The Death of the Republican Brain

Perhaps this is redundant, since Jon Swift has already taken care of it, but how could I possibly resist an article titled “The Death of Science,” posted on a “Blogs for Bush” site? It’s got wingnuts, it’s got irony, it’s got dizzyingly inane interpretations of science. It’s like everything that’s wrong with the Bush approach to science, all in one short article.

What reasons could a blinkered Bush supporter with a petrified brain and no background in science possibly advance to support the claim that science is dead?

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It’s a bloody-minded and barbarous practice, that’s why

Shelley asks what we think of the death penalty…that’s an easy one to answer. I am absolutely against it; I think it brutalizes the culture, puts untoward power in the hands of government, and since I have little trust in the reliability of the court system, allows irreversible and tragic errors. I don’t have to go on about it, though: just read Wilkins. I’ve decided to let him think for me this month.

One other thing I’d add, though: the death penalty isn’t even an effective deterrent. For it to work, you have to assume that death penalty offenses are committed in a rational state of mind, and further, that there are no rational grounds for assuming one will be able to get away with it. Neither condition is true.

I guess you can be innumerate and still become a professor of public affairs

In a surprising discovery, reading the Wall Street Journal opinion pages will make you 57% dumber, will kill 8,945,562,241 neurons, and will force you to invent ridiculous statistics. Don’t follow that link! The article will make you cry as you go through a Flowers for Algernon experience.

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Queensland goes Bush league

If you’ve been following the Australian lungfish saga, there’s a new development, and it’s an ugly one. As the Noosa Journal reports (they don’t seem to have a web accessible archive, so this issue may vanish soon; here’s a screenshot), the Queensland government is actively suppressing scientific information that highlights the environmental costs of building the damaging dams.

The Beattie Government has ordered the shredding of a vital report used to list the unique Queensland lungfish under Federal environmental laws, according to a world authority on the species, Macquarie University’s Professor Jean Joss. The shredding order follows suppression of the report shortly after it was published, she said.

If the order is carried out, a vital piece of evidence will have been destroyed to support a challenge to the Mary River Dam under Federal Environmental laws.

The suppressed study analyzed the effects of a small weir that was put on the Burnett River, showing that it had a drastic effect on lungfish breeding and recruitment, and predicted that the greater effect of a dam would “reduce recruitment to a Critically Endangered level, at which extinction is assured.”

You know the other side is completely in the wrong when they’re reduced to hiding reality. The Queensland government seems to have adopted the American Republican style of policy making.

The Republican War on Science

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Chris Mooney is trying to kill me.

It’s true. He sent me this book, The Republican War on Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) (now available in a new paperback edition!), that he knew would send my blood pressure skyrocketing, give me apoplexy, and cause me to stroke out and die, gasping, clawing in futile spasms at the floor. Fortunately, I’ve been inoculating myself for the past few years by reading his weblog (now also in a new edition!), so I managed to survive, although there were a few chest-clutching moments and one or two life-flashing-past-my-eyes experiences, which will be handy if I ever write a memoir.

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Billionaires for stem cell research

Forbes has an article on billionaires who oppose the stem cell ban (free reg required): the subtitle is “Billionaire cash has kept embryonic stem-cell research alive—just barely,” which really says it all. It discusses the extremely generous gifts private donors (and also some state funding by referendum) that have kept stem cell research afloat in the world of GW Bush and the religious right. There’s quite a bit of money flying around out there.

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