L'Aquila's earthquake trial: scientists as politicians' puppets
Submitted by StrugglesInItaly on Oct 26 2012 10:53
Current news headlines in Italy concern the 6-year prison sentence given to seven scientists and officials found guilty of manslaughter.
All were involved in the seismic activity committee, known as the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, which was summoned by Italy’s Civil Protection agency to consider a series of tremors in the L’Aquila area since December 2008.
'How Noam Chomsky’s World Works', by David Hawkes
Submitted by hedgehog on Sep 28 2012 17:08
Noam Chomsky's political writings are extremely useful for any understanding of the crimes of US imperialism. But his scientific work, whose political implications Chomsky denies, have been coming under increasing criticism from the left.
Recently an academic Marxist author managed to get an interesting critique of Chomsky into The Times Literary Supplement. It raises some interesting concerns.
HOW NOAM CHOMSKY'S WORLD WORKS by David Hawkes
Interview - Los Amigos de Ludd
A 2006 interview with the Spanish group, Los Amigos de Ludd, that published a journal of the same name until 2006, on leftism, environmentalism, revolution and utopia.
2006 Interview – “Los Amigos de Ludd”
Science reading group: 'Ever Since Darwin'
Submitted by Choccy on Aug 16 2012 13:34
Kickstarting a discussion on Stephen Jay Gould's first popular book form the late 70s, Ever Since Darwin.
A few people had expressed interest in discussing Stephen Jay Gould's book, Ever Since Darwin, as part of a science discussion/reading group. The book was Gould's first collection of essays from his monthly Natural History column.
A few general points first, then some specific ones about the first four essays that comprise the first chapter/section.
Gould's writing style
Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?
Submitted by hedgehog on Aug 12 2012 17:24
For over fifty years, Noam Chomsky has been exposing the crimes of the United States military across the world. Less well known is the fact that throughout this time, he was working in an electronics laboratory funded primarily by that same military. This article investigates the paradox, arguing that the Pentagon’s institutional support for Chomsky’s scientific work explains the special passion driving his political stance.
Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?
Chris Knight
Mutual aid: a factor of evolution - Peter Kropotkin - audiobook
Mutual aid: a factor of evolution is a book by Peter Kropotkin on the subject of mutual aid, written while he was living in exile in England. Recorded as an audiobook by LibriVox.
It was first published by William Heinemann in London in October 1902. The individual chapters had originally been published in 1890-96 as a series of essays in the British monthly literary magazine, Nineteenth Century.
Evolution and Revolution
A text by Elisee reclus.
These two words, Evolution and Revolution, closely resemble one another, and yet they are constantly used in their social and political sense as though their meaning were absolutely antagonistic.
Sexing the body - gender politics and the construction of sexuality - Anne Fausto-Sterling
Biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling sets out a developmental systems approach to gender, refusing false dichotomies of nature-nurture and biology-culture.
Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced.
Kropotkin and the scientific community in England in the 1870s and 80s
Submitted by Choccy on Apr 10 2012 02:17
A short post on a small act of solidarity from a Nature editor in the 1870s.
An act of solidarity
I hadn't come across this little bit of anarcho history before, but it's in Kropotkin's Memoirs Of A Revolutionist and Dugatkin's The Prince of Evolution. It refers to a small act of solidarity from a journal editor in England in the 1870s, and a not-so supportive act from a leading English biologist a few years later.
Tired cops less likely to recognise you
Submitted by Choccy on Mar 20 2012 00:09
Johnny Lawman all up on you? RUN!
A recent study in Psychological Science reports that cops who are knackered are less likely to recognise suspects later. 52 cops took part in the study, with about half being made to exercise until they were exhausted, then confronted with a crime-scene.
The researchers report:
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