Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

The Washington Post reports that the fish you order is not always the fish you get. Investigators ordered grouper at 24 Florida restaurants, but genetic testing revealed it was only the real thing seven times. Accoding to the story, the high demand for grouper and other popular fish has caused a surge in seafood imports, […]

John Tierney thinks Richard Branson’s $25 million prize for a technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air is a good back up plan. Vacuuming up our carbon-dioxide mess sounds improbable now, but so did the idea of precisely determining a ship’s longitude in 1714, when the British government offered a prize that led to […]

Over at NRO’s Bench Memos, Ed Whelan makes further criticisms of Dahlia Lithwick’s recent article on the death penalty and the Supreme Court.

Dahlia Lithwick has an article in today’s Washington Post on “The Dying Death Penalty?” Lithiwck posits a “curious” development: Political leaders and the American public seems to have greater reservations about the death penalty, while the Supreme Court seems less likely than ever to impose constitutional constraints on how capital punishment is administered. In a […]

I’ve been back home in Philadelphia this weekend for a party, and to show my in-laws around. We hit all the essential places (Independence Hall, Reading Terminal Market, Jim’s Steaks, etc.). There’s lots of great music from Philadelphia — enough that I believe Philadelphia was more deserving of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame […]

Richard Branson is offering a $25 million prize for the development of a technology capable of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

AEI’s Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green defend their climate policy projects in the Weekly Standard. Here’s a taste: The irony of this story line is that AEI and similar right-leaning groups are more often attacked for supposedly ignoring the scientific “consensus” and promoting only the views of a handful of “skeptics” from the disreputable fringe. […]

Spurred by the allegations that the American Enterprise Institute sought to “buy scientists” to challenge the IPCC report, four Democratic Senators wrote to AEI President Chris DeMuth to challenge AEI’s actions and demand an apology. In their letter, Senators Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, and John Kerry, alleged that if the published reports that […]

Continuing the discussion over the alleged GOP “War on Science,” Chris Mooney offers a surreply to my reply here. As I think we’ve both said most of what we have to say, I will only make a three quick, final points. First, if Mooney’s ultimate claim about the Bush Administration and embryonic stem cells is […]

Associate Professor James Sherley is the only African-American faculty member ever appointed in the Biological Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Much of his research focuses on adult stem cells. Last year he received a $2.5 million Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health for his work on the production of adult […]

Roger Pielke Jr. suggests comparing allegations against the Bush Administration made by James Hansen and other cliamte scientists who work in the Bush Administration with moves by state governors to oust state climatologists for expressing heterodox views on climate change. UPDATE: The above link discusses the controversy in Orgeon. For information on the brewing controversy […]

China is currently the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and will soon become Numero Uno. Its emissions are expected to surpass those of the United States within the next few years — perhaps as early as 2009. But Chinese officials are unwilling to provide leadership on global climate change policy, as the New York Times […]

I have just been informed that UC Berkeley political science professor Nelson W. Polsby passed away last night. I’m no political scientist, but I think it would be fair to say that Polsby was among the more important and influential political scientists of his generation. I often disagreed with his conclusions, and never had the […]

Chris Mooney has posted a response to my review of his book, The Republican War on Science over at his blog, The Intersection. While Mooney and I often disagree, I consider his blog (along with Pielke’s Prometheus) to be among the few “must read” blogs on the intersection between science and policy. I also recommend […]

The American Bar Association commission tasked with revising the Model Code on Judicial Conduct is proposing to weaken the ethical requirements for sitting judges. Specifically, according to this New York Times report the rule that judges avoid “impropriety and the appearance of impropriety” would become a nonbinding aspiration and would no longer provide sufficient basis […]