I am a post-doctoral researcher, employed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose research is funded by a grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Most of my colleagues who are also university scientists are similarly funded either by the DOE or the National Science Foundation (NSF). I […]
Science
446 posts
Toward the late afternoon, I left my office and went down to Stanford’s main campus from SLAC. I had been at SLAC since 7:30 that morning, with a morning spent in meetings and my afternoon spent doing actual, honest-to-God research. Jodi’s book club met tonight, so I decided to just […]
This was a tiring weekend. Saturday was the day of the planning meeting for the annual SLAC and Fermilab Users’ trip to Washington D.C. I have a leadership role in the trip this year, and I got only about 10 hours of sleep between Thursday and Saturday. This trip is […]
Over the past year, the Vatican has demonstrated a remarkable inability to keep its message straight. In a way, this is a refreshing contrast to the current monomanical executive branch of the U.S.. It’s clear that when it comes to evolution and science, the Vatican is capable of expressing not […]
I’m still listening to it, but there appears to be a well-done “American Radioworks production exploring the origins and evolution of the Intelligent Design movement”:http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/inteldesign/index.html. Once thing that bugged me about the program was that it *did not start with the definition of science*. Without that, it’s impossible to later […]
I’ve been letting the story of the South Korean stem cell research, conducted (now known to be frauduently), simmer in my mind since early December. Like many other scientists, likely young ones like myself, I at first recoiled in shock and horror at the revelations that were slowly peeling away […]
The recent “139-page ruling by Judge Jones”:http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf in the case *Kitzmiller vs. the Dover School Board of Education* was remarkable. Not just broad, this was a deep ruling which every scientist and lawyer should read. The American Institute of Physics (“http://www.aip.org”:http://www.aip.org) has printed, in its most recent FYI bulletin, “a […]
This was, from the public perspective, a difficult year for evolution. I am not saying this because it was challenged by a potentially new theory of biological diversity, nor because it made predictions that were contradicted in the lab or in nature. “In fact, scientifically this has been hailed as […]
Jodi and I are both now fighting either the flu or very severe colds. We both firmly understand that the underlying cause of the symptoms – headache, coughing fits, sinus pain and drainage, body aches, and general discomfort – are invasive germs which have evolved since the last time my […]
The BaBar Collaboration meeting is over, and it was as exhausting and fulfilling as I had hoped. Despite the necessary shutdown to address the safety culture at SLAC (which occurred just over a year ago), we have bounced back with enthusiasm and science. The upcoming winter conferences will be a […]
In a recent entry, I summarized the sentiment’s of the Royal Society’s Lord May. In his valedictory anniversary speech to the Society, he commented on the chief U.S. climate change negotiator. He said this person was a lawyer, and that the only reason the U.S. would have a lawyer in […]
An “article in the AP summarizes the underlying references in this little thought piece”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051208/ap_on_re_us/creationism_professor;_ylt=AkmHDJC49ZEp.ORSchKdfP1vzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA–. Here’s the short of it: * religious studies professor Paul Mirecki, at the University of Kansas, organizes a course entitled “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies”, scientists and educators silently cheer […]