How Ancel Keys Went From MAHA Hero To MAHA Villain

If a lot of the food and health claims you read and hear today seem like things left over from...

Are Baseball Pitchers Faster Today?

On September 7, 1974, pitching for the California Angels, Nolan Ryan, known for his velocity, became...

Ground-Nesting Bee Populations Don't Get Publicity But They're Everywhere

Honeybees get attention in environmental fundraising campaigns because people don't understand...

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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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Anti-Science San Francisco

Anti-Science San Francisco

Oct 06 2011 | comment(s)

Is your cell phone a known carcinogen? Do cell phones give you cancer?  Well, the precautionary principle contends unless you can prove cell phones can't give you cancer, then they are a concern.  Fortunately, the precautionary principle isn't overused by everyone (though when it is, the politically like-minded dismiss it as policy disagreement and not being anti-science) but any time you have an anti-science hotbed, it will get trotted out.
Back To The Future II - Your Flying Hoverboard Arrives Four Years Early

Back To The Future II - Your Flying Hoverboard Arrives Four Years Early

Oct 05 2011 | comment(s)

Who says mathematics papers can't be practical?  Noah T. Jafferis, Howard A. Stone, and James C. Sturm of Princeton took a theoretical shot at a flying hoverboard and made it work - except it is a 4-inch conductive plastic sheet that “flies” using transverse traveling waves so don't get dreams of Marty McFly in "Back To The Future II" about it just yet, despite my title. A hoverboard using this current technology will need to be 50 feet wide to carry you.
Increased Science Literacy Correlated To Less Worry About Climate Change

Increased Science Literacy Correlated To Less Worry About Climate Change

Oct 05 2011 | comment(s)

It makes environmental activists crazy, in that 'believe scientists when science agrees with us but scientists are out to kill us when science doesn't agree' kind of way, but a large study of U.S. adults found that the more science they knew and the more independent they were, the less they were worried about climate change.
Teach Facts Or Teach Thinking? Why NCLB's Demise Could Hurt Science Classes

Teach Facts Or Teach Thinking? Why NCLB's Demise Could Hurt Science Classes

Oct 02 2011 | comment(s)

Being in media, it's easy to get inundated with convincing opposing data and so it's easy to understand why it can be confusing for the public who don't have hours each day to sift through it all. Over a decade ago, for example, people were concerned that American students tested poorly against students in Asia.  No Child Left Behind, which established education performance standards for states, therefore had terrific bipartisan support when it was instituted - it passed 384–45 in the House and 91-8 in the Senate.  Educators were that convincing in their concerns that students were losing ground worldwide.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu Gets White House Support - And Why That's Bad For Him

Energy Secretary Steven Chu Gets White House Support - And Why That's Bad For Him

Sep 30 2011 | comment(s)

After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, I had a few isolated concerns about his true science colors; he had issued creepy vaccine-autism statements, his transition team was stuffed with people who believed in anti-science UFO conspiracies, another suspect pick was tipped to run the EPA until his anti-vaccine quackery couldn't be hidden any more, and one of his picks thought girls couldn't do math. For a guy supposedly better for science his advisors were a concern.   John Holdren looked like a science pick, though he had a lot of Doomsday hysteria in his past so he was basically a question mark.
The Left Is More Anti-Science Than The Right Unless The Right Is More Anti-Science Than The Left

The Left Is More Anti-Science Than The Right Unless The Right Is More Anti-Science Than The Left

Sep 30 2011 | comment(s)

Question: Quick, what is the fastest way to make the term "false equivalence" appear?

Answer: Contend that whatever side of the political spectrum the person you are talking to is on is more anti-science than the other side.  Or even equal.

The Left is More Anti-Science than the Right