Survey work is fun.  Sitting alone in our offices we come up with complicated theories and wishfully testable hypotheses and then roam into the real world to collect data from the public who quite often, well, don't give a crap.  Take, for example, a new survey I'm currentl...

From the Dublin News: Dublin middle school and ninth-grade students spent Saturday morning discussing sports, food, architecture and the science behind them at a districtwide science fair. .. Abby Haab, a seventh-grader at Grizzell, focused on the magnus force in her experiment to test if the rotati...

From the inbox: Tim, I listened to your interview this morning. It was excellent! Love, Barb/Mom* For those who missed it yesterday, here's a link to the interview.  And yes, this is just a sad excuse to draw attention to myself.  Crap, I didn't get any comments on yesterday'...

More on my radio interview to air on WRRC 107.7 FM in New Jersey between 3 and 4 this afternoon.  From the inbox: Thank you very much Professor. You were extremely knowledgeable... Hah, fooled him. ...and a pleasure to talk with... That's a first. ...You treated me as an equal; I appreciat...

I just got off the phone from an interview with Bob Carson from FM 107.7 in New Jersey--I think it's a college radio station (Rider University), but hey, it's FM and I'm a publicity whore.  Talked mostly gas tax, carbon tax and cap and trade.  I hammered away at t...

Yesterday, Dave Roberts at Grist posted his strong (extreme?) views on economists' influence on public policy--environmental policy in particular.  Rather than resort to my usual sarcastic responses, I'm going to try to put together a cohesive substance-filled argument as to why this g...

In a recent comment, frequent reader/commenter Odograph writes:   I find this fairly timely , and actually fairly devastating: Falsifiability and replicability are key cornerstones of any academic research. If you're running an empirical study, and your results aren't replicable, your ...

Some economics of a beer tax: Gov. David A. Paterson's proposal to raise the tax on beer might cost consumers pennies, but union workers at Anheuser-Busch in Lysander fear it will cost them their jobs. Beer jobs are bogus. "Raising beer taxes would threaten jobs a nd could have a deva...

Based on the following news story, please predict the movement in the price of oranges in the near future. The arctic air hovering over the southeastern United States on Wednesday will bring bitter cold by nightfall and a hard freeze warning for much of Florida that could kill crops and sensit...

From the Washington Post: The Georgia peanut plant linked to a salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people and sickened 500 more across the country knowingly shipped out contaminated peanut butter 12 times in the past two years, federal officials said yesterday....