Will the Vaccine-Autism Saga Finally End?
Not likely. You can retract a scientific paper, but not a mass movement.
A single, small study stirred a mass anti-vaccine movement that threatens public health. Now that the paper has been declared totally invalid, advocates and the medical establishment need to talk.
Video: Climate Change Is a Clear and Present Danger
Joe Romm interviews Christopher Field, Ph.D., the director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, professor of biology and environmental earth system science at Stanford University, and the Working Group II Co-Chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Video: How We Know Humans Are Changing the Climate
Joe Romm interviews Michael MacCracken, Ph.D., the chief scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute and a co-author and contributing author for various chapters in the IPCC assessment reports.
A First-Place Budget for Science
The budget request for fiscal year 2011 that the Obama administration released on Monday includes foundational investments that will help the United States remain the leader among innovative nations.
Yet Another Climate Science Mess
With the latest climate scandal—this time, involving dubious claims made about the likely fate of the Himalayan glaciers—the case grows ever more urgent for serious rethinking of science communication practices.
Is the Science Glass Half Full, or Half Empty?
The latest figures on the relationship between science and the U.S. public can be used to support either a positive or a negative perspective.
To Market! To Market!
New policies are in the works to contain food safety problems after they appear, but we need a comprehensive federal policy that helps get safe, fresh food from farms to local markets.
When Scientists Speak Out
What a highly influential recent paper on mountaintop removal mining shows about how scientists can change policy by getting their message (and timing!) right.
Chinese Science Rising?
There is no reason for us to fear for our scientific advantage, but we should be resolute in cultivating U.S. research, development, and innovation.
Condoms, Malt Liquor, and Good Research
Two conservative senators have teamed up in a fleece war on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, targeting 100 of its projects, many of them scientific in nature, as examples of wasteful spending.
The Year in Science, 2009
It was a banner year for scientific progress and progressive science policy. But sadly, it was also the year for the rebirth of what is now a wide-ranging war on science.
The Areas of Our Expertise
Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously suggested that science and religion deal with non-overlapping areas of knowledge. The idea is useful for quelling debates about creationism, but it’s a mistake when developing public policy for the life sciences. Why we can’t separate science and ethics.
Public Relations and Public Health
The vaccine, while safe and effective, has provided a vehicle for the anti-vaccine movement to launch attacks on some of our most vital tools for protecting public health.
Bringing New Ideas to Market
The Obama administration’s push for innovation to boost economic competitiveness requires better strategic links between federal agencies and universities.
Can Copenhagen Succeed?
An analysis of the warming in store, and the warming we can hope to prevent, shows that proposed policies will have to stretch to put us in a climate “safe zone”— especially for developing nations.
Voting with their Wallets
Although the numbers of young Americans studying science, technology, engineering, or math in high school and college are as strong as ever, the very best of those students are less likely than in decades past to stay in STEM fields when they leave college.
Get a Life
Researchers with families need more than childcare. They need a culture of professional assessment that looks for their contributions as teachers, scholars, and citizens—not just an unrelenting rate of work.
The Watchmen and the Scientists
A comprehensive approach to developing, deploying, and utilizing our eyes in the sky can revolutionize national security and environmental sustainability.
Genetic Testing 101
With new opportunities come questions about how to interpret the avalanche of genetic information and how to protect it from improper use.
Angels Sometimes Need Help, Too
Early-stage investors in innovation companies—angel investors—and the founders of start-up companies they support financially, warrant investment support. Here’s one intriguing idea.
Letter from Kyoto
Rekindling an innovation economy focused on regional clusters would go far to making Americans productive and optimistic again.
Population Matters (And So Does How We Talk About It)
The relationship between population and environmental sustainability is complex, and understanding the fraught history of debates on the issue is critical for scientists and advocates.
Online Since the ’80s
The lessons learned from the French Minitel network in the 1980s are still important as the FCC considers net neutrality today. A philosopher of technology talks about the importance of digital democratic innovation.
Time for Family, Time for Science
A significant proportion of American women leave scientific careers between earning their Ph.D. and winning tenure-track positions. Many of these "leaks" in the pipeline are the result of decisions to start families. Changes to federal and university policy can stem the losses, say the authors of a new report.
Social Justice Can Support Sustainability
It's time to have a new conversation about population and the environment—one that is grounded in science and guided by values of human rights, equity, and social justice.
DNA Confidential
Most states refrain from prescribing rules governing partial match reporting or familial searching in statute, regulation, or well-publicized memoranda. This report represents the first effort to catalog in a comprehensive manner state policies and practices regarding partial match reporting and familial searching.
Interactive Map: State Policies for DNA Crime Databases Vary Widely
Certain “partial” and “familial” matches found in DNA databases can implicate an offender’s close genetic relatives as possible perpetrators of a crime. But there are no consistent federal rules on how to conduct such searchers and report findings.
The Terms for a Search
State crime labs can collect and analyze DNA evidence, comparing results to profiles stored in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. Here’s how the process works.
Do Gene Patents Hurt Research?
Controversies over gene patents often ignore the lack of evidence that they impede basic research. The more important concern may be the negative impact of the push to commercialize science.
Tools for Truth Telling
Given the Obama administration's positive approach to science and to human rights, a new CAP report argues that now is the time to craft policies that support collaborations between researchers and advocates that stop atrocities. An interview with Sarah Dreier and William Schulz on science in the service of human rights.
Uncivil Engineering
A “plan B” focused on planetary control through geoengineering might turn out to be nothing but a mistaken notion.
Continuing Medical Education
With a bold investment of federal resources into clinician education during their academic training years and throughout their careers, we can improve reproductive health care.
The Science of Recovery
Supporting research and innovation can unleash Americans' talents for discovery and entrepreneurship.
» Read earlier features in the issues archive
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Certainty on the Science of Climate Change
“A wait-and-see policy,” on climate change, observed Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Dr. Joseph Romm on Wednesday, “may mean waiting until it’s too late.” Romm was speaking at a CAP event on “The Science of Climate Change,” and was joined by Dr. Chris Field, the director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Working Group II Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Michael MacCracken, Ph.D., the chief scientist for climate change programs at the Climate Institute.
Human activity generates heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide that are warming the planet and changing the climate. In framing the conversation, Romm summarized an MIT study concluding that on our current emissions path, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will more than double from pre-industrial levels and the median temperature increase at the Earth’s surface in the 2090s could be 5.2˚C, or nearly 10˚F. “We’re talking about a completely different planet,” he said.
MacCracken emphasized during his panel presentation that our understanding of the fundamental physical science behind climate change is sound and has been for decades. In fact, the idea that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide could warm the planet is more than a century old—the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius explained the concept in 1896. The first official report submitted to a U.S. president on the impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide arrived on Lyndon B. Johnson’s desk in 1965. Read more »
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They’re Not Perfect Cells, But They’re Model Cells
In his final column for Science Progress, Rick Weiss responded to critics of stem cell research who argue that injections of stem cells will never serve as treatments for certain chronic diseases. True enough, Weiss wrote, injections of stem cells are unlikely to serve as a treatment for conditions like Alzheimer’s:
Alzheimer’s, after all, affects such a large part of the brain that treating it with injections of cells would almost certainly be futile. (Parkinson’s disease, by contrast, involves a very small area in the brain so has real of hope of being helped by injections of replacement cells there.)
But that doesn’t mean that research involving human embryonic stem cells might never play a crucial role in developing treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s. The reason: because stem cells can develop into any kind of cell in the body, scientists can potentially use them to grow model tissue samples and test drugs without the need to experiment on a human subject.
Stem cells are powerful tools for developing treatments not just because they can regenerate damaged tissue, but because as they grow, scientists can use them to understand the basic biology of a disease. Read more »
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Genomic Medicine on the March
On Thursday, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee for Genetics, Health, and Society at the Department of Health and Human Services will meet to discuss a set of reports on the future of genomic medicine. The meeting will cover a range of important issues such as the impact of affordable whole-genome sequencing; comparative effectiveness research; genetics education for healthcare providers, patients, and public health workers; and the sharing of genomic data across multiple sectors including research, industry, and healthcare services. This is the kind of federal-level dialogue and coordination promoted in the Science Progress report, “Paving the Way for Personalized Medicine.”
SACGHS has formed a task force to address the clinical utility of genetic testing—that is,.the usefulness of genetic tests for helping doctors choose more effective interventions for their patients. Assessing clinical utility is an important component of both personalized medicine and comparative effectiveness research, which analyzes interventions head-to-head to see which work better for different patients. The goal is to improve comparative effectiveness research by incorporating genetic tests, which would allow physicians to tailor treatments to individual patients based on their own DNA. Read more »
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President’s Budget Aims to Recharge Regional Innovation
Investing in innovation is a critical component of long-term economic prosperity, and the president’s FY2011 budget request includes two notable provisions that will support regional science and technology clusters.
The administration is asking for $75 million “to support the creation of regional innovation clusters that leverage regions’ competitive strengths to boost job creation and economic growth,” a goal Jonathan Sallet, Ed Paisley, and Justin Masterman championed in the Science Progress report, “The Geography of Innovation.” Part of the key to this approach is that is allows policymakers to pay close attention to regional strengths. As the report authors explain: “Geographic regions that are bound together by a network of shared advantages create virtuous cycles of innovation that succeed by emphasizing the key strengths of the local businesses, universities and other research and development institutions, and non-profit organizations.”
As well, the Department of Energy budget includes substantial investments in research and development to spur clean energy innovation. That includes $107 million for three existing and one proposed Energy Innovation Hub. The Hubs, as the full DOE request says, “establish larger, highly integrated teams working to solve priority technology challenges that span work from basic research to engineering development to commercialization readiness.” These hubs, write the “Geography of Innovation” authors, are forward-thinking centers that will “spur the development of the innovation clusters that will help solve our national energy challenges, create jobs, and promote widespread economic growth.”
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Event: The Science of Climate Change
Next Wednesday, Science Progress will co-host an event at the Center for American Progress. The guest list for The Science of Climate Change is already at capacity, but the live webstream will be available here. Full event info:
The Science of Climate Change
February 3, 2010, 12:00pm – 1:30pmAn overwhelming quantity of direct observations and analyses published by scientists in various disciplines around the world demonstrates that human activity has warmed the planet and altered the climate. The severity of the projected impacts of continuing on our current greenhouse gas emissions path has only increased in recent years.
Please join the Center for American Progress for an educational event featuring two respected scientists who have both helped author reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Michael MacCracken and Dr. Christopher Field will explain the IPCC’s assessment process, how we know what we know about human-caused climate change, what we have learned since the 2007 IPCC report, and why the science must inform public policy in the United States. Read more »
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Progress in Bioethics
The 2005 culmination of the legal battle over Terri Schiavo’s life-sustaining treatment was as a flash point for public discussions about bioethics. While the field encompasses a wide range of complex and controversial subjects, debates over these issues often remain within the realms of academia, the scientific community, and the health professions. But in 2005, conservative political leaders insisted upon using the tragic situation of Schiavo and her family to push a right-wing agenda for end-of-life care decisions. They captured an enormous amount of media attention and made headlines around the county.
But in the current economic downturn, the primary bioethical issue on newspaper front pages is health care reform. Bioethics issues like end-of-life care, cloning, and other “culture war” matters are on the back burner. But at a Center for American Progress event yesterday on “Progress in Bioethics,” Michael Tomansky, panelist and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, argued that once the economy improves and is no longer taking up all of the nation’s “anxiety oxygen,” Americans will “have to find other things to argue about.” And those other things are likely to include bioethics. The rest of the panel generally agreed: Something—perhaps a decision from the Obama administration, a court ruling, or a controversial clinical case like Schiavo’s—will eventually capture the media’s eye and bring debates over bioethics and public policy back to fore. It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when,” Tomansky argued, and progressives need to be ready.
The event highlighted the release of Progress in Bioethics, a new book co-edited by CAP Senior Fellow Jonathan Moreno and Sam Berger. The volume maps the current landscape of bioethics and public policy, where progressive ideas are ascendant after more than a decade of conservative dominance. As a panelist, Berger explained that “progressive bioethics” is best understood as the application of the scientific method to policymaking, emphasizing data-driven decision making and transparent methodologies. He also outlined the four central values of a progressive bioethics. Read more »
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The Top Science Progress Features of 2009
In 2009, we saw a renewed engagement with ethical questions about how we regulate biotechnology, watched the conservative war on science continue on new fronts, and witnessed renewed commitments to grow U.S. prosperity with investments in science and technology.
Timeline: A Brief History of Stem Cell Research
One of our most popular features ever, this interactive timeline marked key moments, beginning the in the 1970s, from the interrelated stories of human embryonic stem cell research and the policy governing that work. The piece collects research featured in the Center for American Progress report, “A Life Sciences Crucible: Stem Cell Research and Innovation Done Responsibly and Ethically.” The Obama administration’s final stem cell policy closely resembled the one recommended in the paper.Dude, Where’s My War on Science?
By Chris Mooney
Conservatives tried to expose what they claim was a case of science suppression by the Obama administration—and in the process demonstrated how little they know about science in the first place. The attack on EPA’s policy process, Mooney explained, fails peer review.The George Will Scandal
By Chris Mooney
When The Washington Post ran a column by Will rife with errors on climate science, Mooney asked: If a major media outlet can’t even correct facts about global warming, is it still socially relevant? Read more » -
Science Education Progress
Yesterday, President Obama led some much needed pomp and circumstance over STEM education. In a speech at the White House, he emphasized the critical importance of an aggressive commitment to improving our nation’s education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM fields. “Make no mistake,” he said, “Our future is on the line. The nation that out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow. To continue to cede our leadership in education is to cede our position in the world.” The president noted that in comparison to other high school students around the world, U.S. students currently rank 21st in science and 25th in math.
This address was part of an awards ceremony for over 100 science teachers and mentors from across the country who have demonstrated outstanding work. President Obama also announced the creation of five new public-private partnerships aimed at raising U.S. students to the top of international math and science rankings in ten years.
These initiatives are the newest component of the administration’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which kicked off in November with an initial commitment of $260 million from philanthropic organizations and individuals. The initiative is designed to unite and engage citizens, institutions of higher education, non-profits, and businesses alike in the effort to propel STEM education in the United States. Obama has outlined three goals for the campaign: increasing students’ STEM literacy and critical thinking, improving math and science teaching, and expanding opportunities for groups underrepresented in STEM fields like women and minorities. Read more »
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Why Spies Should Team Up With Environmental Scientists
From 1992 until 2001, a special group of scientists collaborated with the U.S. intelligence community to use reconnaissance satellite imagery to study environmental change around the planet. Known as Medea, Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis, the project came to an abrupt end at the beginning of the Bush administration. The detailed pictures snapped by spy satellites are powerful tools for researchers studying the impacts of climate change, including accelerations in polar ice melt. Fortunately, the Obama administration has quietly revived the project and The New York Times reports that a gang of 60 scientists with secret clearances are working with the National Academy of Sciences to analyze the new information, some of which is unavailable through any other source.
The restoration of the program is an apt example of the scientific and intelligence communities working together. Not only can the tools for satellite reconnaissance support critical scientific Earth observations, officials recognize that climate change and national security are interrelated policy issues. As Dr. Christopher Tucker argued here at Science Progress, an effective Earth observation strategy is crucial to confronting issues in both arenas: Read more »
