Now on ScienceBlogs: Scientia Pro Publica 21: Darwin's 201st Birthday Edition
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.) Right now I'm writing my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which explores the hypothesis that the genetic roots some of our worst problems and traits — depresison, hyperaggression, violence, antisocial behavior — can also give rise to resilience, cooperation, empathy, and contentment. The book expands on my December 2009 Atlantic article exploring these ideas.
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
Category: Brains and minds
PTSD, pharma, adjuvants, bad movies -- these are a few of my favorite things, and readers' too. How'd Neil get in here? I love him.
Posted by David Dobbs at 5:23 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
The week's best -- with new features!
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:14 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Journalism - rebooting (aka future of)
If good science writing were easy, we'd be choking on it. Instead, it's rare enough that when we find it, we celebrate it and pass on the links as something especially worth attending. Why pretend it's otherwise?
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:14 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Digital culture
Agreed: There's robust supply of writing. But is there an oversupply of GOOD writing? If not, how to tap the people still willing to pay for it?
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:21 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
The times I've seen subjects I'd written about covered on TV -- DBS for depression, and Williams syndrome, which I'd written about for the Times Mag and both of which were subsequently covered by 60 MInutes -- the TV results were truly appalling.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:24 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Journalism - rebooting (aka future of)
So where IS the ProPublica for science journalism? There are a lot of organizations spending money on promoting science and science communications, but so far, not much aimed at funding high-level science journalism, either of the day-to-day reporting sort of the more in-depth kind that examines not just the findings but the workings of science. Where is our ProScientifica?
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:08 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
This kills me -- but maybe just because I've written books. (Oh yeah -- the links to the books. First two here. Reef Madness here. Buy 'em. Read 'em. They're better than the stuff you're reading now.)
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:40 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
That post reported the news (via FiercePharma) that Pfizer had tucked away in its financial disclosure forms a $2.3 billion charge to end the federal investigation into allegations of off-label promotions of its Cox-2 painkillers, including Bextra. ... Because my post was was one of the few things already on the interwebz before Justice held its news conference, the Google rush shot it toward the top of the search results.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
This shouldn't be something that flu experts feel compelled to discuss sotto voce. If the journal has good reasons to sit on the paper for now, it should declare them. If not, it should get the paper out in the open so the data and findings can be examined and vetted openly.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:58 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Eric Michael Johnson contemplates the hearts, minds, teeth, and claws of bonobos and other primates, while -- no fault of Eric's -- the flu, the end of publishing, and the death of the uninsured march on. Plus some great old surgery footage.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:46 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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