Corante

Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
<$MTBlogName$> OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante Blogs

Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.

The Press Will Be Outsourced Before Stopped

Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media

Travels In Numerica Deserta

There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline

Disrobing the Emperor: The online “user experience” isn't much of one

Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience

Second Life: What are the real numbers?

Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many

The democratisation of everything

Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor

RNA Interference: Film at Eleven

Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline

PVP and the Honorable Enemy

Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."

From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game

Rats Rule, Right?

Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline

Really BAD customer experience at Albertsons Market

Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience

The Guardian's "Comment is Free"

Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline

The Loom

« More on Common Ancestors | Main | Further Adventures in Geological Cowardice »

October 13, 2004

Ignorance For Sale, Thanks To Your Tax Dollars

Email This Entry

Posted by Carl Zimmer

David Appell points to some depressing news about how our government deals with science.

In August 2003, the Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent tried to block the sale of a book in National Park Service stores. The book claims that the Grand Canyon formed in Noah's Flood. No vague ambiguity of the sort you hear from Intelligent Design folks--just hard-core young Earth creationism, claiming that the planet is only a few thousand years old. The folks at National Park Service headquarters stopped the administrator from pulling the book. Geologists cried foul, and NPS promised to review the situation. Meanwhile, the book remained for sale at NPS stores.

And then months passed with nothing. Today a public employees activist group that first publicized this sorry situation announced that it has documents showing that the administration has decided to let the book stay. In fact, there wasn't even any review.

I haven't seen any news pieces yet on this shamefulness, nor have I seen any statement from the National Park Service. From the information we have at hand at the moment, there's only one good conclusion to draw: your government is indifferent to even the most basic facts of science. If it doesn't care about something as well-established as the age of the Earth, you have to wonder what other science it is willing to ignore.

Comments (12) + TrackBacks (0) | Category: Evolution


COMMENTS

1. Jason Malloy on October 14, 2004 01:19 AM writes...

A few weeks ago I remembered an awesome article I read maybe 5 years ago or so on the science of dating in National Geographic, when I looked it up I was pleasantly surprised to see who wrote it. ;)

Permalink to Comment

2. Jason Malloy on October 14, 2004 01:22 AM writes...

A couple of weeks ago I remembered an awesome article I read in National Geographic maybe 5 or so years ago on the science of dating; when I looked it up i was pleasantly surprised to see who had written it. ;)

Permalink to Comment

3. the bunyip on October 14, 2004 06:22 AM writes...

G'day, Carl [and All]
In hopes of cheering you up a bit on this issue, you might consider attending my Creation Day Party on the 23rd if you're in Ottawa. I've no doubt you're aware of Jimmy Ussher's "begats" calculation placing the creation of the universe on 23 October 4004 BC at 09:00h. So Saturday after next, the Cosmos will be 6000 years old!

I'm throwing a massive celebration. All Loombers are welcome!

stephen

Permalink to Comment

4. bazzargh on October 14, 2004 07:29 AM writes...

4004 BC... was 6008 years ago? But that's no reason not to partay.

Permalink to Comment

5. Phil Sheridan on October 14, 2004 12:10 PM writes...

How about the address of someone we can write to in order to deluge (no pun intended) them with emails expressing our outrage.

Permalink to Comment

6. Paul on October 14, 2004 12:49 PM writes...

Not to be a nitpicker.. but since there was no year 0... wouldn't that mean that it is really 6007 years ago?
:-)

Permalink to Comment

7. Linkmeister on October 14, 2004 03:54 PM writes...

Mr. Sheridan, here's the main NPS "Contact Us" page:

http://www.nps.gov/pub_aff/e-mail/

Permalink to Comment

8. Carl Buell on October 14, 2004 07:57 PM writes...

Do they have a "fiction" section in National Park Bookstores? I don't think so, but that would solve the problem. I just did send the NPS a email.

Permalink to Comment

9. joel on October 15, 2004 12:56 PM writes...

They have reviewed the situation, and the book
stays. Vail's website documents this.

http://www.canyonministries.com/index_files/Controversy.htm

A letter to the Department of the Interior
opposed to the book, and a letter documenting
the legal issues involved, also sent to the department. The decision has been made.

What are you looking for, congressional hearings?

Do scientists censor every book with which they have a difference of opinion?

Permalink to Comment

10. vernaculo on October 15, 2004 03:20 PM writes...

The process of education constantly reinforces the supremacy of correct information. You pass the test, youfail the test, you know the answers, you don't.
Life doesn't mirror that prefectly. This controversy, and the larger battle it symbolizes, isn't only about being right, it's biological. The rallying point isn't truth, it's similarity. A flag for the dull-witted if you want it put harshly. The ferocity and the stubborn refusal to see what's plainly evident stem from something much deeper than obstinant pride, it's a refusal to accdept inferiority. And that's Darwinian - inferiority means marginality, and that means a lessening of chances for survival.
It's important to resist the idiocy, but pretending that it will only be a matter of winning intellectually is naive. This isn't about ideas, it's about survival, physical, genetic survival.

Permalink to Comment

11. caerbannog on October 15, 2004 10:34 PM writes...


Do scientists censor every book with which they have a difference of opinion?

It's not simply a matter of a "difference of opinion" -- it's modern scientific knowledge being displaced by religious trash with the official imprimateur of the US government.

There's nothing scientific or inspirational about creationism. It is nothing more than pre-enlightenment ignorance.

Permalink to Comment

12. caerbannog on October 15, 2004 10:36 PM writes...

typo correction: imprimatur

Permalink to Comment


EMAIL THIS ENTRY TO A FRIEND

Email this entry to:

Your email address:

Message (optional):




RELATED ENTRIES
Talking at Woods Hole
Invisible Gladiators in the Petri Dish Coliseum
Synthetic Biology--You are There
Manimals, Sticklebacks, and Finches
Jakob the Hobbit?
Grandma Manimal
Hominids for Clinical Trials--The Paper
The Neanderthal Genome Project Begins