The US government has acted as major contributor to science research since the mid-20th century, both in terms of broad basic research and targeted projects. As industrial policy has gained…
By James Pethokoukis | M. Anthony Mills | November 19, 2024
In the Financial Times over the weekend, John Burn-Murdoch discussed how projections of global population keep decreasing: Burn-Murdoch concludes: [T]hese estimates are extremely fuzzy and based on frameworks that were true in the…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | October 28, 2024
Today, The Washington Post has published a lengthy analysis titled, “The real reason billion-dollar disasters like Hurricane Helene are growing more common.”1 The article, by the Post’s Harry Stevens, is brilliantly…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | October 24, 2024
A new paper is just out claiming that climate change is increasing the damage associated with U.S. hurricanes: “US hurricane damage, normalized for changes of inflation, population, and wealth, increases approximately 1%…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | October 21, 2024
In 2024 it can be difficult to sort wheat from chaff in the peer-reviewed literature. There has always been better and worse science — that goes with the territory —…
By Roger Pielke Jr. | October 15, 2024
“Not true, Governor Romney.” President Barack Obama, widely considered to have lost his first debate against Mitt Romney thirteen days previously, was eager to defend his record. But Romney, having…
By M. Anthony Mills | July 11, 2024
There is a certain class of book, the members of which have the ambivalent honor of being remembered for encapsulating the era in which they were written. Such books typically…
By M. Anthony Mills | January 2, 2024
Last month, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on artificial intelligence. Among the longest in recent decades and encompassing directives to dozens of federal agencies and certain companies, the order is…
By M. Anthony Mills | November 20, 2023
“Mask Up DC” signs are still visible in the windows of some businesses around Washington, D.C. Are these signs public-health recommendations based on science, or just outdated reminders of a…
By M. Anthony Mills | July 21, 2023
Last year, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which, besides shoring up the American semiconductor industry, also significantly increased federal spending on scientific research. Both the Department of Energy and the National…
By M. Anthony Mills | April 26, 2023
In 1878, a wave of yellow fever swept through the American South and spread out through the Mississippi River Valley. Along with cholera, “yellow jack,” as it was known—after the…
By M. Anthony Mills | March 14, 2023
The Crisis of Liberalism Liberalism is in crisis. Its defenders, who see liberalism as a bulwark against tyranny, fear that illiberalism now threatens to overwhelm liberal democracy. Its critics, who…
By M. Anthony Mills | October 24, 2022
Early in his presidency, Joe Biden promised to be a leader on science policy with proposals for new advanced research projects agencies centering on biomedical and climate research. And now,…
By James Pethokoukis | M. Anthony Mills | June 30, 2022
When America endeavors to tackle an ambitious project, we speak in terms of moonshots or a “Manhattan Project for X.” The assumption is that vast government resources, directed toward some…
By James Pethokoukis | M. Anthony Mills | June 23, 2022
Nineteen-fifty-six—when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary—was, according to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the year “British communists lived on the edge of the political equivalent of a collective nervous breakdown.”…
By M. Anthony Mills | March 28, 2022