Not our kind of science

The Telegraph has very credible evidence that the scientific journals Nature and Science are censoring certain views on global warming.

It all started when...

Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view [that global warming is happening and is caused by humans], while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.

But that kind of slam dunk sends up red flags to serious academics. Nothing has that kind of consensus. So...

Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University [...] decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

And he's not alone:

Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity.

If these journals are biased about something so straightforward as summarizing conclusions of studies, what should we expect from them on something less objective?

The World Is Flat

A must-read review of Tom Friedman's new book in the The New York Times Sunday Book Review . Sweet spot:

The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally. Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.''

Speaking of Africa

OxBlog citing this in WaPo asks why Charles Taylor (the African killer, not the Canadian philosopher) isn't on our terrorist list. Good question.

Movie pick

Went to see The Interpreter and was surprised to see how much it's about Africa. The context is a combination of Congo/Zaire, Zimbabwe and half a dozen other liberation-turned-tyrannical governments. Really well-acted and interesting story. But more than that, it embodies the angst of those of us who love the continent and can't come up with a simple way to help.

His Brain, Her Brain

Scientific American relates a study that demonstrates that "gender" may not be just cultural:

The researchers presented a group of vervet monkeys with a selection of toys, including rag dolls, trucks and some gender-neutral items such as picture books. They found that male monkeys spent more time playing with the 'masculine' toys than their female counterparts did, and female monkeys spent more time interacting with the playthings typically preferred by girls. Both sexes spent equal time monkeying with the picture books and other gender-neutral toys.

More than that, day-old babies respond differently based on their sex.