• The Science of Illusion

• North Carolina cretins say they're sorry about the forced sterilization but money won't help

• Bad Science, Bad Law

• PHYSICS COMMUNITY AFIRE WITH RUMORS OF HIGGS BOSON DISCOVERY

• Why Do Kids Say "Versing"?

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• Here’s our Cabinet Office paper on randomised trials of government policies. It’s readable. Read it.

• Why Bill Gates will be remembered and Steve Jobs won’t

• Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives

• The Loch Ness Monster is real, and other tax-supported surprises in Creationist textbooks

• The man behind the Rainbow

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Gail and I were birding this morning in Millcreek Canyon where we found this Juvenile American Dipper waiting for breakfast. Dippers are the only American Song Bird that swims, and here's Mom looking for the food. I really liked the second picture, I think that perhaps this is how Monet might have painted our American Dipper.

Click on the pictures for larger versions.

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• In Defense of Genetically Modified Crops

Mother Jones defending GMOs, there may be hope after all. We look at the science and decide, and not engage in the naturlistic fallacy.

Genetically modified Bt crops get a pretty bad rap. The pest-killing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria protein these plants are bioengineered to make has been accused of harming monarch butterflies, honey bees, rats, and showing up in the blood of pregnant women.

Just one problem: None of that is true. (Click on any of those links to see a scientific refutation of each claim.) Seven independent experts in genetically modified crops I spoke to all confirmed that the science shows Bt crops to be safer than their alternative: noxious chemical insecticides. In Europe—where suspicions over GM crops run even deeper than in the United States—the European Food Safety Authority just rejected a French ban on Bt corn, saying "there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment." A comprehensive report on 10 years of European Union-funded research, comprising 50 research projects, drew the same conclusions about Bt safety. . .

. . .How did the gulf between public perception and scientific evidence of Bt safety get so yawningly wide?

The answer might be the very people who push GM the hardest—the agricultural industry. Suing a farmer for patent infringement is just one example of how Monsanto bullies its way into crop fields and courtrooms in pursuit of profit. "These crops are driven by large companies pushing practices that benefit their bottom line," says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But just as we do not blame a murder on, say, a knife, Bt technology is not to blame for the ills of industrial agriculture.

• MIT discovers the location of memories: Individual neurons

• Deepak generator!

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• Death of “Frankenfood”

Is the GMO debate growing up in Europe just as it devolves in the United States?

• The Science of Prometheus

I’m a huge fan of science fiction, especially hard science fiction, and also of scientific deconstructions of popular works of science fiction. I also enjoy other forms of speculative fiction – I don’t require scientific accuracy, or even plausibility, to enjoy a good book or movie. I’m perfectly willing to suspend disbelief or allow for “gimmies” – OK, there’s subspace and you can travel faster than light. I’m good with that. I appreciate, however, when sci fi writers try to work within the scientific framework as much as possible, to minimize “gimmies”, and to extrapolate thoughtfully from established science. What I am not tolerant of, however, is gratuitous errors in science. There’s just no excuse for that in science fiction.

• Widespread adoption of Bt cotton and insecticide decrease promotes biocontrol services

On the basis of data from 1990 to 2010 at 36 sites in six provinces of northern China, we show here a marked increase in abundance of three types of generalist arthropod predators (ladybirds, lacewings and spiders) and a decreased abundance of aphid pests associated with widespread adoption of Bt cotton and reduced insecticide sprays in this crop. We also found evidence that the predators might provide additional biocontrol services spilling over from Bt cotton fields onto neighbouring crops (maize, peanut and soybean). Our work extends results from general studies evaluating ecological effects of Bt crops1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 13 by demonstrating that such crops can promote biocontrol services in agricultural landscapes.

• Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates

• Fashion Through the Eyes Of A Real Life Birder

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Prometheus the Movie sucks! "That's what I choose to believe."

• 10 Bets You Will Never Lose

• Richard Leakey, Evolution and Motivated Reasoning

The pleasure of finding things out: Fred Rogers remixed

• The Games Crows Play, and Other Winged Tales

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• Bumper Sticker Wisdom

• Evolution acceptance still flatlined in America

A new Gallup poll shows that, as it has for the past thirty years, acceptance of evolution in the U.S. has remained static. In fact, the latest statistics (light green line in figure below), show that 46% of Americans are young-earth creationists), 32% adhere to some form of god-guided or theistic evolution (dark green line), and only 15% adhere to evolution as we scientists know it (“human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process”). Young-earth creationism rose 6% since the last survey, which may not be a statistically significant change.

• 12-Year-Old Girl Explains What Most Economists Can't About Money and Debt

• Daily Show - Jim Parsons

• Legislating Science in North Carolina

The history of governments meddling in the practice of science is not a good one. The most infamous case is that of Lysenkoism -Stalin backed the ideas of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. His ideas became of the official sanctioned science of the Soviet government. Genetics was declared a “bourgeois science,” or “fascist science,” and many geneticists who disagreed with Lysenko were executed or sent to labor camps. Execution tends to have a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and the practice of science. Over seven decades later genetic science in Russia is still lagging behind.

In the US we have a similar problem – not the Gulag, but political factions that disagree with certain findings of science that are ideologically inconvenient for them. The two biggest issues being targeted (but certainly not the only ones) are evolution and climate change. Much of the focus has been on what should be taught to students in science class (my vote is for science).

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