Democratic members of the #House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic defended Dr. Anthony #Fauci ahead of Monday's hearing about the #US’ #COVID19#pandemic response, policies & transparency.
The representatives blasted #Republicans’ claims of Fauci’s involvement in starting [for real they had to say this] or covering up the pandemic as a “dangerous” & “cartoonish” narrative.
Dr #Fauci dismisses ‘preposterous’ allegations that he led #covid coverup
The infectious-disease expert said #Republicans have distorted emails between #scientists as they discussed whether a lab leak of the coronavirus was possible.
Fauci defended himself against claims that he orchestrated a coverup of the #coronavirus#pandemic’s origins, w/the fmr govt official rejecting some allegations as “simply preposterous.”
In the US “the aggression against science and scientists is coming from one political party, and the extreme element of one political party” but the article talks about harassment in other countries as well.
A company in #Spain has a plan to torture a million #octopuses per year – by raising them in crowded tanks and then killing them by putting them in icy water, which causes a slow, stressful death.
The company knows octopuses are highly intelligent and feel pleasure, pain, joy and fear, but this is their way of turning a huge #profit. Now they’re being slammed by #scientists and the #media – and if enough of us add to the pressure right now we can stop them.
@jeffmcneill Please inform the public on how much #whales#science education & how much wild whales experiences you have had. I've coexisted, paddled alongside & rescued whales. I live in area surrounded by whales. I work with #scientists to save whales.
What are your real life experiences with whales? You seem to have ZERO real experiences. Yet, your #HumanEgo prevents you from making apologies to #women who have a lot more science experiences & more science knowledge, than you.
#Plants are often celebrated for the parts that are easy to see – #flower, leaves, #fruit – but #scientists are uncovering the secrets of their more mysterious underground networks
@RealJournalism I read a few years ago that we all rely on scientists to sustain the human population now. That was specifically addressing agriculture and food and water supplies. But of course, with the 8+ billion humans now overtaxing the planet and all the pollution we create, it's even truer.
Thank you, #scientists. You are our miracle workers.
I see a lot of people talking about #science as a #religion, or the closely related idea of “#scientism,” the purported ideology that says science is the only way to know things. Oh, I’m not talking about you, they’ll solemnly assure anyone who objects. Naturally you know better. Just … you know … them. Those people, out there. The great unwashed. On the #internet, nobody knows how long it’s been since you took a shower.
You know what I hardly ever see? The phenomenon in question.
There are people who think that way. Yes. Ideologues of science—hardly if ever #scientists themselves—who invoke The #Scientific Method™ (that’s a whole ‘nother rant) as the be-all and end-all justification for whatever nonsense they spew. Such posts and comments have crossed my feed a time or two. But they are vastly outnumbered by those who complain about them, at least where I can see both groups. I have no reason to believe my experience is atypical in this regard.
As a scientist myself, I think science is a very good way to understand certain things. In my field, it’s the best way to know what makes you sick, and hopefully what will make you better. There are other ways to learn these things, sure, and many of them can be useful places to start. If you don’t end up with a #clinical#trial sooner or later, you’re as likely to kill as cure.
To know what we’re seeing when we look up at the lights in the sky. How the natural world around us, of which we’re a part whether we like it or not, changes and how we both affect and are affected by that change. What came before us, and what might come after. The fundamental building blocks of reality. All these require science for real understanding. If you try to puzzle them out any other way, you may learn something, but you’ll also fill your head with a lot of nonsense. Sorting the wheat from the chaff later is a lot harder than doing it right the first time.
Other questions are at least amenable to scientific inquiry, although that process itself may not be enough. What my fiancee does as a #historian looks, to me, a lot like what I do as a #biomedical#researcher. Make observations, construct #hypotheses, gather evidence, test and revise. (And revise, and revise, and …) But #history vanishes every minute. What’s left is always fragmentary, and shaped by the interactions of modern minds with those long since gone to dust. There will never be an objective truth, only the truest story that can be told.
And then there are things beyond any kind of quantitative analysis, or even rigorous qualitative description. We may be able to agree on what makes a true story, more or less, but what makes a good one? That’s inherently personal. A happy marriage, a tasty meal, a satisfying job—only we can define what these goals mean for ourselves. Science may at best, occasionally, provide vague guidelines. Even then, my advice will not determine your experience.
My perspective is unusual in one key way, sure: not too many people do science for a living, at least not compared to other jobs. With regards to the way people talk about science, I think it’s not unusual at all, except maybe that I pay particular attention.
The division above—things that clearly belong in science’s domain, things that clearly don’t, and a whole bunch in the middle—is a whole lot more common than the idea of science as the One True. It’s at least somewhat more common than blanket rejection of science too, but not as much as it should be. That’s also a rant for another time.
Which all makes me wonder what people who never miss a chance to bring up “scientism” and science-as-religion get out of it.
(“No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned … It has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”)
Funny — the journalists who spoke up said McDaniel’s departure was required to
🔸preserve their journalistic mission and the network’s credibility,
🔸not out of any need for “alignment.”
We can only hope that NBC and other news organizations take away something more than “don’t hire a MAGA mouthpiece”
A few ideas:
• Create a #mission#statement that affirms your goals are telling the #truth and defending #democracy, which protects the First Amendment — not fake balance. • #Stop#pretending four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump and his movement are presenting #alternative “#policies” as a normal party would. They are fighting for an alternate system: authoritarianism. • Politicians’ outright #lies must be identified, not just labeled as their “response” or “position.” • Instead of obsessing over #polls, devote extensive coverage to #analyzing the Heritage Foundation’s “#Project2025” and Trump’s #fascist#agenda. Feature #historians and political #scientists during news segments (not only on panels) to put Trump’s views and statements in context. • #Don’t excerpt a few words from a Trump rally or speech, dub it an “argument” and #ignore his mental short-circuits and #deteriorating#intellect.
Are there any #medical#scientists or #researchers or #neurologists doing any current studies on human #brain & #memory retention - specifically on maximum capacities of human brain memory storage & if there's a limit to how much we can store in our brains?
Like, if we build up many new memories, do we reach a point where some past memories are removed from our memory storage or is there no maximum limits to human memory storage?
These are things I wonder about & don't know enough about.
What better way to honour this mathematical marvel (π) than by baking a delicious pie that resembles the CMS detector? 🥧
Today, embrace the magic of circles – from pizzas and pancakes to clocks and planets. 🪐🍕
Take a moment to appreciate the beauty and wonder of math in our everyday world.
#NorthernTerritory (NT) waters make up the last global stronghold for endangered #sawfish and one of the world's rarest shark species, the #RiverShark. Four of the world's five sawfish species and two of the world's five river shark species call NT waters home.
Right now, sawfish and river sharks are not protected from commercial #gillnets in their #CriticalHabitat along the coastlines of major river systems in the NT.
The Daly River is home to one of the world's very few known #nurseries of critically #endangered#FreshwaterSawfish. It's at this time of year (wet season) that they're the most exposed, as they spend time near the river mouth giving birth to #pups and #breeding.
The #ProtoBird lived some 120 million years ago & did not have teeth—a trait more similar to #birds of today than to birds of its time—sharpening scientists’ understanding of #avian#evolution.
The #scientists who discovered the #NovelSpecies gave it a name that highlights its uniqueness and pays tribute to the British #naturalist#DavidAttenborough : Imparavis attenboroughi, which means “Attenborough’s strange bird” in Latin.
For #InternationalWomensDay my ongoing series of portraits of women in science through history. If you look for them, they’re there. I’m up to 56 now. Here’s to the day when a scientist’s sex is no longer remarkable in any field!
In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist by S. S. Schweber
How two charismatic, exceptionally talented physicists came to terms with the nuclear weapons they helped to create. In 1945, the United States dropped the bomb, and physicists were forced to contemplate disquieting questions about their roles and responsibilities.
"Last spring, #scientists learned of plans to scale back a government database that’s widely used in #pesticide research. Now, following months of advocacy, USGS appears set to restore the beloved public resource, slowing what some experts see as an ongoing erosion of public access to #environmental data."