I enjoyed a drink one time with a fellow who was, even for science blogging, left of left. I won't name names because it doesn't matter, he is a talented writer and a good guy but I always feel like he loves politics more than science and his persistent belief that Republicans/conservatives/right wing neo-cons/Nazis/(insert your favorite term here) are anti-science and progressives are not seemed rather odd. But I have written about the
Democratic War On Science many times.
Can complex traits lost during evolution recur later? It was an academic argument but now it has some more data. Writing in Evolution, a study analyzes Gastrotheca guentheri , a tree frog with teeth in its lower jaw, separating if from every other frog.
Fantasy baseball as fans understand it today began in the 1980s but actual fantasy baseball, beyond kids trading baseball cards, began 50 years ago. Hal Rickman, an accountant in New York City, started finalizing work on something he had begun when he was much younger. It was Strat-O-Matic Baseball.
Rickman told USA Today's Mike James that as a young boy he rolled dice 5,000 times to make a table of probabilities and looked at baseball statistics in the newspaper to match probability to performance and see what would happen. In 1961 he started producing the game and later the year Roger Maris would eclipse the ghost of Babe Ruth for the single season home run record.
When it comes to pet positions, the more fundamentalist leftwing bloggers in science love to note how anti-science Republicans are, despite Pres. Bush doubling the NIH budget and increasing the NASA budget 15% after a decline of 5% during the 8 years Pres. Clinton was in office.
They have to be anti-science because, you know, they are Republicans. So if right wing people put the brakes on human embryonic stem cell research because, at the time the technology was really created in the late 1990s no one was sure about its implications, they are stupid and hate science. If left wing people continue to regard genetically modified organisms as a concern, that's just the precautionary principle.
In the 'gay sex is bad unless it's women' cultural milieu, a survey by a University of Texas at Austin psychologist determined that men are more than twice as likely to continue dating a girlfriend who has cheated on them with another woman than if she cheated with another man.
The survey used 700 college students so calibrate accordingly - men may not like their girlfriends sleeping with another guy but a girlfriend sleeping with another girl is a porn movie.
In the quarterly lamentation about the need for science outreach in the U.S., what often gets lost is that not everyone will be good at science. Lack of science knowledge is regarded as some sort of defect, but it is never an issue with the child, instead it is society or schools. We need more funding for cartoon characters and flashy animation to explain science because that is what today's kids 'need', we are told. If you are in that camp,
the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress will make you happy.
Declaring War On Frappuccino And Diet Soda Is Not A Valid Government Nutrition Guideline
Physician Burnout Is Common - And Informal Rationing Is One Big Cause
Cancel Culture Prevents The Best Researchers From Engaging With The Food Industry
Vermont Should Stop Showing Leadership In Overruling Scientists On Farming
