The Weekly World News, source of many an idle moment’s entertainment while waiting in the grocery store checkout line, is about to become an ex-tabloid. Bat boy will be homeless. Ed Anger will have no outlet for his rage. Fox News will have no competition.
American Journalism has lost a shining beacon, an ideal to which it could have aspired.
(via Decorabilia)
Phil reveals his man-crushes, and I have to respond in kind. Fortunately, it’s easy. I’ve just seen something that endears one particular gentleman to me…
He batters that smug silver-haired rodent, Wolf Blitzer. I wish he’d been given a chance to kick Lou Dobbs’ ass. He rakes the entire American news media over white-hot coals for their continued failures to investigate and report honestly on the war as well as on health care. C’est magnifique.
I’m home from our vacation, and our painfully tiring redeye flight from Seattle, and I get a treat right as I step through the door: a copy of Natalie Angier’s The Canon(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) arrived in the mail while I was away. What did I do? Right after we got all the luggage into the house, I flopped down on the bed with it and read it until the lack of sleep caught up with me — and it’s good enough that I actually made it through the first two chapters before passing out. It’s a passionate and enthusiastic survey of basic principles in science, and it’s fun to read.
Then I discovered that onegoodmove had a video interview of Angier talking about her book. She’s very good; check it out. She’s the kind of science journalist I want to see more of, and everyone should go out and buy her book to encourage her to do more.
One annoyance: several of the commenters at onegoodmove seem to be of the concern troll variety. Here’s this smart, fluent, talented writer who is also a world-class science geek and atheist, and they start picking over her appearance and body language — it’s rather dismaying, in particular since her gestures are no more flamboyant than those of her (male) interviewer. I’ve long thought that Natalie Angier would make an excellent spokesperson for godless science, and wondered why we don’t see more of her … and I wonder if part of the reason is that the same troglodytes who grunt in disgust at the sight of someone who doesn’t respect their sky-god are also appalled at the sight of a woman speaking confidently about high geek factor subjects and also dismissing their primitive superstitions.
Now, see, this is why you shouldn’t read a gadgets & fashion magazine for information on science. Wired has run an awful little article that breathlessly claims that junk DNA ain’t junk—it’s all got a purpose, because opossum junk DNA is different from human junk DNA (I know, that makes no sense at all, but there it is in the article).
Then, just to make it even worse, that non sequitur is followed up by bunch of “we knew it all along” quotes from creationists. And then they’ve got Francis Collins chiming in and saying that he doesn’t use the term “junk” because he thinks it’s all lying around in case there’s a future use for it. Gah. He’s supposed to know what he’s talking about; it sure doesn’t show whenever he opens his mouth.
Fortunately, Larry Moran shreds this one. In addition, one scientist who was quoted as saying something sensible in the article, T. Ryan Gregory, expands and clarifies his sole comment. It’s really too bad the writer didn’t spend more time with him than with Michael Behe.
Salon has just published their report on Ken Ham’s creation “museum”, by author Gordy Slack, who has just released a book on the Dover trial. I haven’t read the book, although it was on my list to pick up this summer. No more. This was an awful bit of dreck, and I don’t think I could stomach reading a whole book written this way.
It’s dead, credulous reporting. Slack simply blandly reports the contents of the “museum,” and doesn’t offer a single word of criticism, and doesn’t even try to evaluate the accuracy of the claims. The protesters outside the gates are briefly mentioned, but otherwise the article just calls the place “beautiful”, and the words of Ken Ham and Mark Looy and various gullible visitors are unquestioningly quoted to praise it all. Sure, dinosaurs and people lived together; all the predators lived on fruit and vegetables; all the geology on the planet was carved by a single great worldwide flood 4000 years ago. Read it, and you get the impression that having an edifice dedicated to the proposition that all of physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and biology are wrong is perfectly reasonable, and the weirdos are the geeks standing in the rain outside complaining.
I thought the New York Times article was bad…but Salon has sunk to new depths of insipidity. I’ve been a subscriber to Salon since they first started, but this settles it for me—I won’t be resubscribing. This article wasn’t even expressing the usual phony “balance”—it’s biased in favor of creationism all the way through.
For shame, Salon.
When ever I try to read about “framing” anymore, I start to twitch and suffer from hysterical blindness, which makes it really hard to blog. Fortunately, Greg Laden has a stronger constitution than I do (either that, or anthropologists have access to exotic drugs that help them overcome), so I’ll just send everyone over there to read that. Don’t tell me what it says, though: ir’ll jost teigger the husertical twrches agian ind I’ll hve to fo lie diwn for aquile. Eck. soasr neb vwiffffleop. Gorsnck.
Sheril Kirshenbaum is guest-blogging at The Intersection while Chris Mooney is away, and she is bravely planning on discussing…dare I say it…framing. It’s a subject that gives me the heebie-jeebies, the flibbertigibbits, and a bad case of the surly snarls, but let’s see if maybe Sheril can give it a new perspective—maybe she can do a better job of framing framing.
John Horgan and George Johnson are going at it again on Bloggingheads. The most interesting part, I thought, was the discussion of EO Wilson’s turn towards group selection; one of the themes of Gould’s last book was the existence of levels of selection above the individual and the gene. Gould and Wilson had such a bitter antipathy towards each other that it is fascinating to see this sliver of convergence now.
For more Horgan, check out his recent article in Slate—it’s a skeptical look at neurotheology. Persinger and Hamer, oh my — two guys whose real talent is the ability to prompt eye-rolling and giggles in scientists.
Rupert Murdoch has openly admitted that global warming is a real problem.
At an event held this morning in midtown Manhattan and webcast to all News Corp. employees, Murdoch launched a company-wide plan to address climate change that includes not only a pledge to reduce the company’s emissions (which has come to be expected at such biz-greening events) but also a vow to weave climate messaging into the content and programming of News Corp.’s many holdings.
Ironically, though, Murdoch still employs that ignorant junk science guy, Steve Milloy, as a Fox News columnist. Here’s a suggestion to Murdoch for a good start: stop disseminating lies about science, and fire Steve Milloy. Sign the petition and give Rupert Murdoch a hint.
I’m seeing some mixed signals on the series “A Brief History of Disbelief” — it’s appearing in very few station’s schedules right now, and it’s tempting to suspect that it’s being buried by the media, especially since right wing groups detest it:
That "A Brief History of Disbelief" might be controversial is unsurprising. Right-wing groups, such as the Concerned Women of America, are already ramping up opposition to Miller’s program, which originally aired on the BBC in 2005. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council deemed the work of the actor-director-author Miller to be "an evangelistic piece for atheism."
On the other hand, I’ve heard from the author of the article above that stations are also reporting that it’s a problem with the source — it’s being handled by an independent distributor, and the stations haven’t had an opportunity to review it — so the problems may be less nefarious than procedural. Either way, this is probably a good time to contact your local public broadcasting station and tell them you’d like to see them pick up this program, and pretty please, don’t show it at 3am. Let’s let the godless demographic make itself known, politely but firmly.
It’s not like we’re lobbying Fox News. Don’t you all suspect that public broadcasting’s viewership is skewed our way? All it takes is a phone call, so let’s make our existence known in this simple and unthreatening matter.
