http://www.discoverynews.org/ covers politics, foreign policy, science, technology, media and culture with an eye toward issues of conflict between worldviews. It reports otherwise under-represented developments and discovers facts and points of view that otherwise might be missed in public dialogue. Contributors include former Discovery News ambassadors and elected officials, public policy fellows and writers nation-wide. en Copyright 2010 Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:02:40 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss courts are now weighing in, and not a moment too soon. The Alliance Defense Fund deserves special congratulations for its leadership on these matters. A victory in the Third District court can now be applied elsewhere in the country.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/09/speech_codes_beginning_to_fall037871.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/09/speech_codes_beginning_to_fall037871.php Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:02:40 -0800 initial news accounts was any mention of Darwin. But, in James J. Lee's manifesto, emerges this clear demand: "Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!" Another odd thing is that the Discovery Channel probably runs more programs about Darwinian evolution than any other network, even PBS. Indeed, if I close my eyes and try to visualize "Discovery Channel" the image that forms is of a cartoon amphibian crawling out of the primordial pond, growing simian legs, making fire and developing into a TV news anchor. In the news stories of the Columbine massacre several years ago the Darwin angle also was missed, though it had been explicit in the rants of the young killer/suicides. Now it's Mr. Lee's turn to have his message revised.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/09/maniac_wants_more_darwin_progr037801.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/09/maniac_wants_more_darwin_progr037801.php Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:41:51 -0800 a hard blow last week when one of its leading exponents, Prof. Marc Hauser of Harvard, was exposed as a fraud. The monkey research he conducted didn't show at all what what he said it did. This isn't Climate Gate, but it's a scandal. Dr. Hauser probably can escape permanent damage to his employment prospects if he explains that his genes made him cheat. In the history of hominids, after all, shaking down taxpayers is a well-established behavior to enhance reproductive advantage. What no one in the media apparently bothered to check was the cost of Prof. Hauser's bogus research. Looking at National Science Foundation grants online, it seems to have been $504,000. Shouldn't the Inspector General at the NSF be asking Harvard for the government's money back? The follow-up question is, how much of this goes on in academia? And why does Big Science, alone among American institutions, get to police itself? We have headline investigations if some Congressman misuses his per diem allowance on a junket to Ouagadougou. Total waste, maybe $300. In comparison, is 500K for rigged university research merely chimp change?]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/open_up_the_scandal_at_harvard037711.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/open_up_the_scandal_at_harvard037711.php Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:29:18 -0800 There are still cars zipping around America's bluer neighborhoods with bumper strips from way back in 2003: "No War for Oil." That was the Iraq war, of course. There is no need to belabor the memories of the marches, the snide TV and radio commentaries, the alternative media fits about the supposed conspiracy. The idea that George W. Bush and his evil buddy, Dick Cheney, were sending American boys to die for oil was simply taken as a proven truth. Only now, seven years later, as US combat troops leave Iraq, is oil production in Iraq finally back to its pre-war levels of production of 2.5 million barrels a day and easing upwards. Electricity production is doing better, but not great. And the US oil companies that benefitted? Well, Exxon is there, but the biggest players are the Chinese. Does anyone remember the Chinese sending any troops to Iraq? Or the Russians? Hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars have been spent on the Iraq war. By no conceivable accounting will anyone in the U.S. get that much back in Iraqi oil revenue--ever. The Iraqis, meanwhile, do have oil as their big economic hope. The country's reserves are nearly those of Saudi Arabia and already supply 90 percent of government revenue. The big danger, simultaneously, is that oil will corrupt a country already steeped in traditions of corruption. But it is long past time for those "No War for Oil" bumper strips to come off, don't you think?]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/what_happened_to_the_war_for_o037741.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/what_happened_to_the_war_for_o037741.php Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:54:49 -0800 (George Gilder addresses Wired's September cover story, "The Web is Dead", by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolf.) May I be so bold as to contradict my old friends at Wired? I would suggest that they have the picture wildly upside down. What is dying is not the Web but television and the Internet. The onrush of video bits as a share of traffic is irrelevant to the prospects of the web, which is measured not by bulk traffic but by information entropy: by impressions, transactions, and servers. The video flood, however, is deadly to the Internet with its ungainly TCP aks-naks, buffers and security patches, multi-layered latency and dropped links. It is the Internet that must die as a result of the dominance of video traffic. Video will kill the cumbrous, porous seven layer Internet model just as the rise of voice killed the old best efforts, asynchronous, non-deterministic telegraph network. As my friend Henry Gau ingeniously explains, the rise of voice communications with their needs for deterministic synchrony required a new Bell infrastructure to replace the old Western Union tap-tap. Similarly video's needs for deterministic synchronous delivery precisely parallel the previous demands of voice streams when they became the prevailing form of traffic early in the last century with the rise of telephony. Who will build this network remains in question but the floods of video all the way down from the server through the living room to the desktop to the handset cannot be handled by some Microsoft, Symantec, or Cisco patch on the old Internet.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/internets_dead_not_the_web037671.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/internets_dead_not_the_web037671.php Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:38:06 -0800 Amtrak not only has had a monopoly on passenger rail in America, it has abused the franchise. The problem now is so serious that many observers have grown skeptical about any realistic future for passenger rail in this country. But don't give up. It is legal now for private companies, in certain circumstances, to bid against Amtrak management, and that is beginning to happen. Don Phillips, in the new Trains magazine (I cannot find the link; sorry) has the story from Virginia. An old-fashioned rail battle erupts in the nation's capital Boardman admits he was asleep at the switch By Don Phillips The great railroad battles of the last 180 years have been etched into the American consciousness. High school and college students know the names: Gould, Rockefeller, Huntington, Brosnan. There was the first railroad battle, over whether the new Baltimore & Ohio or the C&O Canal would get through the narrow gap at Point of Rocks, Md. There were numerous bitter strikes, including the great Pullman strike and a nationwide railroad strike that began at the still-standing roundhouse at Martinsburg, W.Va., both in the 19th century. ]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/private_competition_at_last_in037631.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/private_competition_at_last_in037631.php Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:46:02 -0800 The New York Times, as usual, leads the attack on the federal court ruling Monday against US Government funding for embryonic stem cell research (mainly through the National Institutes of Health), and as usual the reporting is tendentious. "This decision has the potential to do serious damage to one of the most promising areas of biomedical research," says Dr. Francis Collins, director of NIH. In a companion article ("The Two Plaintiffs at Center for the Ban on Stem Cell Use"), the Times employs innuendo to raise personal questions about the lead researchers who brought the case, Dr. James L. Shirley and Dr. Theresa Deisher. It is one of those stories that sounds worrying until you read it again and realize how empty the charges are. (Basically, the plaintiffs have had disputes with colleagues. Big surprise.) In other words, just because the Times runs a negative article about someone doesn't mean there is any content to the charges. The truth is that the scientists who are plaintiffs have put their careers at risk by taking on the Government and especially the likes of powerful funders at NIH--not to mention biased journalists. They are, in short, very courageous. In a third article, "Stem Cell Biology and its Complications," way down the page, long after we read how people with diabetes and other ravaging diseases are distressed by possible funding cuts for cures, the Times admits, "Yet despite the high hopes for embryonic stem cells, progresss has been slow--so far there are no treatments with the cells." (Emphasis added.) After all these years and who know how much much money: "no treatments with the (embryonic stem) cells." Finally, the Times leaps in with a fourth article, an editorial deploring the decision, "Wrong Direction on Stem Cells." Expect attacks by columnists to follow. The plaintiffs would have no chance against that kind of stacked journalistic deck. Fortunately, they apparently have a better case in court. Ideology is largely responsible for the insistence on embryonic stem cell research to the relative exclusion of other stem cell approaches. It is another case of Big Science and its journalists enablers acting like Big Brother.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/false_panic_over_embryonic_ste037591.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/false_panic_over_embryonic_ste037591.php Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:01:58 -0800 The Israel Test, spoke a few days ago upon return from a recent trip. This short video is part of of his trip report. ]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/israel_on_the_cusp_of_new_nego037541.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/israel_on_the_cusp_of_new_nego037541.php Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:00:56 -0800 page one of the Wall Street Journal (above the fold). Theresa Deisher of Seattle is one of the plaintiffs who sued the Obama Administration over the matter. She kindly sent us a copy of the ruling, found here. Obviously, the Administration will appeal. But they have been called out and the pro-life issues now have a legal force lacking before. It is amazing and grand that Deisher and company have shown what citizens can do--on the right side. The Journal story says the ruling "was cheered by some Christian groups as a defense of human life" (imagine that), but "denounced by scientists who called it a major setback for medical research." But it is not a setback for science. Deisher is a scientist in the field and Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow of Discovery Institute, has pointed out repeatedly that you don't need human embryos to get scientific progress using stem cells. Furthermore, evidence suggests that human embryos are bad candidates for research in the field. Embryonic Stem Cells are wonderful candidates, of course, for the effort to pit human life defenders against people who long for medical advances. Judge Royce Lambert of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. has thrown a monkey wrench into that strategy.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/huge_victory_for_social_conser037531.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/huge_victory_for_social_conser037531.php Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:09:42 -0800 The Screwtape Letters, a novel of C. S. Lewis, is both satirical and instructional, maybe at once the funniest of Lewis' works and also the most trenchant. It has converted people, and amused many more. How many works of theological interest can say as much? (Just now I can't think of any). Published during World War II, Screwtape seems to remain fresh and accessible--and every few years its schema is reused for some other purpose, the sincerest form of flattery, as they say. Screwtape seems like a natural for stage adaptation and has been performed by several writer/producers/actors before Max McLean. But it is McLean who has excelled. He presently has a bravura, small cast performance at the Westside Theater Off-Broadway in New York. The production has been favorably noticed in the World and The Wall Street Journal ("One hell of a good show"), among other places. But I particularly enjoyed a recent sizable back-story treatment by Retta Blaney in the estimable high church Anglican (Episcopal) journal, The Living Church (July 25 issue). For what is worth, my opinion is that Screwtape would make an outstanding film and gain millions of new fans where it now wins thousands. The letters from the minor devil, Screwtape, to his agent, Toadpipe, are an indirect means to describe for us sympathetically and humorously the devil's "patient", a young man whose soul Screwtape intends to corrupt. It could be entertaining to follow the patient on the big screen. There are at least two or three friendly film makers who should be looking at the possibility. McLean, who himself plays Screwtape on stage--in a gaudy gold and red brocade smoking jacket--says his greatest difficulty was getting Lewis' long sentences into script bites that won't gag an actor on stage. He seems to have pulled it off and also to have reduced what would have been several hours of drama into a lively 90 minutes. "We have twice as much content as most shows and we're half as long," he says. "I feel audiences want to delve into the meatiness of the piece." The play has been extended in New York into October. I am going to try to see it before then, but if I (and you) can't, McLean will have another national road show this winter (he's had at least one before the New York opening). Then maybe a movie?]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/screwtape_the_play_soon_the_fi037281.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/screwtape_the_play_soon_the_fi037281.php Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:50:16 -0800 Former Senator Ted Stevens, killed in a tragic plane crash in his beloved Alaska, is going to be the source of a great deal of sadness and regret in his home state tonight. It should induce some soul searching in Washington, DC. Before Sen. Stevens was killed in real life he was ruined in political life by unscrupulous federal prosecutors. He finally was able to clear his name in court, but the indictment that preceded the 2008 election was timed so it would be all but impossible for him to be re-elected. Even so, he nearly was re-elected. The final vote margin was small. Clearly he would have returned to the Senate had it not been for the malign political activity of the federal prosecuting team. Ted Stevens will be hailed correctly as one of the greatest sons of our fiftieth state, a giant of the Senate, a remarkable, durable public servant. I hope his life story also will help speed reform of the judicial system that allowed rogue prosecutors to play politics with his honor and, frankly, with the democratic rights of Alaskans and the political well-being of the country.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/ted_stevens_death_casts_pall_o037251.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/ted_stevens_death_casts_pall_o037251.php Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:52:12 -0800 You can chart the way various states are faring by examining the various counties within them. It was clear even from figures from the boom times of a couple of years ago; I expect that the trends are stronger now. With the exception of the political swing state of Ohio, almost all the states that have backed liberal candidates for the White House and Congress lead those losing Congressional districts. It's a blue state phenomenon. But it is not politics that characterizes this decline, but public policies. States (including Ohio) that have over-spent and over-taxed are hurting most. The new "civil war" is really a struggle over those public policies. California, which since statehood never before failed to gain Congressional representation, is not going to gain any after this Census. The once-Golden State actually is losing people by the hundreds of thousands as punitive taxes and regulations destroy manufacturing and agriculture. People who own or run factories and farms are being hurt, but so are their workers. The Central Valley is being literally decimated.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/the_old_south_wins_the_new_civ037241.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/the_old_south_wins_the_new_civ037241.php Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:16:16 -0800 A Classic Evolution Policy Blunder.. It is instructive to see the numerous comments that follow it. From the same article various respondents decided that I am anti-science, anti-Bible, anti-reason and pro-liberal judges. I am denounced as a creationist by one reader and an anti-creationist by another. (I am none of those things.) Soon enough, as is typical, some of the commenters are denouncing each other, often behind the protection of made-up names. We now live in a media environment that is like a restaurant where all the patrons are shouting at the same time. The louder your neighbor, the more you raise your own voice. The more competitive the din, the more nuance and extended argument are cast aside in favor of sloganeering and insults. In such an environment, one probably should lower his voice rather than raise it. It should be obvious that just because I am aware of the disposition of federal courts on the subject of religion in public school classrooms I do not necessarily favor it. In the instance of Judge Jones in Dover, PA, I think the judicial opinion is poorly reasoned as well as unfair. Regardless, in real life, school leaders must deal with the law as it is, not as they would like it to be. In the case of Dover, some members on the local school board defended their actions on religious grounds and not only had their policy thrown out by Judge Jones, but also got themselves thrown out of office. In addition, they at least temporarily made the work of intelligent design scientists and other Darwin critics more difficult. The issue was not theirs to misrepresent and endanger, properly speaking, but they did it anyhow. I hope that doesn't happen in Louisiana. The state government has a fine law that will allow controversial scientific subjects to be taught objectively on their scientific merits. It should be obvious (again) that no one denies that there are religious implications to Darwinian evolution and also to its rejection. But there also are religious implications, for example, to such topics as cloning. And there are political implications to global warming. But most people probably, upon reflection, can find common ground on teaching only science in public school science classes and leaving religion and/or politics at the door. Science should not avoid controversy, but it should respect its own limits. Within those limits there is still plenty to discuss.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/the_new_tower_of_babel037181.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/the_new_tower_of_babel037181.php Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:42:01 -0800 new book by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Breifus that is reviewed today in the Wall Street Journal. Before readers complain that the article and the book (and my comments above) constitute an overly sweeping indictment, let us all acknowledge that there are some fine colleges and that even the bad ones have a some good professors. A few professors can even be called outstanding, whether on teaching or research grounds, or both. Okay? But let the reader also acknowledge that the institution of college education is ripe for reform. If nothing else, the customers will demand it. ]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/new_book_pricks_higher_ed_bubb037121.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/new_book_pricks_higher_ed_bubb037121.php Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:12:39 -0800 The New York Times. What she finds is not science, but self-referencial sophomoric pranks, vitriol and cavil. That world, also amazingly, seems to be fraying badly.]]> http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/science_blogs_exposed_at_last037111.php http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/08/science_blogs_exposed_at_last037111.php Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:25:39 -0800