Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Are men more likely to commit scientific fraud? « Retraction Watch
Now along comes a study of U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reports suggesting that men are in fact overrepresented among scientists who commit fraud. In a study published online today in mBio, Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall — whose names will also be familiar to Retraction Watch readers for their previous work — along with Joan Bennett analyzed 228 ORI reports since 1994, and found that 149 — or 65% — were male. (The vast majority of the 228 cases — 94% — involved fraud such as falsification or fabrication, while the others presumable involved misconduct such as plagiarism.)
Professors back pay as you drive charging - Telegraph
Pay as you drive road charging should be introduced to tackle congestion and cut carbon emissions, leading academics have told Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary.
...
In an open letter they warned that ploughing more money into Britain’s road network will only generate more traffic.
NM governor appoints another denier | puckerclust
Two years ago Governor Martinez appointed Harrison Schmitt, a self-described “denier” of human-caused global warming, to head the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources. Despite the candidate’s truly heroic history as an Apollo astronaut and his past service as a US Senator, his appointment was doomed. After his views on climate science were revealed, and his association with an anti-science pressure group called the Heartland Institute became known, he withdrew.

Unfortunately, the governor has done it again.
Obama inauguration speech: President brings God into climate change fight.
If Obama were just paying lip service to climate change to please his backers on the left—as he has sometimes been accused of doing—the reference to "science" would have been quite sufficient. By bringing in God, he's attempting to reframe the issue as one that transcends not only partisanship but the divide between those who believe in [junk] science and those who doubt science but believe in God. Left or right, atheist or creationist—either way, Obama is saying, we've got to do something.

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