I have received a letter from a student who obtained his doctoral degree with me a few years ago, and after one postdoctoral appointment decided that their heart was really into teaching. They wrote me to let me know how things are going, and gave me permission of posting their
Continue readingTag: science
Dead Wild Roses: Ethical Oil? – Ezra Levant Still a Douche
It is good to see yet another right wing fanatic has a crunchy crazy wing-nut history savour when suddenly(?) they attempt to get all serious and try interacting with empirical reality. Ezra Levant has little traction with reality and seems to have more interest in keeping his oil friends
Continue reading350 or bust: Heartland Institute: Funded To Spread Misinformation About Climate Change
The Heartland Institute is a right-wing “think-tank” that describes itself as a “devoted to discovering, developing, and promoting free market solutions to social and economic problems.” However, as DeSmogBlog has recently revealed, Heartland is much more interested in promoting the bottom line of its pro-pollution funders than it is about
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: DenialGate – Climate Change Deniers Take a Major Blow
You may have heard about Climategate, the stolen emails that showed some scientists were so concerned about climate change that they were willing to distort their findings so they would be more sensational? Welcome to Denialgate, which reveals some of the secrets of one of the shadowy, billionaire funded, AstroTurf
Continue readingThis is my SOS to the world
A tiny community called out to world. And the world answered. Foreign aid arrived in Canada courtesy environmental organizations which, if you’ll remember, dear Reader, are “radical groups” with “radical agendas” trying to “derail” the Northern Gateway Pipeline project. Our radical agenda, backed by independent science, demands acknowledgement that the
Continue readingExponential Book: Whither scientific publishing ?
I come back to one of my favorite subjects, prompted by a recent comment asking for my opinion on the proposed boycott of Elsevier, a company publishing a number of scientific journals. In the eyes of many, some of Elsevier’s practices are incompatible with the ultimate goal of achieving the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Republicans Aren’t the “Truth Party,” Mr. Santorum. They’re the “Certainty Party.”
225px-Rick_Santorum_official_photo.jpg Rick Santorum has been talking about the “politicization of science” a lot lately—although (a pet peeve of mine) he seems to have a problem with pronouncing the phrase. He says “polititization.” Check it out here. Not as bad as the people who say "political-ization," but don't get me started. Anyway,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disserivce – Happy Darwin Day!
Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. In this episode of the Disservice we dispense with the direct god-bothering and present a BBC documentary on Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. It is important to recognize
Continue reading350 or bust: Mining Industry Caught On Tape Plotting To Corrupt Media
* This week Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart became the largest shareholder in Fairfax Media, having already bought a stake in Channel Ten. But this new video reveals this move is bigger than one woman’s ambition — it’s part of a coordinated and very deliberate strategy, with anti-science climate idiot
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Science? – I love Science, Brian Greene
Gaining a better understanding of the reality which we inhabit aka doing Science. Brian Greene takes us on a light, generalist cosmological journey. Enjoy. Filed under: Education, Science Tagged: Big Bang, Brian Greene, Cosmology, Science
Continue reading350 or bust: Saturday At The Movies
Climate deniers, take note: if you work at it, you might be as smart as this toddler. For more info on this toddler and the unique approach to learning his parents have employed, go to Robeson Group.com
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Why Offbeat?
Why would CBC post a story about a major census mistake, likely indicative of a widespread counting problem, as “offbeat” news? This is potentially big news, with no fewer than two SK communities claiming the census as very inaccurate for their locations. This casts doubt on the rest of the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Santorum Calls Global Warming a “Hoax,” Suggesting a Full-Fledged Climate Conspiracy Theory
501px-Rick_Santorum_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg Conservatism is a political philosophy that is, at its most fundamental, about resisting change. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that an outrageous and absurd line uttered about global warming in 2003—Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe’s assertion that it is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”—has not, nearly
Continue reading350 or bust: NASA Video Debunks Climate Deniers in 26 Seconds
As obvious as tumor on a smoker’s chest x-ray, this 26-second video of the 131 years of temperature data demonstrates the consequences of our addiction to burning fossil fuels. It shows what climate scientists have been warning our governments about for years – climate change is real, it’s happening now,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: A Conservative Ignores the Science on Why…Conservatives Ignore the Science
discoveryGlobeHeader.jpg David Klinghoffer, of the anti-evolutionist Discovery Institute, has a revealing article in the conservative American Spectator entitled: “Republicans and Science (as opposed to liberals and the science they’ve politicized).” Why “revealing”? Klinghoffer seeks to explain the real reason why conservatives like himself resist certain scientific findings. But in the process,
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Do The Math On Solar
Here’s an amazing article that walks you through the physics calculations that show why the Sun is such a great energy source for Earth. We could make use of its heat potential a whole lot more.
Continue readingDrive-by Planet: Brock U study links low IQ with racism, prejudice
A Brock University study has come up with findings guaranteed to ignite a few fires on the net. Put in the most basic terms the research finds that people who succumb to racism and prejudice are less intelligent and likely to be drawn to right-wing ideologies. Researchers conducted in-depth analysis
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Weathermen For Republicans
Most people don’t trust their weather forecaster celebrities to be correct more than 50% of the time. I just made up that statistic, the same way many weathermen have done with comments about climate change during their forecasts. 2011 broke nearly every storm record there was to be broken, and
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Stupid Senate
“I felt like it is kind of an insult to be a denier for a long time,” said Sen. Bert Brown, last month at a parliamentary committee studying energy policies. “It feels pretty good this morning.” What I find particularly disturbing about so many climate change deniers ending up being
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