Cameron English at PolicyMic.com has a review of Science Left Behind up.
Science Left Behind is out tomorrow and there is no question it will be fighting an uphill battle in the science community. Obviously a book that makes fun of anti-science progressives isn't going to be for progressives and it isn't for Republicans during election season, since Democrats get scant mention.
It seems silly that in 2012, along with Bigfoot we are still having to debunk the notion that someone becomes pro-science when they vote Democrat or, even sillier, that pro-science people have a fetish for government unions.In reality, the perception of one side being more supportive of science is simply that science media is overwhelmingly partisan and has little interest in even a pretense of journalistic standards. Criticizing Republicans sells books and it sells pageviews, but so do articles about Nibiru and the Mayan end of the world. That doesn't make them true.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is happy to objectify live human women in order to protest eating dead animals, but they aren't going to win every time, even when it comes to claims about the happiness of cows. A judge has ruled that truth in advertising doesn't always extend to humorous ads - if it did, we'd lose all those spots showing that every white man in America is unable to use a cell phone or cook a meal without assistance from a teenager or a woman.
Is food safety a contentious election issue? The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Environmental Health say changes to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) have been held up in review, much like the administration did with the Keystone XL project from 2009-2011, in hopes of delaying new rules until after the November election. And they are suing over it.
Millennials, depending on who you ask, are up to 34 years old and have their own children but they still seem to like shopping for food at gas stations so food companies are scrambling to create packaging that appeals to them.Exit cans, enter microwaveable soup bags. And they want it to be healthy, microwaved food.How do you make the same old soup seem healthier? You put it in a carton instead of a can. Yes, perceptually, a carton looks healthier to Millennials than cans do.
Joe DiMaggio was a great player. He holds the record for hits in consecutive games (56) and he had only 8 more strikeouts than homeruns. He also married Marilyn Monroe. In his older days, he sold Mr. Coffee automatic drip machines on TV.Now he is getting a coffee of his very own; Joltin' Joe, a carbonated espresso drink courtesy of AriZona, which is actually located in Long Island, NY. Seriously, click on that link. Their site is programmed in Flash despite the fact that it pisses off 100% of people who visit sites programmed in Flash. It feels like 2004 all over again and runs as slow as you expect.
Nestlé, the world's largest food company, says the UN, the US and EU are all wrong on activist-created biofuel targets. As everyone who is not an environmental activist predicted, subsidies for biofuels have led to worse emissions to go along with looming food shortages and price rises.Under current US laws, 40% of US corn must be used to make biofuels even though droughts have reduced crop yields significantly. So while we keep hearing that current US policy had 'reduced oil imports' they leave out that the emissions are worse because of biofuels. Only fracking has led to reduced CO2 emissions and activists have decided that natural gas extraction causes cancer now.
Sometimes kooky anti-science positions are academic; you have to fight against them because there is a slippery slope and social authoritarians will ban ten things if you let them ban one - because banning one is acceptance that they are 'right'.
The world is a better place when it is simple, black and white. That is why campaigning NGOs and many journalists share a not-so-attractive sensibility: they are often uncomfortable with complexity, writes Jon Entine at Forbes. Dividing the world, and prickly science policy issues, into black and white makes for exciting narratives. Unfortunately it’s invariably wrong, authoritarian and, as Freud would say, crazy (“neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity”).
