An unfortunate trend has emerged in academia over the past decade or so. There has been a concerted effort to engage the public with "science communication," ostensibly to improve the public's science literacy. In my experience, these efforts often appear to be -- at least in part -- politically motivated, and they commonly involve non-scientists taking simple, accurate, and already clearly explained scientific concepts and morphing them into dumbed-down and incorrect explanations that actually serve to misinform the public, rather than properly educate them. Ground zero in this domain is climate change science. In the Huffington Post, John Cook -- a climate communication research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia -- wrote a recent article entitled "The Quantum Theory of Climate Denial" in which he attempts to somehow link quantum mechanics with skepticism about imminent catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. Cook's article, like...(Read Full Post)