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September 3, 2025
First Amendment Problems with Removing Bias in Speech Marketplaces via Government Intervention
In an August 24 post on Truth Social, Donald Trump called ABC and NBC News “two of the worst and most biased networks in history.” The president said he’d support the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoking their licenses “because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!!” Setting aside the question…
August 29, 2025
Science Policy without Science or Policy
Writing almost 20 years ago, science policy scholar Dan Sarewitz made a remarkable observation about federal support for research and development (R&D):1 Sarewitz argued that the long-term stability in R&D funding can be traced, in part, to a bipartisan consensus that R&D, especially support for basic research, was broadly in the public interest. He explained: [T]he political…
August 27, 2025
Filling in the Blanks in NetChoice v. Fitch: Is First Amendment Doctrine in Danger?
Tracking the fate of Mississippi’s age-verification and parental-consent law for social media account holders in the face of a First Amendment challenge in NetChoice v. Fitch is like watching a ping-pong game between the trial and appellate courts. Observing the judicial back-and-forth also proves maddening because sometimes, when Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch prevails against…
August 26, 2025
Extreme Non-Event Attribution
Last week, Hurricane Erin was a massive Category 5 storm that shot the gap between the U.S. east coast and Bermuda before heading out to sea. Imagine an alternative universe, where Erin’s track was just a bit further west — tracking over Miami, along the U.S. east coast, and then making a direct hit on…
August 25, 2025
Trump vs Biden on Science Integrity
Since the George W. Bush administration and under both parties, the White House has focused on scientific integrity. However, Republicans and Democrats have conflicting views on what that means. For Democrats, scientific integrity centers on protecting government scientists and the science that they conduct from political interference from higher-ups. For Republicans — who under President Trump…
August 22, 2025
UN abandons science and hires climate change zealots who damn the facts
Life would be impossible without experts — doctors help us when we get sick, mechanics fix our cars when they break down, farmers produce our food, to name just a few. But we live in a time when too many of these roles have become politicized. President Trump recently fired the head of the Bureau of…
August 22, 2025
Secrecy in Tension with Democracy and Privacy
When someone attacks your democracy, it tends to stick in your craw. I don’t know that democracy is the last, best way to arrange human affairs, but if we’re going to have a democracy, participants in it should stick to the rules. If they don’t, the tradition of tit for tat in politics suggests a…
August 22, 2025
AI Is Changing—Not Stealing—Our Jobs and Lives
There was much angst surrounding AI as it loomed as a potential part of daily life, even among the so-called AI experts. But is it warranted? Physicist Niels Bohr is famously reputed to have said, “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” And decision scientist Philip Tetlock confirms this sentiment, claiming that most experts…
August 21, 2025
What Does Agentic AI Mean for Interoperability, User Freedom, and Privacy?
Agentic AI, or automated systems that are capable of completing tasks and making decisions without human intervention, requires interoperability to remain innovative and competitive. But what does this degree of data access mean for user privacy? And how can this technology provide us with greater agency over our lives? In this episode of Explain to…
August 20, 2025
A Takeover of the IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released the names of its authors for its seventh assessment report (AR7). The author list for its Chapter 3 — Changes in regional climate and extremes, and their causes — suggests strongly that the IPCC will be shifting from its longstanding focus on detection and attribution (D&A) of extreme events…