Category Archives: Science and the scientific method

A Healthy Microbiome Builds a Strong Immune System That Could Help Defeat COVID-19

A happy gut = better immune responses = higher odds of beating back Covid. Eat more pickles!

Coming Attraction: IPCC’s Upcoming Major Climate Assessment

Another set of blockbuster IPCC reports are in the works. What to expect?

Rolling Out the Vaccine

More discussion of vaccine policy, such as it is.

Why We Need to Adopt Friedrich Engels’ Thinking on Science in These Times

Friedrich Engels work on working class included describing how capitalists would not contrain their environmental damage.

Covid, the Politicization of Science, and More Questions About the Pfizer Vaccine Approval

How political considerations are getting in the way of science-based policy, as in not unduly tainted by commerce, special interests, or fashion.

Further Discussion of the Red Flags in the Pfizer Vaccine Paper in the New England Journal of Medicine

Responding to critics of a post on the Pfizer vaccine paper and editorial.

More CO2 in the Atmosphere Hurts Key Plants and Crops More Than It Helps

A primer on CO2 and crops.

An Internal Medicine Doctor and His Peers Read the Pfizer Vaccine Study and See Red Flags [Updated]

The Pfizer vaccine study, hot off the presses in the New England Journal of Medicine, features troubling omissions and apparent obfuscation.

Jamie Galbraith: How Jason Furman and Lawrence Summers Reinforce a Destructive, Debunked Mainstream Paradigm to Support Deficit Spending

To defend deficits, Furman and Summers relied on debunked theories, thus preserving destructive mainstream economic ideas.

Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Is Cheaper than Pfizer’s and Moderna’s and Doesn’t Require Supercold Temperature

Some promising news about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Large UK Study Delivers Big Blow to Covid Herd Immunity Thesis, Raises Concerns About Vaccine Strategies

Confirming a Covid concern.

Latest Nobel Prize in Chemistry Demonstrates How the US Patent Office Screws Inventors

A high profile example of the train wreck called the US patent process.

Bleak Views of Melting Antarctic Ice, From Above and Below

Two troubling recent studies clarify projections of glacial ice loss, sea-level rise, and the need to act on climate.

Why Don’t We Study Countries That Have Had COVID-19 Success?

Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan, and New Zealand have recorded low COVID-19 deaths. Why do we hear so little about the reeasons for their success?

Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” Covid-19 Vaccine Development Program: Dominated by Military Personnel, Accused of Corruption

Operation Warp Speed is a public/private partnership set up by the Trump administration, which is developing several vaccines for Covid-19 in parallel.