The most blatant forms of denialism are rarely malevolent; they combine decency, a fear of change, and the misguided desire to do good - for our health, our families, and the world. That is why so many physicians dismiss the idea that a patient's race can, and often should, be used as a tool for better diagnoses and treatment.
Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built in the United States.
Deliberately modifying the earth's atmosphere would be a desperate gamble with significant risks. Yet the more likely climate change is to cause devastation, the more attractive even the most perilous attempts to mitigate those changes will become.
With a hundred and seventy-eight machines to sequence the precise order of the billions of chemicals within a molecule of DNA, B.G.I. produces at least a quarter of the world's genomic data - more than Harvard University, the National Institutes of Health, or any other scientific institution.
It is not possible to assert publicly that Monsanto is anything other than venal without being accused of being a sellout, a fraud, or worse.
When people say they prefer organic food, what they often seem to mean is they don't want their food tainted with pesticides and their meat shot full of hormones or antibiotics. Many object to the way a few companies - Monsanto is the most famous of them - control so many of the seeds we grow.
We're lying ourselves into believing things are untrue, like organic food will solve all our problems, or vitamins will make us healthy, or we don't need to vaccinate our children.
If people want to believe that our ancestors were riding around on dinosaurs or that the protracted, increasing, and devastating warming of the Earth is just nature doing its thing - I guess I feel I have more useful battles to fight.
Most people prepare for travels by reading about their destination; it always seemed an odd approach to me. I find it much easier and more pleasant to focus with the sights and smells of a place rattling around in my mind.
Most reputable scientists agree that climate change is real and that the effects are likely to be bad. But nobody can say for sure exactly what 'bad' means. The safest and most equitable way out of this horrific mess is simple: cut fossil-fuel emissions.
It is a remarkable fact that smallpox, a scourge for thousands of years, has now vanished from the earth, except for two tiny vials, one locked in a highly secure facility at the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, and another stored in a similarly secure vault in Siberia.
Many climate scientists say their biggest fear is that warming could melt the Arctic permafrost - which stretches for thousands of miles across Alaska, Canada, and Siberia.
Universal vaccination may well be the greatest success story in medical history.
Newspapers and magazines are vanishing. But science writers are not. In fact, they are becoming so adept and varied that I hardly have time to read 'Gawker' anymore.
There has never been a verified scientific report that chelation therapy, a gluten-free diet, or anything else can cure autism.
I started to write about science and medicine at the 'Washington Post,' in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Any group that intends to sell laboratory meat will need to build bioreactors - factories that can grow cells under pristine conditions. Bioreactors aren't new; beer and yeast are made using similar methods.
