Holiday debates

–Matt Burgess- Though not every family is like the Woodhouse family, political diversity within families is common, sometimes leading to political debates during the holidays (much to the chagrin of Joy Woodhouse, evidently). Unlike the Woodhouse family apparently, I find holiday political debates in my family to be mostly civil and quite interesting. In fact, these…

Agreeing to disagree, disagreeing to agree, on the US Supreme Court

-Matt Burgess & Ian Burgess- On November 7, 2006, Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, the ‘Michigan Civil Rights Initiative’ (MCRI), by a 58%-42% margin. The MCRI amended Michigan’s constitution to ban affirmative action programs “granting preferential treatment to…any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin” in public employment,…

Case Study: The Hilborn-Worm debate on the status of global fisheries

–Matt Burgess- In July 2009, a group of scientists, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, published a study in the prestigious journal Science synthesizing the current state of knowledge on the status of global fisheries. The study found that a large fraction of well-studied fish populations have been severely depleted…