This sounds sort of hinky to me (as is usually the case with Chinese space announcements). They’re going to bring an asteroid into cislunar space within a decade, but don’t think they’ll have the technology to process it until four decades from now? And how does getting artificial gravity from a spinning asteroid work, exactly? Also, pretty sure there will be some intense discussions about what kind of liability China will assume under the Liability Convention if they attempt this.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Demons Under Every Rock
The ever-expanding definition of “climate denial.”
These sorts of attacks, supported by multiple layers of links that never actually materially support the claims that are being made, used to be the domain of a small set of marginal activists and blogs. Atkin herself cut her teeth at Climate Progress, where her colleague Joe Romm has spent over a decade turning ad hominem into a form of toxic performance art.2
But today, these misrepresentations are served up in glossy, big-budget magazines. Climate denial has morphed, in the eyes of the climate movement, and their handmaidens in the media, into denial of green policy preferences, not climate science.
…More broadly, the expansion of the use of denier by both activists and journalists in the climate debate, a word once reserved only for Holocaust denial, mirrors a contemporary political moment in which all opposing viewpoints, whether in the eyes of the alt-right or the climate left, are increasingly viewed as illegitimate. The norms that once assured that our free press would also be a fair press have deeply eroded. Balanced reporting and fair attribution have become road kill in a world where all the incentives for both reporters and their editors are to serve up red meat for their highly segmented and polarized readerships, a dynamic that both reflects and feeds the broader polarization in our polity. It is a development that does not bode well for pluralism or democracy.
Yup.
[Update Wednesday afternoon]
Related thoughts on the Brett Stephens brouhaha: How to lose friends and alienate people.
[Bumped]
Gender
If it’s fluid, why isn’t race? A nice insight into the insanity of the left.
The Science Of Aging
The latest on the ancient controversy of how long we can live.
I say it’s ultimately just physics, and there are no physical laws that require an upper limit on our age.
The Urey Variation
Thoughts from Derek Lowe on the abundance of pre-cursors for life in the solar system (and probably universe).
Calorie Counting
It’s junk science, and these menu rules based on it are insane, and probably impossible to follow.
In related news, studies showing the dangers of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils were apparently buried for a long time.
The Nye Quadrant
An interesting discussion and link roundup from Judith Curry.
Obama’s New Biography
In which it is revealed that he “considered gayness.”
This doesn’t suprise me at all. There were a lot of rumors prior to the first election.
FWIW, I have never “considered gayness.” I’m simply not wired that way.
Candy And Soda
Most Americans don’t think they should be able to be purchased with food stamps.
I agree. I oppose food stamps (it’s a federal subsidy to farmers), but if you’re going to give them out, they should only be used for food.
The EPA Endangerment Finding
I agree with Steve Milloy, it’s time to revisit it.