Search
In the 2004 election, the great majority of voters didn't deliberate the specific policy positions of the candidates and then make an informed choice. Instead, in order to make up […]
The AP reports that organizers of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Austria next month are offering the faithful a foretaste: daily cell phone text messages with quotes from the pontiff. […]
Back in November, when Missouri passed a constitutional amendment protecting the ability of scientists to conduct embryonic stem cell research in the state, it was heralded as one more political […]
The NY Times has the dish on perhaps the final tragedy in the fall of Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. Apparently Hwang's lab was the first to derive […]
Are you an information technology optimist or skeptic? Chances are, if you are a regular blog reader or poster, you fall in the former category. Yet ever feel like all […]
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has launched an ambitious new public outreach campaign that echoes many of the strategies I think science organizations and institutions can use to strengthen their […]
Talk about facilitating incidental exposure to science. The Boston Globe explains how David Beckham is able to curl a soccer ball around an 8 man wide wall. Hat tip to […]
On Sunday, the LA Times ran two major feature articles on the emerging influence and power of documentary film. One article contrasted the works of Michael Moore and Ken Burns. […]
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the best selling books of the past decade have been converted into a video game for kids and young adults. That's right, available […]
Last week, analysts at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty released a 70 page analysis of the strategies, tactics, and messages of the Sunni insurgent propaganda campaign. It's the most interesting thing […]
Pew has released an analysis of the most frequently used words at the most popular sections of the presidential candidate Web sites, their candidate biographies. The findings are somewhat surprising, […]
Big Tobacco.Big Oil.Big Pharma.Big Biotech.Big Nanotech?Each of these phrases are examples of frame devices, words that act like triggers in activating underlying cultural meanings. In fact, these frame devices instantly […]
As I've argued at this blog many times and in our article at Science, defining evolution in terms of medical progress is probably the best way to translate its' importance […]
Oxford University Press has published a new edited volume featuring research on public opinion and media coverage of the plant biotech debate in the US, Europe, Africa, India,and Brazil. The […]
Gallup has released an analysis of how support for various presidential candidates breaks down by church attendance. Somewhat surprisingly, in a general election match up, Hillary and Rudy are neck […]
Gore's Live Earth concert series was supposed to catalyze American public attention around the problem of global warming, but did it? Polling data is not yet available regarding the concert's […]
Has the effort by liberals to re-brand themselves as progressives been successful? What about Republicans who no longer describe themselves as a conservative but rather as a "Reagan Republican"? Rasmussen […]
In journalism, professional norms favor telling gripping stories about individuals and places. Applied to the debate over global warming, many journalists believe that if they can recast the complex issue […]
Last week I posted on the "Misunderstood Meanings of Science Literacy," noting that scientists, policymakers, and journalists tend to narrowly focus on the recall of facts about science as the […]
The philosopher Paul Kurtz has published a new position booklet that addresses much of what I have been arguing is missing--and so deeply troubling--about the New Atheist movement. Below is […]