Skeptophilia

Let me start out by saying that what you're about to read is in no way meant to be critical of scientists in general, nor the entire sci...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the spike in atmospheric oxygen concentration -- by some estimates, rising to 35% -- during the Carboni...

Yesterday's post, in which I skated backward through geologic time into the deep past, alluded to a few really bad times the Earth has b...

Yesterday I ran into two unrelated studies that are kind of interesting in juxtaposition. The first was in the journal Heritage Science , ...

In today's installment of Ruminations About Science That Should Scare The Piss Out Of You, we have: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum...

Because we clearly needed something else to be angry about, today we have: a cadre of four senators who are calling for an investigation int...

I can't remember when I've ever been this worried about our capacity for seriously fucking up the world we live in. Strong words, ...

Okay, folks, I'm trying not to panic about a Trump presidency.  I won't say that I have a naturally sunny disposition -- my tendency...

I'm increasingly appreciating the quip that if "con" is the opposite of "pro," then "congress" is the oppo...

Back in the 1950s, scientists were beginning to identify a causal connection between smoking and lung cancer.  Prior to that, there was an e...

The observation that politicians tend to lie is so obvious as to hardly need comment.  As far back as 2,400 years ago, Plato observed, ...