Science & Society

The Magic Number 3? Maybe Not.

Whenever there’s a task to be done or governance to be exercised, we tend to organize for it in threes. A single power center is unworkable, as it can easily lead to dictatorship. Two is not so good either, as a disagreement can lead to indefinite and unre ...

Article - Fred Phillips - Jun 22 2016 - 5:57am

The Supreme Court Has Set Back Diversity In Education

Should your ethnicity determine whether or not you are accepted into college? Of course not, but once upon a time it was. Half a century ago, it certainly made a difference in which schools and universities you could attend. After what was morally obvious ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Jun 23 2016 - 10:57am

Can A New Rule Trigger A Second EU Referendum? Petition 4.1 Millon Signatures, Over 12% Of Total Votes Cast

This government petition to call for a second EU referendum in the UK has suddenly become very popular. The number of signatures has now reached over 12% of the total votes cast in the referendum, over 25% of the Remain votes, and over 23% of the Leave vo ...

Article - Robert Walker - Jul 12 2016 - 2:57pm

NHS England Should Fund PrEP For HIV Prevention

It is time for NHS England to "do the right thing" and fund pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention, argue two senior public health doctors in The BMJ today. Directors of public health Jim McManus and Dominic Harrison, say despite ove ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2016 - 1:04pm

Regarding the Shooting of Philando Castile: A Scientific View of the Root Cause of Violence Towards Black People.

Systematic structural racism is not just a White-Black thing.  A Black man is less likely to be hired for a job with a community college degree than a white man who has just gotten out of prison. ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Jul 8 2016 - 7:50am

Physical Violence Is Just One Reason Journalists Stopped Covering The News

The truth is being suppressed across the world using a variety of methods,  and not just physical violence. Bribery, extortion and defamation legislation are also used, according to a special report in the 250th issue of Index on Censorship magazine. ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 11 2016 - 7:54pm

Gender Pay Sexism In Academia- Even Among Physicians

Though the physician wage gap between genders is virtually nonexistent in the private sector, that hasn't carried over to academia yet, where female academic physicians at public medical schools had lower average salaries than their male counterparts ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 13 2016 - 7:30am

A Post-Truth Society?

As some of you may be aware, even on the western seaboard of the Atlantic, Theresa May is shortly to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after Andrea Leadsom withdrew from the competition to become next leader of our Conservative Party. Shortly b ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Jul 13 2016 - 12:55pm

There Is Reasonable Discourse In The GMO Label Debate

In response to an overtly science-hostile bill by the state government in Vermont (1), the U.S. House of Representatives preemptively passed a softball GMO labeling law in 2015. Anti-science groups (Friends of the Earth, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientist ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jul 14 2016 - 7:44pm

Have We Reached Peak Zika?

In this Policy Forum, Neil Ferguson et al. use results from a model of virus transmission to analyze the current Zika epidemic in Latin America, suggesting that it may have already peaked. Evidence increasingly suggests a causal link between Zika infectio ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 15 2016 - 11:24am