Maybe you should look at (in “Silencing Science,” June 1, 2013) the pharmacokinetic data from the National Center for Toxicological Analysis, which appears to have convinced the Silent Spring Institute that BPA does not present an estrogenic threat to mothers or infants. Or the EPA’s “state of the science” report on non-monotonic dose responses in […]

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(Source: Wikipedia) In one of the best-known exchanges of all the Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes mentions to a Scotland Yard detective the “curious incident of the dog in the night-time” (a clue in the theft of a racehorse). When the detective points out that the dog had done nothing that night, Holmes replies: “That was […]

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(Source: ABC News) The latest reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria—by Assad’s regime against civilians—render a consideration of the arguments for intervention in Syria ever more urgent, especially as part of the existent case against intervention has rested on a skeptical assessment of previous reports of the use of chemical weapons. In […]

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This article originally appeared in TomDispatch.com. So much has changed since that hot day in August 1963 when Martin Luther King delivered his famous words from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. A black family lives in the White House and official segregation is a thing of the past. Napalm no longer falls on the […]

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(Source: Pete Souza) I am not against excellence. I just think it’s over-rated as an aspiration. In fact, I think aspiration itself may be over-rated. When I see excellence—when I’m competent to recognize it (and in many fields, like science and opera, I am not)—it is thrilling and heartening, as a friend once said, to […]

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