Courts are not well-suited to deal with scientific questions. There is a judge: an appointed or elected lawyer who interprets the law. And there is a jury: randomly selected citizens who interpret the facts. On July 24, a six-person jury in a federal courtroom in Austin arrived at a decision that will find its way […]

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(Source: WAFB) What connects all of these events—the 1984 pesticide plant disaster at Bhopal, India; the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks in the U.S.; and the recent deadly chemical plant explosions in West, Texas, and Geismar, Louisiana? What connects these events is the looming danger of a terrorist assault or accident at a U.S. […]

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(Illustration: Edel Rodriguez) By the metrics of modern industrial catastrophes, the June 13 explosion at the Williams Olefins vinyl plant in Geismar, Louisiana, was a minor affair. Two men were killed. And 77 were injured. All the casualties were plant workers, no civilians killed or injured. Governor Bobby Jindal arrived while the fire was still […]

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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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