Science & Society

Robin Thicke may have sung "Blurred Lines" and appeared in a teenage fantasy video with a lot of naked women, but when a photo was revealed of him in a suggestive situation with another woman, he…

The Multiverse explains all. Any time a scientist begins with "Many of us suspect" it is code for 'we sit around and discuss it at the bar.' It is also a logical fallacy, an appeal to authority. The…

Science is frequently employed in the advertising industry, often as a positive selling point for products and services. Four out of five dentists recommend a type of gum. A prophylactic is “tested”…

When advocates want governments to take over some aspect of society, the argument is often an economic one - the money saved will be a suitably cosmic number. Yet in the trenches of government-run…

I will blog my real time reaction to Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Seth MacFarlane's Cosmos remake. From the perspective of a relatively young astrophysicist and science educator. 7:20 PM CST: I love…

If you feel ill, chances are you go to the Internet before you see a doctor. Most Americans have seen dramatic rises in health care premiums thanks to new government mandates and penalties, but the…

Female professors are less cooperative than men, which is exactly what we would expect from watching the behavior of men and women in groups. That is the claim recently published in a letter to…

There is a naive belief among some advocates that if people just had more money, their problems would be solved. Yet the saying 'money does not solve everything' exists as a truism for good reason.…

It may seem like social media is a great way to engage people, but outside creating a flash mob of dancers or overthrowing an African dictatorship and replacing it with another one, armchair…

Lower incomes are associated with higher obesity, though lower income in America is very much a relative term. Poor and minority kids lead the country in bedroom television ownership, so being poor…