The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.
Tag Archive: climate change
Science is not about the Truth
Andrew Wakfield: The integrity and validity of science
Doctors sign their names to papers that describe clinical trials of a drug. The papers turn out to be ghostwritten and paid for by the drug manufacturer. The pharmaceutical industry buries any study it doesn’t like, creating the impression that the majority of studies are favorable to what the industry wants us to believe. Journals are biased towards the publication of studies with positive results. All of these practices greatly skew doctors’ opinions of which drugs are effective and safe. Patients die needlessly as a result, and only then does the truth come out in whistle blower lawsuits.
Health care, climate change, and the myth of the free market
Even supposedly serious economists lend support to these views, arguing that the dysfunctional health-care industry is best left to its own devices. … This is what comes of forgetting the critical role that states have played in nurturing, protecting, and financing their industries, as well as in taxing and taming them. The greatest danger that Western prosperity now faces isn’t posed by any Beijing consensus; it’s posed by the myth of the free market.
Updates: Commercialization of infidelity, medical rivalry, conservatives on climate change, football concussions
As a practicing pediatrician, I, too, feel the nobility and privilege of my profession, and count myself lucky every day that I am able to do what I do. But to denigrate lawyers and journalists as somehow less valuable to society is beneath us as a profession.
Merchants of Doubt
It’s easy to understand – if not condone – the behavior of politicians who are financed by tobacco and oil companies. They oppose the regulation of smoking or pollution because they benefit from the financial contributions of those industries. But what motivates certain scientists to relentlessly cast doubt on peer-reviewed scientific evidence that’s inconveniently contrary to financial interests?
Climate change and mass migration
Few actual environmentalists want anything to do with these [right-wing] parties, and there doesn’t seem to be anything comparable in the United States, though if global warming does put pressure on immigration, it’s certainly possible that green nativists could find a toehold here.
A financial expert argues: Global warming is real
Why are we arguing the issue? Challenging vested interests as powerful as the oil and coal lobbies was never going to be easy. Scientists are not naturally aggressive defenders of arguments. In short, they are conservatives by training: never, ever risk overstating your ideas. The skeptics are far, far more determined and expert propagandists to boot. They are also well-funded. That smoking caused cancer was obfuscated deliberately and effectively for 20 years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of extra deaths. We know that for certain now, yet those who caused this fatal delay have never been held accountable. The profits of the oil and coal industry make tobacco’s resources look like a rounding error.
The earth’s scars
Try to Praise the Multilated World
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
Having wounded the earth, we watch as she bleeds out
The gush of filth is a reminder that we have surrendered our independence to a technology we cannot master. … The challenge goes beyond oil slicks and moral revulsion. In the bigger picture, big oil has no long-term future: sooner or later the contemptible little sheikdoms that have arisen upon a pool of liquid greed will sink back into the desert. But why should BP and the emirs script the endgame?
The oil spill: Why did it happen?
There’s a nice piece in The Atlantic on risk-taking behavior – something that applies to many aspects of life, not just how we treat the environment. (Emphasis added) How do such management disasters occur? The easy answer is, there’s a financial incentive for going forward, and a financial disincentive for holding back. Program managers are…
Does astrology make predictions about climate change?
The South Dakota state legislature recently passed a resolution urging public schools to teach global warming as merely one of many scientific theories, definitely not a proven fact. The resolution cited a number of significant, interrelated dynamics affecting “world weather,” including “climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological” factors. It’s a good thing they pointed…
Scientists confront political attacks on climate change
There’s a wonderful letter (PDF) in Science signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s titled “Climate Change and the Integrity of Science,” and it’s not simply about climate change. It argues that politically motivated attacks on climate change threaten the very integrity of science. As the lead signer points out, since…
Climate change: A few signs of legislative hope
Source: U.S. News The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the House bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, was passed by the House last June. The Senate bill, called The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, has been languishing in the Senate since its introduction last September….
Daily Dose: Climate change: How bad can it get; FDR's death; Yawns; Facebook
Source: Sacramento for Democracy Climate change Copenhagen climate summit: Five possible scenarios for our future climate (The Guardian) Concise summary of what we can expect for each increase of one degree Celcius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in global temperature. Here are a few of the health implications. 1C: “Most of the world’s corals will die, including…
Health Culture Daily Dose #18
Source: Wunderground When did we start calling the whole day before Christmas “Christmas Eve?” I thought Christmas Eve was the evening before Christmas. But no. Senators voted on health care reform at 1:00 AM on Thursday December 24th. To me, that’s still Wednesday night, but it was widely reported as happening on Christmas Eve. Perhaps…
Penguins as canaries
Source: Rehava Penguins, like canaries in coal mines, are a leading indicator of climate change and other environmental hazards. Their frozen habitat is getting smaller. A warmer ocean means the migration patterns of fish have changed, so penguins are forced to travel much farther for food. The Magellanic penguins of South America now need to…
