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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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There is little good resulting from the pandemic, except for the fantastic innovation behind the vaccines. A few months ago politicians told companies to stop being greedy and pay more money to people who stopped working when government paid people not to work, so companies paid more, and resulting inflation is causing equity to decrease between the poor and the middle class. San Francisco is telling people they need to get a 4th shot or they'll be called Republicans(1) while the governor of California and the mayors of both Frisco and LA frolicked at events in crowds of 50,000 and took selfies with exposed faces. Hardly inspiring trust.
We may be our own worst critics, but America continues to lead the world in science, science literacy, and science policy. Anyone who has tried to navigate science policy in Europe knows how bad it can get when the discourse is hijacked by government-funded environmental groups who use taxpayer money to prevent sane efforts at progress for European taxpayers.

Compared to Europe, American scientists have it good.
Utility customers in California are being exploited by a special class of grifters. Those who live in apartment buildings or rental homes or live in poor neighborhoods are forced by law to subsidize million-dollar solar installations on homes in Malibu.

The poor are exploited in the form of a direct rebate which depletes funds that could be used for social services for all Californians, plus a special tax levied on their utility bills. It not only pays wealthy people to install solar panels, it pays them to sell any electricity back to the power company on bright days for the same price they buy it at night.
Implicit Racism tests say you are a bigot, it is only a question of how much. Social justice warriors and others in the humanities insist that even a field like astronomy is inevitably a reflex of the power of the socially privileged.

Given that science is always under fire from all sides, is there a way for science to guide technology on ways to help the public find trustworthy sources without 'Who Watches The Watchmen' and 'Follow The Money' claims polluting the discourse?
Last year, when CNN journalist Chris Cuomo was recovering from COVID-19, he endorsed all sorts of homeopathy and alternatives to medicine. It's no surprise, he is married to an influencer who just happens to sell those placebos to other wealthy, white elites. He's not alone. A surprising number of celebrities have spouses that promote nonsense.(1)
Epidemiology pushes out a lot of dumb papers. Not as many as social psychology per capita but in volume a whole lot more. It's easy to see why the public believes horse de-wormer cures COVID-19, it was in an epidemiology paper, and that methodology was just as valid as a paper this week 'linking' olive oil to longer life.