Author: Andrew Sullivan

by Conor Friedersdorf A reader writes:

Science is one of the most misunderstood professions in America.  There are several reasons for this:

1. No one really understands the science itself.  Science is hard and unless someone is a dedicated science enthusiast (nerd), they're not going to take the time to understand the subtleties of emerging scientific discoveries. This leads to a lot of sketchy reporting on science by the media (see my favorite comic on this topic) and complete misinterpretation by a large part of society.

2. Science is not a serious focus in American public schools.  Since it's hard to test science on standardized tests, it's not tested. Since "No Child Left Behind," the focus on standardized test results has left serious scientific education in the dust.  Moreover, serious scientific education is time consuming and difficult.  It requires giving students freedom to test theories, play with experiments, use critical thinking skills that are difficult to both teach and develop, and is often expensive.

3. No one knows how scientific research is done.  We don't really use the scientific method you learned in 7th grade science (if you learned it at all…).  You think a topic is interesting/problematic/could cure cancer/is generally cool, you do a literature search to see if other people have had the same thoughts and then you design an experiment/model/equation/computer program to test it out.  Next comes some stabbing around in the dark, formulation of ideas, writing of papers, peer review, and general discussion of the topic in your field. It's a messy and highly iterative process that most people don't ever get to experience.

4. No one knows who does scientific research.  There are two issues here.  First, the American media/public/zeitgeist has such a disdain for the "elites" that they don't care who does science because they must be overly-educated jackasses whose mission it is to subjugate the "average American" with their liberal policies and scientific "baloney" (see: reaction to pretty much anything climate scientists say, those guys have it rough).  Second, most of the scientific workforce is invisible.  I guess this is where I come in, I'm a 5th year PhD student at a Tier 1 research university studying fundamental fluid mechanics in Aerospace Engineering.  I'm not sure the "average American" knows what a graduate student does, how much we work, how little we get paid, but how badly we must love science (or whatever you're studying) to make it through this and come out with a PhD on the other end.  We have no crazy liberal agenda, we are some of the hardest working Americans who are the constantly running engine of scientific research.  Sure, our advisers get to go on the Today show or testify before Congress or write books, but we're the ones in the background doing the daily science, training to become professors/researchers/professionals someday.

People's eyes glaze over when my peers and I talk about what we do because we're mired in the details of scientific enterprise, but without people like us, the overly-educated "elites" who do science, the 21st Century way of life would be just a dream.  And if you don't like us and think we're a bunch of commies trying to trample on "real America," I'd like your cellphone and everything you own with Velcro back, because those were our ideas that you obviously don't appreciate.

by Patrick Appel

From Benjamin Powell, who is writing a new book, No Sweat: How Sweatshops Improve Lives and Economic Growth:

When workers voluntarily take a job they demonstrate that they believe the job is the best alternative available to them – even when that job is unsafe and the pay is very low compared to wages in the United States. That’s why economists with political views as divergent as Paul Krugman and Walter Williams have both written in defense of sweatshops.

Sweatshop jobs are often far better than the vast majority of jobs in the countries where they are located. David Skarbek and I researched sweatshops that were documented in U.S. news sources (or see here for my shorter, more general defense of sweatshops). We found that sweatshop worker earnings equaled or exceeded the average national income in 9 out of 11 countries we studied. Working in a sweatshop paid more than double the national average in four of the countries.

Kristof memorably made the same argument awhile back by focusing on a garbage dump in Cambodia.

by Chris Bodenner

One of our Iranian readers alerts us:

They are trying to kill Karroubi tonight. His house is under attack by the government mobs and they have gone from throwing rocks to shooting live ammunition into his house. This is all ahead of his pledge to attend the Palestine rally with Greens tomorrow (Friday).  His wife told the BBC as it was happening that they are coming for our lives.

The footage above is fresh off YouTube (52 views).

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

It's posts like this that make me depressed about the state of this country.  Not only am I tired of the MSM calling the president weak, I'm sick and tired of people calling him an idiot. That is what Chris Matthews, you, and everyone else complaining about a stupid teleprompter are doing.  Obama took down a room full of Republicans without a teleprompter, he gave debates without a teleprompter, took questions at town halls without a teleprompter, gave countless interviews without a teleprompter and answered questions at press conferences without a teleprompter.  Your post and Chris Matthews' statement is beyond stupid and disrespectful.

Matthews was venting because he thinks Obama isn't effectively communicating his sound policies to the American people – nothing about being "weak" or an "idiot." And for what it's worth, I wasn't "complaining" – just surprised that someone would use a device meant for a public podium in a private meeting (particularly someone who, as the reader notes, is so damn impressive on his own). I actually agree with Ed Morrissey that Matthews is unreasonable to think that Obama should not have used a teleprompter for a live address from the Oval Office.

by Patrick Appel

Susan Herbst new book takes a hard look at incivility in politics. Molly Worthen finds a weak link in Herbst's argument:

The real danger—and the real cunning—of “incivility” such as Palin’s is that it exempts her from dealing with complicated issues head-on. Her healthcare rhetoric shut down serious debate of the issue before it could begin, and implanted in her followers’ minds an immutable image of a threat that does not exist (compounding the already considerable confusion of Americans, 39 percent of whom believe that the government should “stay out of Medicare,” according to a recent poll). Palin trades in images, not facts. What Herbst perceives as her clever balance of civility and rudeness is better understood as an imagistic shuffling—from “Sarah the hockey mom” to “Obama the socialist murderer”—of tropes that avoid the messy business of the truth.

by Chris Bodenner

Michael Joseph Gross responds to criticism of his Vanity Fair piece:

The worst stuff isn't even in there. I couldn't believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I'm a small-town person, I'm a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story. … This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about. She lies about everything.

by Patrick Appel

Will Wilkinson slaps down Jonah Goldberg for defending Glenn Beck:

I guess I don’t think it’s entirely preposterous for Americans to see themselves as a people. But any conception of the American creed sufficiently general to encompass most widespread American conceptions of individual freedom, equality, tolerance and so on is going to be so general that it will do very little to distinguish American identity from, say, Canadian identity. And that’s clearly not what Glenn Beck or the staff of National Review have in mind when they talk about American values, promote a conception of American identity, or encourage Americans to see themselves as a people. …

The conservative conception of American identity is so selective and so specific that it tends to suggest to its adherents that many (maybe even most!) Americans aren’t real Americans, or are Americans who betray real American ideals.

by Patrick Appel

Drum suspects that the Republicans will mellow eventually:

Parties rarely move to the center immediately after a big defeat. Usually it takes two or three before they finally get the message, and on that metric Republicans aren't due for a move to the center until sometime after 2012. As for the tea parties, they're nothing new. We've seen similar conservative movements flower like clockwork during previous Democratic administrations, and they always burn themselves out after a few years.

My greatest fear is that the economy implodes again in 2011 or 2012 and Palin or a Palinesque Republican squeaks into office because of structural forces. Such an outcome would effectively short-curcuit reform of the right for a decade. The other possibility is Republicans over-interpret their gains in the midterms, decide the nation wants True Conservatives^TM, the Tea Parties completely take over the Republican establishment, and the GOP gets bashed against the rocks due to its own hubris come 2012.

by Chris Bodenner

Yossi Klein Halevi, writing to Imam Rauf as a "well-wisher and friend," suggests a solution to the Cordoba controversy:

I believe that you intend to create a center of Islamic moderation near Ground Zero. And it is precisely for that reason that I am turning to you with a plea to reconsider your plans to build the center in its current form. Instead, I urge you to consider turning the site into a center for interfaith encounter. Build the mosque—but do so together with a church and a synagogue and a center for common reflection for all three faiths and for those with no faith. Do this, Imam Feisal, not to surrender to your critics but to honor their pain, and, in the process, to honor Islam.

The chairwoman of the community board that voted for the center concurs.