Tag: Society and Science

Mining industry takes on peer-review

It’s really not a new storyline: A big science study is examining whether some industry product or practice is harmful, and industry lawyers and scientists pull out all the stops to block the results. In this case, the question is whether miners’ exposure to diesel exhaust increases their risk of lung cancer. (Really, is there anything about being a miner that does not increase your risk of lung cancer?)

A post over at the Natural Resources Defense Council lays out the details (h/t Climate Progress). Several scientific journals received threatening letters from a mining industry lobby, warning these journals not to publish, or even peer-review papers from the diesel/mining/lung cancer study. The mining industry is trying to block publication of scientific studies they did not pay for, and whose results they did not like. A society in which any scientific study can be blocked by third party that possesses enough legal firepower is not the kind of society we should be.

According to Science, several journal editors received legal threats from a mining industry lobbyist:
Continue reading “Mining industry takes on peer-review”

A win for academic freedom

In case you missed it, Virginia Attorney General’s fishing expedition against climate scientist and former UVA faculty member Michael Mann has been shut down by the Virginia Supreme Court.

The principle of academic freedom does not mean blanket immunity from legal scrutiny, but if it means anything, it certainly means that academic researchers should be protected from legal harassment by government authorities whose aim is to suppress research conclusions that they don’t like. Attorney General Cuccinelli claims that: Continue reading “A win for academic freedom”

Motherhood vs the Lab

Science has a news piece asking Is Motherhood the Biggest Reason for Academia’s Gender Imbalance?.

Well, I don’t know if it’s the biggest reason, but this issue is certainly huge – it has been an issue in every lab in which I have worked, and in ~90% of the labs that I observe around me. Which is why I don’t understand the pushback from some researchers quoted in the article, such as this:

“I think [the issue] does have merit, for a subset of women, during one part of their lives,” Nelson says. “However, it has not uncovered a problem which, when solved, will create an equal environment for women.” Nelson says it would be unfortunate if departments “were to invest millions of dollars in things like in-house daycare centers” only to find that such investments improved conditions for “a relatively small number of women.”

Seriously??? In-house child-care and other investments to help mothers in academic science would benefit only a relatively small number of women? Walk into just about any science department at any research university in this country, and you will quickly be disabused of the notion that this is an issue for a relatively small number of women. Continue reading “Motherhood vs the Lab”

Springer Press almost suckered by Intelligent Design

Springer’s editors in the field of engineering who aren’t familiar with the star figures of the intelligent design movement appeared ready to put the prestigious Springer stamp on a volume of pseudoscience:

As the National Center for Science Education reports, this one sounds like standard creationist pseudo-science-speak:

The volume in question, entitled Biological Information: New Perspectives, edited by R. J. Marks II, M. J. Behe, W. A. Dembski, B. L. Gordon, and J. C. Sanford, and slated to appear in a series of engineering books dubbed the Intelligent Systems Reference Library, was advertised by Springer as presenting “new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information,” demonstrating “how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence,” and written “by leading experts in the field” who had “gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information.”

Continue reading “Springer Press almost suckered by Intelligent Design”

RealClimate schools WSJ on how to compare models to data

On how to decide whether your model is falsified:

The WSJ authors’ main point is that if the data doesn’t conform to predictions, the theory is “falsified”. They claim to show that global mean temperature data hasn’t conformed to climate model predictions, and so the models are falsified.
But let’s look at the graph… Continue reading “RealClimate schools WSJ on how to compare models to data”