Latest Articles

Latest Articles

The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.

Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin might dispute the human contribution to climate change, oppose embryonic stem cell research, and promote creationism, but in other ways she has been an advocate for […]
From a press release out today, detailing the strong commitment from both parties to biomedical research.n Federation of American Societies for Experimental BiologyOffice of Public Affairs • 9650 Rockville Pike, […]
Over at the Daily Kos, University of Washington communication professor David Domke issues a bold call to news organizations. Warning that the McCain-Palin campaign represents a "crisis for mainstream journalists," […]
"Grandpa" McCain?: The presidential hopeful relies on his wife and aides to show him things online or to read him email messages.As I've written, McCain's admission that he doesn't know […]
On Thursday, Dec. 4, I will be speaking at the New York Academy of Sciences, located on the 40th floor of World Trade Center #7.It's a busy academic year, with […]
Back in July, I sat down for an hour long interview with the new TED-like social media site Big Think. The innovative project features "hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered […]
Expect to hear a lot about this from the Obama campaign over the next few weeks. See the front page article at today's Washington Post, detailing McCain's reaction to the […]
That's the question posed this past week at PBS' Bill Moyers Journal. The program is a hard hitting examination of the impact of radical right talk radio, books, and TV […]
Piggybacking on last week's Bill Moyers segment on radical right media and hate speech, Media Matters for America issued the following action advisory last night: Michael Savage is at it […]
While many Democrats and women find Palin's support for criminalizing abortion to be outrageous, a recent survey by the Pew organization finds that roughly 40% of Americans generally agree with […]
As I've blogged before, research shows that The Daily Show is likely to cultivate cynicism among its younger audience while threatening to displace more traditional sources of news that might […]
That's the argument of Curtis Brainard at the Columbia Journalism Review. As he concludes: Palin might not have the longest political track record to scrutinize, but the environment is clearly […]
As I have written in various articles, when it comes to science debates, the public is far more likely to be miserly in reaching a judgment than fully informed. Most […]
As the Sunday NY Times details, strategist Steve Schmidt has turned around the McCain campaign with brilliant advertising that sets the news agenda and primes voter evaluations. The former Rove […]
"Behold the power and glory of the scientific method!," quotes The Onionin a satirical spoof of science enthusiasts flocking to a wall stain of the image of Darwin (above.) The […]
Last month Pew released a comprehensive analysis of news audience trends over time and across demographics. One of the key findings (depicted at left) was the continued decline in public […]
How bad have things gotten when it comes to substantive coverage and discussion of the presidential election? Pew finds that at the end of August, just 2% of total news […]
Following up on her testimony before Congress yesterday, MIT President Susan Hockfield writes in the Washington Post today that the U.S. needs a Manhattan Project-scale investment in renewable energy R&D. […]
A few things are interesting about this clip showing a focus group run by Frank Luntz with Minnesota voters on behalf of the AARP. First, when Luntz asks the participants […]
Two essays I wrote on Expelled are now in print and I have placed PDFs of the articles online. The first shorter essay appears at Skeptical Inquirer magazine and reviews […]