You would be forgiven for not knowing what goes on daily in the science-centered blogosphere--but a recent fracas there casts a lot of light on the ongoing (if not unending) battle over the relationship between science, religion, and atheism.

It all started like this: Richard Dawkins, the author of the...

Today, on the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we will hear a great deal about NASA's woes, the nation's declining interest in space exploration, and much else. It is crucial, though, to set such observations in the context of a far broader disengagement with science that...

[Hurricane Felix, a Category 5 in the Caribbean. Image courtesy of the Weather Underground.]

Last night, Hurricane Felix explosively intensified over the Caribbean Sea, so much so that a reconnaissance aircraft in the storm had to abort its mission due to "extreme...

Today, the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, my hometown of New Orleans is getting some much needed attention. And rightly so: It's a scandal that in the years since the disaster, all too little has changed. Time magazine recently blazoned the word "pathetic" on its cover to describe...

Hurricane Dean at landfall early this morning, image courtesy of the Weather Underground.

Now we see why the ancient Mayans built their cities inland from the coasts.

Early this morning, Hurricane Dean slammed the Yucatan as a still-intensifying Category 5 storm...

I've been quite fortunate in the past year or so to have appeared not once, but twice, on the central science related panel at the progressive mega-conference Yearly Kos. As a result, I've been able to observe closely the ongoing integration of science into the broader agenda of progressive...

In my previous post--written in anticipation of tomorrow's Live Earth concert--I presented media coverage data showing that in the past few years, global warming has seen a meteoric rise in attention at agenda setting newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. I also discussed some...

** Note: "Part II" of this post is now online.**

In my recent conversations with peers in the science policy world (read "fellow geeks"), the same question has come up repeatedly of late: Why did global warming "tip"? How has the issue finally managed to go mainstream, so that...

Oddly, if the goal is to slam Al Gore, it often seems as if standards of serious discussion suddenly vanish. Even scientific information -- which you'd think people would be inclined to wield cautiously -- gets treated as if it's putty.

That was on full display with this Washington...

By now it's zinging around more or less everywhere. NASA administrator Michael Griffin made this mind-boggling statement to NPR:

I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with....

Here we are, just days from the official start of hurricane season. We've already seen our first named storm, Andrea. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just joined pretty much every other major hurricane forecaster in saying that we're looking at a dangerously active year ahead...

New Orleans, LA -- Last year, thanks largely to the late and rapid onset of El Niño conditions in the Pacific, we had a relatively uneventful Atlantic hurricane season, without a single storm of hurricane strength making landfall in the U.S. The relationship between El Niño and less active Atlantic...

To all you Bush administration underlings who've been tempted to block or divert a government scientist's media interview request, or modify a scientific report, or suppress it entirely, a word of advice:

It's going to come out eventually.

That's a lesson to remember as we await today's House hearing--the...

Inspired by Jonathan Chait's recent column in the LA Times, there's been some renewed commentary about why so many Republicans reject mainstream science on the issue of climate change. None of what's currently being said is wrong, particularly when it comes to the right's disdain for...

When it comes to Al Gore's high-profile advocacy on the subject of global warming, those seeking to undermine the former Vice-President have seized upon a familiar tactic: They attack his depiction of the science. This even though most climate scientists would probably agree with the view expressed on the...

Yesterday I ventured to Capitol Hill to watch another episode in what is quickly becoming one of the most dramatic shows aired by the new Democratic majority: Rep. Henry Waxman's ongoing investigation of the Bush administration's political interferences with government climate science. I definitely wasn't disappointed. Reporters at the...

In the satellite image above, we can see the weak but still very troubling Tropical Storm Ernesto just coming ashore over southeastern Cuba. Some very vulnerable parts of storm-scarred Florida remain under the gun, but speaking strictly from a cosmic perspective, it appears...

I have been touring lately to talk about my new book, The Republican War on Science. But frequently -- and quite understandably -- people also want me discuss Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. That is, after all, where I'm from. As a result, I've had to do some...

Yesterday, New York Times global warming ace Andrew Revkin broke the story of how an official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality--Philip Cooney, formerly of the American Petroleum Institute--has tinkered with the wording of government reports on global warming to exaggerate scientific uncertainty. Published on the front...