Earlier today, I posted a review of The Animal Research War, which details the lengths that animal rights extremists are willing to go to in order to further their cause. Coincidently, the AP yesterday published a detailed article on the rise of animal rights extremism in the US. Here's a taste:

In the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, nine protesters gathered in front of the home of a toxicology professor, their faces covered with scarves and hoods despite the warm spring weather.

One scrawled "killer" in chalk on the scientist's doorstep, while another hurled insults through a bullhorn and announced, "Your neighbor kills animals!" Someone shattered a window.

Leah Ceccarelli in the Seattle Times:

My own research seeks to reveal what makes today's manufactroversies work. First, I've discovered that modern-day sophists skillfully invoke values that are shared by the scientific community and the public, such as free speech, skeptical inquiry and the revolutionary force of new ideas against a repressive orthodoxy. It is difficult to argue against someone who draws on these values without seeming unscientific or un-American.

Second, the modern sophists exploit the gap between the technical and public spheres. Scientific experts who can't spare the time for public communication are then surprised when the public distrusts them.

Third, today's sophists exploit a public misconception about what science is, portraying it as a structure of complete consensus built from the steady accumulation of unassailable data. Any dissent is cited as evidence that there's no consensus, and thus that truth must not have been discovered yet.

A more accurate portrayal of science recognizes it to be a process of debate among a community of experts in which the side with superior evidence and argument wins. Unanimity of belief never exists, but the process of science moves forward with the weight of a supermajority.

More here.

Lawrence Solomon seems to have a bee in his bonnet about wikipedia. He really should be writing about the exciting ongoing arbcomm case; but presumably thats too complex for him and would actually require some thinking or research. Instead, having called me Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate.... he has now said may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore.

Can you spot the similarity? Apparently the National Review couldn't, and are happy to print recycled cr*p from Solomon. And the subbing is so poor that they can't even spell my name consistently. It is a tricky one, though.

Thanks (if thats the right word :-) to Face for pointing this out.

Hello, Seattle! Look what just went up on Denny, near the Stewart Street intersection:

Everyone might want to donate to this cause, too: a group is trying to buy ad space on London buses, saying "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life."

Whew. We're getting uppity.

I've been outclassed. Every scientist in the world is a modest little mouse in comparison. All of you readers: humble, demure, and retiring. Ray Comfort has just compared himself favorably to Einstein, saying that he has made a discovery more important than E=mc². He even has a painfully vainglorious animated image on the page showing his face morphing into Einstein's.

I think Ray Comfort tried to look up "humility" in a dictionary once, but after slowly sounding out as far as "h - u -", he got stuck and settled for "hubris" instead. Close enough for a brain-dead Christian, after all!

I have this friend from New York who, most of the time, speaks in a normal (that is to say, southern) accent that she's acquired as a result of being surrounded for so long by people who speak the King's English ('cause Elvis was a southerner). Occasionally, though, usually after she's been talking to someone back home, she slips into her old Jamaica Queens accent, and when she does, I spend the first thirty seconds or so just trying to figure out whether she's speaking English, and I don't even bother trying to understand the meaning of those strangely accented words she's uttering. After that period of complete incomprehension, though, I seem to get used to her relapsed accent, and suddenly I can understand her perfectly well. Of course, by this time, I've missed enough of what she's saying that I have no idea what she's talking about, but at least the words now make sense.

I'd noticed this happen several times, but never really thought about it, partly because I'm not a psycholinguist, so that sort of thing doesn't interest me enough to think that deeply about it, and partly because I figure everyone should speak with a southern accent, and if they don't, it's not my fault I can't understand them. But earlier this week, I read a paper by Maye et al. titled "The Weckud Wetch of the Wast: Lexical Adaptation to a Novel Accent" (1), because the title sucked me in, and learned a bit about how I adopt to my friends' crazy Queens accent. And I thought I'd share what I learned with you.

Some days, my mailbox overflows with hilarity…like today. I got the new Roy Zimmerman CD! You should, too! It'll cheer any liberal to realize that you aren't alone, and you've got a theme song.

But I also get other mail that's almost as funny, although not intentionally so. For some perverse reason, there are some of you readers out there who think you are making a statement and causing me grief by signing me up for conservative magazines and newsletters. You really shouldn't. You know what happens? It comes in the mail, I flip through it, I laugh, and I toss it in the trash. Then when the phone call comes later, dunning me to pay for their magazine, I tell them that I don't read it and I didn't order it, and they get to eat the cost…and I laugh again. All you're doing is contributing to the local landfill and hurting my mailman's back, and that isn't nice.

But you're a conservative, so what the hell do you care.

Anyway, so far today I've received:

• Assurances from a wattled, snake-eyed Newt Gingrich that Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is the great future hope of American Conservatism.

• An advertisement from Human Events telling me that my lungs are dying and I have to stop exercising (it's bad for you!) and buy their supplements.

• Ann Coulter tries to sell me stock tips better than the Marxist tripe the Wall Street executives are peddling.

The Zimmerman CD had some real competition on the humor side, but wins in the talent department.

A dead Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans drowned on a longline. Photo by Graham Robertson/Australian Antarctic Division From Birdlife International:

BirdLife International presented the European Parliament with alarming data about the extent of seabird bycatch globally and in Europe yesterday. At the same time, BirdLife welcomed the long awaited first steps of the European Commission to tackle the problem by developing a Community Plan of Action on seabirds with the intention of completing it next year.

"With 300,000 seabirds, including about 100,000 albatrosses, dying annually as bycatch in longline and trawl fisheries - which include many vessels operating under EU flags - the European Community (EC) has the responsibility to put in place effective measures to tackle this readily solvable problem" said Dr Euan Dunn, Head of the Marine Policy at the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK), in a presentation at the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament.

Some new evidence suggesting that children aren't such bundles of joy:

Sociologists are discovering that children may not make parents happier and that childless adults, contrary to popular stereotypes, may often be more contented than people with kids.

Parents "definitely experienced more depression," says Robin Simon, a sociologist at Florida State University who has studied data on parenting.

"Part of our cultural beliefs is that we derive all this joy from kids," says Simon. "It's really hard for people who don't feel this to admit it." Social pressures to view only the positive aspects of child rearing only make the problem worse, she says. "They're afraid to admit it because it runs so counter to our cultural beliefs that children make you happy."

This data jives with the self-reports of parents. As Daniel Gilbert notes, "The only known symptom of the empty-nest syndrome is increased smiling. Careful studies of how women feel as they go about their daily activities show that they are less happy when taking care of their children than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television." According to the data, looking after the kids is only marginally better than mopping the floor.

And yet, these subjective self-reports also miss something important, I think. The fact of the matter is that it's much easier to quantify pleasure on a moment-by-moment basis that it is to quantify something as intangible as "unconditional love". Changing a diaper isn't enjoyable, and teenagers can be such a pain in the ass, but having kids can also be a profound source of meaning for people. (I like the amateur marathoner metaphor: survey a marathoner in the midst of the race and they'll complain about their legs and that rash and how the race seems like it's taking forever. But when the running is over they are always incredibly proud of their accomplishment. Having kids, then, is like a marathon that lasts 18 years.) The larger point, though, is that just because we can't measure something doesn't mean it isn't important, or that we should always privilege the quantifiable (pleasure) over the intangible (meaning). Real life is complex stuff.

Those of you in the greater DC area may be interested in the NIH Science in the Cinema Film Series at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring.

Starting tomorrow, July 9, there will be free weekly screenings of films centered on various medical conditions - like Alzheimer's (Away from Her), locked-in syndrome (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and HIV/AIDS (Life Support). The films will be followed by commentary from researchers in the field and a Q&A session, which could be interesting, given the directorial liberties that are often taken in films dealing with medicine and biology.

If you can't make it to Silver Spring, consider popping some of these films onto your Netflix queue. Who knew Akira Kurosawa made a film about syphilis (The Quiet Duel)?