Fake Banner
China Sells Western Progressives Solar Panels While Switching To Nuclear Power

China has quietly overtaken France to become the world's second-largest producer of nuclear energy. ...

If You Care About Earth Day, Stop Buying Organic, Fair Trade And Other Junk Stickers On Products

As Lenin's Birthday Earth Day approaches, all of media are pillaged by public relations flaks being...

If A Weedkiller Turned You Gay, We'd Like To Interview You

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer who leveraged a name that was essentially beatified by Democrats...

Study Says Gen X Is 'Biologically Aging' Faster Than Boomers

People are living better lives for longer than ever but an EXPLORATORY study using a computer simulation...

User picture.
picture for Tommaso Dorigopicture for picture for Fred Phillipspicture for Heidi Hendersonpicture for Hontas Farmerpicture for Ilias Tyrovolas
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 »

 Blogroll
Federal Wilderness Act And Environmentalists Prevent Endangered Trout Recovery

Federal Wilderness Act And Environmentalists Prevent Endangered Trout Recovery

Sep 13 2011 | comment(s)

One long-standing myth is that any law claiming to be good for the environment is actually good for the environment.   Anyone living along levees in the South who watched environmental lawsuits block improvements in the 1990s and then heard the Army Corps of Engineers criticized after Hurricane Katrina for not previously making improvements had to wonder why the media didn't cover one obvious source of blame for the entire region not being more resistant to floods.

No, instead we got treated to Sean Penn carrying a shotgun, apparently to mow down the zombies the media claimed were floating in New Orleans and everyone blamed Pres. George Bush because the tropical storm turned into a hurricane.
SpongeBob SquarePants Is Bad For Kids? I Believe The Truthiness!

SpongeBob SquarePants Is Bad For Kids? I Believe The Truthiness!

Sep 12 2011 | comment(s)

I don't like SpongeBob SquarePants.  I generally regard any parent who does like SpongeBob SquarePants with suspicion and derision; they probably watch "Real Housewives of Fresno" or whatever city that show is down to now.

So when I see an article claiming SpongeBob is bad for kids and I may have a reason to ban that porifera from the house, it has a certain truthiness to it and so I let my confirmation bias run free.
Collective Intention And 'The Power Of Thought' - A 9/11 Experiment

Collective Intention And 'The Power Of Thought' - A 9/11 Experiment

Sep 11 2011 | comment(s)

A group of people are joining together for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center to discover whether their 'collective intention' can bring peace to the world.

What does that even mean?  The 9/11 Intention Experiment is the latest of 23 Web-based experiments carried out by author Lynne McTaggart to try and test the power of thought to change the physical world.

Yes, you read that right - telekinesis. Or mind control.  I'm not sure.  She doesn't look like that lady in "V" but it sounds like kind of the same approach - make the world a better place by controlling what people do. Except in a nicer way, we hope.

Publish Or Perish - Is That Journal Peer-Reviewed?

Publish Or Perish - Is That Journal Peer-Reviewed?

Sep 10 2011 | comment(s)

Once upon a time, journals were horribly expensive to produce and to read.  Your research might only be read by 200 people but those 200 people knew the work was vetted by reviewers.   It had a quality standard.

Open access publishing is a blessing and a curse in some ways.   Some very popular journals are not peer-reviewed, they are instead looked over by an editor who may or may not be qualified to determined its technical validity - but since they are taking money from scientists to publish the article, rather than relying on subscriptions, the concern is that the researcher is now the customer rather than the science.
America - Still The Place To Be For Science

America - Still The Place To Be For Science

Sep 09 2011 | comment(s)

Despite the self-loathing of progressives in American science academia, America is a pretty good place to be, even after 15 years of onerous visa restrictions that have made it difficult to hire the best people and forces immigrants educated here to return home because they aren't allowed to work.

Well, legal immigrants anyway.  Illegal immigrants even get cheaper tuition in California.
Home Schooling Gets An A+ In Canada

Home Schooling Gets An A+ In Canada

Sep 09 2011 | comment(s)

Can professional teachers in a crowded classroom hobbled by arcane government policies teach kids well?   Probably, in most cases, but institutionalized education and their unions have gone to war against any changes to the status quo, even when the status quo is clearly broken.  The only acceptable change is more money.

Home schooling can do a great job, if it is structured and has a formal curriculum.  It may even be an advantage, according to a new study in Canada.