Columbia University Press

In an interview earlier this year with SciCom, James Rodger Fleming, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, discussed his new book and some of the history and science associated with weather and climate control.

Fleming argues that we should be wary of geoengineering and the implications of altering the weather using technology. He also suggests that discussions about climate warming and climate control has become too technical and fails to incorporate social, cultural, and political factors. What is needed is a multidisciplinary approach that also incorporates the views of non-Westerners and women.

In responding to a question of his first exposure to attempts to control weather using weapons, Fleming responds:

When I was a student of atmospheric science, I became aware of weather control, but I wasn’t convinced about its usefulness. There was a military guy, a corporal. He was trying to get his master’s degree in atmospheric science as part of an Air Force rotation. His project was to shoot laser beams at clouds to see if he could make them get bigger and angrier. It never worked. But he had this mindset, well what do you do with a cloud? You shoot at it.

Fighting global warming, battling climate change. The language is full of that kind of metaphor. It’s a war against poverty, a war against drugs. A lot of technocrats and middle-aged males were deliberating this topic of weather control, a “boys with their toys” thing. You could use rockets, you could use high-altitude military balloons.

From the past to the cutting edge. Earlier this week we tested readers on the history of food with a quiz based on Cheese, Pears, and History in a Proverb. Today we offer a quiz based on Herve This’s: Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking , which is now available in paperback. Find out how well you know the scientific principles involved in cooking and storing food.

(Click here for the answers)

QUESTIONS

1. The microwave is least suited for preparing which food?
a) Chicken
b) Carmel
c) Soufflé
d) Fish

2. Which fruit yields the best jam?
a) Strawberries
b) Blackberries
c) Grapes
d) Apricots

3. What is the secret to combining tea and milk?
a) Add milk to hot water, then add tea
b) Add milk to tea after letting it steep for a few seconds
c) Pour milk first, then add hot tea
d) Add milk to tea after letting it steep for a few minutes

4. Where is the best place to store a banana?
a) On the counter
b) In the refrigerator
c) In the freezer
d) Outdoors if the temperature is below 50 degrees

5. In bread-making, flour how old makes the best bread?
a) A year
b) 2 months
c) 1 week
d) A couple days

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In today’s New York Times, Cornelia Dean has a round-up of books on “geoengineering,” an idea gaining traction in the scientific community. With the effects of global warming becoming more pronounced each day, scientists argue that geonengineering (the application of engineering techniques to alter the planet) should be tested before it is too late.

Despite its echoes of science fiction, the attempt to control weather or the climate is hardly new. The Times article focuses on James Rodger Fleming’s forthcoming book Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, which recounts the often colorful history of weather modification and geoengineering. Fleming argues that while proposals for affecting the climate seem edgy and exciting, they often test the limits of scientific possibility and overlook the political, ethical, and social consequences of climate management.

In the article Dean writes:

For Dr. Fleming, whose book is a scholarly look at the history of weather modification and similar efforts, geoengineering proposals are “untested, untestable and dangerous beyond belief.” He fits them neatly into what he calls “a long tradition of imaginative and speculative literature involving the ‘control’ of nature.” But, as he notes, the ideas have drawn favor especially among conservatives and libertarians who look for technological rather than regulatory solutions for climate change.

Columbia University Press titles are read and translated throughout the world. The following post is from Geoffrey Kabat, who describes the reception of his book in Brazil:

About five months ago a large Brazilian publishing house put out a Portuguese translation of my book Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology (Riscos ambientais à saúde: mitos e verdades, Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara-Koogan, 2010). Soon afterward I heard from a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro inviting me to visit Brazil for ten days at the expense of the publisher to publicize the book.

Together with my host, Professor Renato Veras, I crisscrossed the country from south to north and from east to west, with talks and book-signing events hosted by four very special institutions with somewhat different audiences. In Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the far south, I spoke at the Escola Superiora da Magistratura to judges and lawyers, including, I was told, five justices of the supreme court of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In São Paulo, the venue was an organization devoted to health promotion among the elderly called AGE PLUS. In Rio I spoke at a foundation called Casa do Saber, which hosts lectures, movies, and other cultural programs. Finally, in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas, the Academy of Medicine of Amazonas State hosted my talk, which was introduced by the president of the academy, Dr. Claudio Chaves.

Each of the talks was followed by lively questions and discussion. Questions ranged from how public discourse about climate change is distorted to how one can counter the inflating of health risks, to what allows lung cancer to develop in people who never smoked, to the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry in shaping messages about health.

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An article in today’s New York Times looks at the ways in which literary scholars are drawing on science to understand individual texts as well as to understand such questions as “Why do we read fiction? Why do we care passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?”

Literary scholars interest in science has been growing over the past few years, in part because of the excesses of theory that some felt dominated the field in the last decades of the twentieth century. One of the leading figures in this scientific turn has been Jonathan Gottschall,who teaches at Washington & Jefferson College. From the article:

Jonathan Gottschall, who has written extensively about using evolutionary theory to explain fiction, said “it’s a new moment of hope” in an era when everyone is talking about “the death of the humanities.” To Mr. Gottschall a scientific approach can rescue literature departments from the malaise that has embraced them over the last decade and a half. Zealous enthusiasm for the politically charged and frequently arcane theories that energized departments in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s — Marxism, structuralism, psychoanalysis — has faded. Since then a new generation of scholars have been casting about for The Next Big Thing.

The brain may be it. Getting to the root of people’s fascination with fiction and fantasy, Mr. Gottschall said, is like “mapping wonderland.”

Gottschall is also one of the editors of the forthcoming collection Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader which includes essays by literary scholars, scientists, and critics that explore how our universal human nature works its way into diverse cultural forms and how this “biocultural” conception can illuminate many narrative works.

With pieces from scientists like Steven Pinker and E. O. Wilson as well as literary and scholars such as Brian Boyd and David Bordwell, the book looks at works by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickens, Hurston through an evolutionary lens. Sure-to-be controversial, the book should contribute to the already vibrant discussion of whither literary criticism and the English department.

Paul Offit’s best-selling Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure is now available in paperback with a new preface.

While the hardcover was first published in 2008 events have kept the book in the headlines. Most notably was The Lancet’s decision to retract Andrew Wakefield’s article which claimed a link between vaccines and autism. Recently, Chris Mooney interviewed Paul Offit on the popular podcast Points of Inquiry, hosted by Chris Mooney. In the interview, Offit discusses the state of the vaccine skeptic movement in light of [the news about Wakefield]. In particular, Offit explores why the tides may be turning on the movement—as well as the grave public health consequences of ongoing vaccine avoidance.

On his blog The Intersection, Chris Mooney writes about the interview with Paul Offit here, here, and here.

Also, here’s a video we made for the book when it was first published:

The following are excerpts from a recent interview with Geoffrey Kabat, author of Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology that appeared in the Epidemiology Monitor. The November issue was devoted to Kabat’s work and the issues raised in his book.

EpiMonitor: Can you say more about your personal and professional motivations for writing this book? Clearly, hazards are being manufactured all around us. You are presumably like all other epidemiologists in sharing a set of scientific values and standards, but others have not written such books.

Kabat: In the early 1990s I noticed that certain issues in epidemiology seemed to be distorted or exaggerated and that the public was being given the wrong idea. So, I tuned in to a number of these issues, some of which I was doing primary research on. I began to view these topics that got a lot of attention and stirred up a lot of concern from a dual perspective – that of a practicing epidemiologist and that of an outside observer – almost as if I were an anthropologist. I would contend that one can’t really understand what is going on with the hyping of health risks without considering the social context in which messages about health get disseminated. In addition, as a scientist, I tried to assess what the evidence actually indicated and where certain agency reports or partisan interpretations seemed to be overstating the evidence. I guess there were two emotions that motivated me to pursue what was a pretty demanding task – evaluating the evidence on my four topics and trying to sort out how it got refracted by different parties. One was fascination with some of the flagrant contradictions and incongruities; the other was frustration at some of the one-sided and unsupported claims. But above all, I felt that this was a very rich topic that had received little sustained attention.

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Below is a video of a lecture Herve This recently gave at Imperial College entitled “Molecular Cooking is Cooking: Molecular Gastronomy is a Scientific Activity.” However, don’t let the word “lecture” scare you off, This’s talks, which include several experiments to illuminate his points, are always entertaining and full of surprises. Here is the description of the talk from Imperial College: “If you have ever been surprised and impressed by an unusual serving of emulsion, a helping of frothy foam, or a plate of frozen gases as your meal, the chances are that Herve This and his gastronomic research will be behind them.”

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The following quote is from a lengthy feature in Wired magazine on Paul Offit, his battle against anti-vaccination advocates, the mistrust of science, and the dangerous implications of not vaccinating children. Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, has been fighting an often vicious battle with those who fear that vaccines cause autism despite the medical and scientific evidence that proves the safety of vaccinations. (Questions about Offit’s integrity and even death threats are frequently employed by his opponents.) The triumph of pseudo-science over science has led to the outbreak of measles and put many elementary school children at risk. From the article:

“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”

The article also explores how the fear of vaccines has taken hold and looks at the distorted claims made by Offit’s opponents, including the suggestion that he is a shill of pharmaceutical companies. Information found on the Internet along with the anti-vaccine advocacy of celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy and public figures such as Robert Kennedy, Jr. has served to confuse parents and increased the level of fear regarding vaccines. Offit sympathizes with those parents whose children have been diagnosed with autism and are searching for a cure but worries that McCarthy and others are providing false hope and explanations. The article quotes Offit’s response to one of his most vociferous opponents:

“Barbara Loe Fisher inflames people against me. And wrongly. I’m in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?” he asks, exasperated. (Merck is doing no such thing). But when it comes to mandating vaccinations, Offit says, Fisher is right about him: He is an adamant supporter.

On Monday, NPR’s Talk of the Nation interviewed Dr. Paul Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. about the swine flu vaccine.

Dr. Offit was a guest as result of his recent New York Times op-ed (see our post from Monday). The show took questions for Dr. Offit from listeners including this one:

And here’s an email from Lisa Ann(ph) in San Mateo. I’ve only had one flu shot in my life, and immediately afterwards, I was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m an extremely healthy person. When I do catch cold symptoms, I’m able to fight them off with vitamins before I get really sick. Is it really necessary for me to get the shot? I have a feeling it’s going to make me sick.

Dr. OFFIT: Right. You know, and this is a story that you occasionally hear. It’s, you know, we give our flu vaccines in the winter. That’s when a lot of other viruses, including, you know, flu viruses are circulating. And the question is, you know, can the flu vaccine cause flu? The answer to that question is clearly no.

I mean, the vaccine is – it comes in two forms. One is as a shot, in which case the virus is completely inactivated with a chemical, so it can’t possibly reproduce itself and cause respiratory symptoms. The second vaccine is a so-called nasal spray vaccine, which is a highly weakened form of a natural virus which can’t possibly grow at body temperature, therefore it can’t possibly reproduce itself in the lungs and cause illness. So I think those things are coincidental, but obviously those anecdotes are very powerful and influential for many people.

In his book Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, Paul Offit makes a scientific and medical case against those who have claimed a link between autism and vaccines.

Fear has now spread to vaccines for the H1N1 flu, and as Paul Offit describes in a recent New York Times op-ed, several myths are making the rounds.

In the op-ed, Offit looks to scientific data to argue that the flu vaccines is safe, has been tested, has no adjuvant, and does not contain a dangerous preservative. Offit concludes,

New myths will inevitably arise as some of the millions of people who are inoculated against H1N1 flu suffer unrelated illnesses. Health officials will keep a close eye out for any real problems. One can only hope that the American public will understand that subsequence isn’t necessarily consequence, and not be scared away from a vaccine that can save lives.

Recently on the British Web site Spiked, Geoffrey Kabat, author of Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology, takes a closer look at recent reports linking cell phone use and brain cancer.

Kabat argues that these reports fail to prove an association between cell phones and cancer. He writes,

What the reports have in common, and what is most striking to someone who is moderately conversant with the scientific evidence concerning the health effects of cell phone use, is the astoundingly selective and slanted presentation they give of the relevant evidence. In reading them one feels oneself in the world of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

In the article Kabat shows the ways in which some researchers and activists seize on a few results that appear to indicate a risk.

Kabat concludes,

These alarmist reports by activist groups represent a parallel narrative to the much less satisfying narrative of scientific inquiry. Activist ‘science’ focuses on results that appear to fit with one’s thesis and ignores information and comprehensive assessments of the evidence which do not. The authors can count on the appearances—references to the scientific literature, higher degrees and affiliations of the authors and ‘endorsers’, and conclusions that sound reasonable—to arouse concern in the public and to galvanize politicians eager to respond to the latest threat to the public’s health.

Titled “A (much needed) climate change bible,” the Mother Nature Network’s review of Edmond Mathez’s Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, extols the virtues of the book for both general readers and students.

The reviewer Devereaux Bell writes,

You can’t help being affected by a lot of what Mathez covers. A bit on extreme events, for example, is almost startling…. The book is full of concrete, historical examples like “Black Sunday” (the day that “spawned the name Dust Bowl”). All in all, it’s a refreshing departure from tiresome talk of rising seas levels.

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This Sunday at 7 pm Dateline will have a special program on the vaccine “controversy.” The program will include Matt Lauer’s talk with Dr. Paul Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.

The program will also include Lauer’s discussion with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who believes that there is a link between autism and vaccines. In recent months Wakefield’s beliefs have come under increasing challenges from doctors and scientists after it was discovered that he fixed data on autism.

In a Salon article already generating a lot of discussion on the Internet, Dr. Rahul K. Parikh suggests that the Huffington Post’s coverage of health and wellness issues “seems defined mostly by bloggers who are friends of [Arianna] Huffington or those who mirror her own advocacy of alternative medicine.” Parikh is not the only one worried and other doctors have argued that this has led to a preponderance of posts on HuffPo that champion “dubious treatments and therapies.”

One of the more prominent stands that the Huffington Post bloggers, including the now-discredited David Kirby and actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, have taken is against childhood vaccines. These anti-vaccination posts are, Parikh argues, riddled with errors and offer “the usual anti-vaccine platitudes—blaming doctors for being in bed with drug companies [and] attacking people instead of data.”

To be fair, it should be said that the Huffington Post published an article by Dr. Paul Offit who is the author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure and has been a vocal opponent of the anti-vaccinationists. In the article entitled Don’t Risk Going Unvaccinated, Offit warns against the dangers of not vaccinating children and pointed to the overwhelming evidence that there is no connection between vaccination and autism.

Not surprisingly, given Offit’s position on vaccines, his article in the Huffington Post article touched off a firestorm of comments both in support and in opposition to his views (scroll to bottom of article for the comments).

We’re a little bit late with this but along with their excellent accompanying photographs (see above), showcasing the beautiful interior and exterior design of Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism, Eat Me Daily also provides a very thoughtful and provocative review of This’s latest.

The review, by Paula Forbes, is entitled Strict Interdisciplinarian, and focuses on This’s emphasis on looking beyond traditional gastronomic practices and looking to science and elsewhere for new ways to think about cooking and food. From the review:

This’s explorations of the perfect hard boiled egg, scientifically interesting as they are, pale in comparison to his fascinating take on the interactions among the different disciplines that affect the gastronomic world. Whether or not you agree with This’s philosophy of molecular gastronomy (in short he thinks the more the better, and the sky’s the limit), his passion is seductive in its intensity. This makes the case that the culinary world has been changed forever, and the more we’re willing to look beyond the kitchen for culinary inspiration, the more extraordinary things we can be capable of. This uses science, Grant Achatz uses theater and psychology, Heston Blumenthal has begun to delve into history. This thrills at the idea of what other disciplines could be used to change the food world, and to what degree.

As a reminder, you can watch a video of This discussing his book or read an excerpt.

Geoffrey Kabat, whose book Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology takes a closer look at recent health scares, was recently a co-author of a study investigating possible links between eating meat and breast cancer in older women.

Published in the International Journal of Cancer, the report, which was based on more than 120,000 post-menopausal women who participated in the study found that breast cancer risk was not associated with intake of total meat, red meat, white meat, processed meat, or meat cooked at high temperatures, or level of doneness of the meat. The researchers note that the study included detailed information on meat preparation methods, and they conclude that their findings “do not support the hypothesis that a high intake of meat, red meat, processed meat, meat cooked at high temperatures, or meat mutagens is associated with increased risk of breast cancer.”

Brian Switek author of the always-excellent blog Laelaps recently posted a review of Donald Prothero’s forthcoming Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and the Future of Our Planet.

In the review, Switek highlights Prothero’s emphasis on the importance of understanding climates of the past in understanding dramatic changes happening in our present climate. Switek writes, “By studying ancient climates and environments we can learn something about how the gases in the atmosphere, the constant shifting of the continents, and the paths of ocean currents influence the atmosphere. Fossils of extinct plants and animals also provide windows into these lost worlds, and while the triggers of ancient climate change might be debated these traces allow us to better understand how our planet has evolved.” Prothero’s focus counters those of figures such as Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher who, as Switek points out, suggested that “dinosaur farts” were the cause of Eocene hothouse and that perhaps present rises in temperature could be explained by something besides human activity.

In addition to pointing to Prothero’s belief in the importance of paleontology in contemporary debates, Switek also praises Prothero’s insider and personal look at what it is like and what it takes to be a paleontologist.

The Buddha Diaries recently reviewed Alan Wallace’s Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the review:

Exploring, first, the long history of religious meditation practice in both East and West from its ancient origins, Wallace then turns his attention to the attempts of scientists and philosophers, in more recent centuries, to describe the workings of the mind through the lens of a rational, empirical methodology—attempts that have consistently run up against the rocks of the seemingly impenetrable subjective/objective divide.

The main body of his book is devoted to Wallace’s own attempt to break through that obstacle, in a series of alternating chapters that “balance” theory and practice in ever-deepening and more carefully refined stages of awareness, awareness of awareness, and observing the awareness of awareness. Following him along with his work is akin to watching the most skilled of surgeons with his scalpel, separating out intricate tissues and pausing to examine each of them under the microscope of consciousness. It’s fascinating, intense, and infinitely detailed mind-work.