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Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture - ScienceBlogs (blog)

Mon, 30 May 2011 09:06:49 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - May. 30 (Opinion) - Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and CultureScienceBlogs (blog)He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many ...and more »

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Liberty University sure is skilled at sucking on the government teat

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By PZ Myers - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - Liberty University gets half a billion dollars a year in federal aid.

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End Symbolic Patriotism

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Brayton - Jul. 07 (Comment) - Common Dreams publishes an essay by the late Howard Zinn that advocates a genuine, meaningful patriotism over a shallow, emotional patriotism predicated solely on symbolism and tribalism. "On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed," the essay begins. Howard, you had me at hello.

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Pseudoscience Frees Rapists

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Brayton - Jun. 18 (Opinion) - The author of this blog post sent me a link to it and I am predictably appalled. Here's the story: In 2002 three Vietnamese men were convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman in Hanoi and were sent to prison for 11 to 16 years. The grandmother of one of the men contacted a doctor, Pham Thi Hong, insisting that her grandson was innocent, and asked could the good doctor do anything to help. And here's the result:

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Built on Facts

Mon, 17 May 2010 22:23:53 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - May. 17 (Opinion) -

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Orrin Hatch's Convenient Principles : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Brayton - Jan. 03 (Opinion) - Charles Babington of the AP points out how utterly hypocritical the Republicans in Congress are being when it comes to fiscal responsibility and health care reform: Democrats are troubled by the inconsistency of Republican lawmakers who approved a major Medicare expansion six years ago that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits, but oppose current health overhaul plans. All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats. And what did the Medicare prescription drug plan do? By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates. With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added to the federal debt.

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Temptation

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Nov. 09 (Comment) - Why might such a state of temporary moral grace exist? The answer returns us to evolution, and to our history as social primates. One possibility is that we come pre-programmed for certain kinds of ethical behavior, as it might be more important to have an honest reputation within the group than to have a few extra dollars.

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Neurotopia : Friday Weird Science: For Men, It Really IS The Size That Counts

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Scicurious - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - First of all, what IS the normal length of a penis? Sci had always heard somewhere around 6 inches, but never had any proof. But now, she's got the official numbers.

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Not Exactly Rocket Science : Do testosterone and oestrogen affect our attitudes to fairness, trust, risk and altruism?

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Yong - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - Some people go out of their way to help their peers, while others are more selfish. Some lend their trust easily, while others are more suspicious and distrustful. Some dive headlong into risky ventures; others shun risk like visiting in-laws. There's every reason to believe that these differences in behaviour have biological roots, and some studies have suggested that they are influenced by sex hormones, like testosterone and oestrogen.

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The Scientific Activist: THC Gives Cancer Cells the Munchies Too

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Nick Anthis - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - THC and other cannabinoids are actively being investigated for various useful clinical purposes, including the treatment of cancer through the inhibition of tumor growth.

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Reason, Emotion and Consumption

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Mar. 01 (Review) - One of the frustrations with writing a science book is that you keep on bumping into brand new research that you want to include. That's precisely what happened to me when I read this just published paper in the Journal of Consumer Research by Leonard Lee, Dan Ariely, and On Amir. The behavioral economists were interested in evaluating which decision-making system - the slow rational, deliberate approach (System 1) or the fast, emotional, instinctive approach (System 2) - was best suited for everyday consumer choices. The question, of course, is how one defines a "superior" decision. Who's to say whether it's better to pick Honey Nut Cheerios or Lucky Charms? Or if Diesel jeans are better than discounted Levis? In other words, how can one judge decisions when those decisions reflect individual preferences?

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Attendance at religious services, but not religious devotion, predicts support for suicide attacks

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Yong - Feb. 22 (Review) - When it comes to discussing suicide bombers, the controversial topic of religion is never far behind. Scholars and pundits have proposed several theories to explain why people would sacrifice their lives to take those of others, and conjectures about religious views seem easy to defend. After all, anthropologist Scott Atran estimated that since 2000, 70% of suicide attacks have been carried out by religious groups, and Islamic ones in particular. Explosion.jpgBut for all the speculation, very few people have examined the supposed link between religion and suicide attacks with an objective scientific eye. Enter Jeremy Ginges from the New School for Social Research in New York. He has used four related studies to show that there is indeed a link between religion and support for suicide attacks, but it's a complicated one.

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The Global Warming Cranks - George Will officially in their ranks

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By MarkH - Feb. 16 (Opinion) - One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we'd stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I'm watching TV last night and there's all these unbelievable crank ads sponsored by the anti-regulation ideologues the Americans for Prosperity featuring fake expert John Coleman. His senseless rant against the stimulus and the evils of regulation is accompanied by text on the bottom of the screen declaring "global warming it is the hoax" and "it is the greatest scam in history". It is amazing in this day and age that this shameless conspiracy theory is being broadcast on national television. There is no way that one can on the one hand describe anti-AGW denialism as skepticism, and at the same time be a proponent of such an absurd conspiracy that thousands of scientists around the world, and journals, and editors, and politicians are all in cahoots to falsify data about climate.

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Greg Laden's Blog : How much is the world spending on neglected disease research and development?

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - Feb. 04 (Opinion) - How much are we actually spending on the development of pharmaceutical tools to treat HIV/AIDS, TB, leichmaniasis, malaria and sleeping sickness?

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Books on Irrational Decision-Making

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Jan. 25 (Review) - I've got a short column in the Wall Street Journal today where I recommend five books on human irrationality. I wanted to work in a novel too, but I soon realized that every novel is about irrational people. 1. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds By Charles Mackay 1841 There is nothing modern about financial bubbles. In this classic work, Charles Mackay compiled an exhaustive list of the "schemes, projects and phantasies" that are a recurring theme of economic history. From the tulip mania of 17th-century Holland, in which 12 acres of valuable land were offered for a single bulb, to the South Sea Bubble of 18th-century England, in which a cheerleading press spurred a dramatic spike in the value of a debt-ridden slave-trading company, Mackay demonstrates that "every age has its peculiar folly." He notes that even the most intelligent investors are vulnerable to these frenzies of irrational exuberance: Isaac Newton is reported to have lost a small fortune after the South Sea Co. went bust.

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Pharyngula: Sharon Begley, how could you?

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By PZ Myers - Jan. 23 (News Analysis) - Usually, Begley is reasonably good on science, but her latest piece is one big collection of misconceptions. It reflects a poor understanding of the science and of history, in that it confuses long-standing recognition of the importance of environmental factors in gene expression with a sudden reinstatement of Lamarckian inheritance, and it simply isn't — she's missed the point of the science and she has caricatured Lamarck.

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Economics and Groupthink

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Jan. 11 (Review) - Uwe Reinhardt, an economist at Princeton, has a thoughtful explanation of why macroeconomists were so blindsided by the economic downtown of 2008: Fewer than a dozen prominent economists saw this economic train wreck coming -- and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, an economist famous for his academic research on the Great Depression, was notably not among them. Alas, for the real world, the few who did warn us about the train wreck got no more respect from the rest of their colleagues or from decision-makers in business and government than prophets usually do.

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Science and the Bush Legacy

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Brayton - Dec. 14 (Opinion) - Never before has science been so highly politicized as during the Bush administration. As Chris Mooney so aptly demonstrated in The Republican War on Science, on issue after issue the Bush administration distorted, ignored or stifled science in the service of political aims. Emily Badger has an excellent review of the Bush administration and a look forward at how Obama can fix some of the problems.

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One of Life's Tiny Dramas Captured Forever on Film

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - Nov. 02 (Review) - There are many inexplicable and tragic events in nature, yet few are captured on film. Here is an interesting series of photographs depicting a pair of swallows, Hirundo rustica (known as the Barn Swallow in the United States). In this series of images, we watch the story that unfolds after one of the birds was fatally injured, yet the bird's mate remains nearby, delivering food or water and keeping its dying companion company. In this image, we see the healthy bird as it "mantles" (covers with its wings) its injured, but still living, companion;

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Warm hands, warm heart: how physical and emotional warmth are linked

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Ed Yong - Oct. 26 (Review) - We will readily describe a person's demeanour as "warm" or "cold" but this link between temperature and personality is more than just a metaphorical one. A new study shows that warming a person's fingertips can also bring out the warmth in their social relationships, pushing them to judge others more positively and promoting their charitable side.

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Conservatives have more fear

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - Sep. 21 (Special Report) - Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits.

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Going with the Gut

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Sep. 07 (Review) - So there's been a lot of talk about how John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP demonstrates the danger of trusting your instincts and making important decisions with your gut. But I think such a conclusion is unfair - not to McCain, but to our very own brain. After all, one of the major findings of neuroscience in the last decade or so has been the tremendous power of the emotional mind. The unconscious, long derided as a Freudian underworld, is now seen as an adaptive supercomputer. Antonio Damasio, for instance, has demonstrated that when people lose the ability to experience emotion - usually because of damage to the orbitofrontal cortex - they also lose the ability to make "rational" decisions. In other words, our gut instincts are a necessary ingredient of reason.

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Loss Aversion and Real Estate

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Jul. 27 (Opinion) - At first glance, now would seem like an excellent time to buy a home. In most urban areas, home prices are down at least 20 percent from their peak in 2007. Shouldn't lower prices lead to increased demand? After all, interest rates are still low by historical standards. The problem, of course, is that people are afraid that the real estate market will only get worse. No one wants to pay interest on an investment that continues to decrease in value. This is a textbook example of loss aversion, which is the kahnemanandtversky principle that losses hurt more than gains feel good. Kahneman and Tversky stumbled upon loss aversion after giving their students a simple survey, which asked whether or not they would accept a variety of different bets. The psychologists noticed that, when people were offered a gamble on the toss of a coin in which they might lose $20, they demanded an average payoff of at least $40 if they won. The pain of a loss was approximately twice as potent as the pleasure generated by a gain.

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How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Coby Beck - Jul. 06 (Opinion) - Below is a listing of all the articles to be found in the "How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic" guide, presented as a handy one-stop shop for all the material you should need to rebut the more common anti-global warming science arguments constantly echoed accross the internet.

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Rumor and Politics

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceBlogs.com - By Jonah Lehrer - Jun. 08 (Opinion) - Humans are exquisitely social animals, and yet we're vulnerable to some pretty stunning flaws in social cognition. Unfortunately, most of these flaws are on full display during a presidential campaign. Consider the false rumor, which can influence our beliefs even when it has been debunked. The most powerful example of this phenomenon, of course, is the swift-boating of John Kerry. It didn't matter that every reputable news source found most of the charges to be misleading. The sheer fact that Kerry was being accused of lying was enough to impugn his honesty. Even when we're found innocent, a little guilt remains. And now it's another campaign and the libelous lies are once again clotting up the airwaves. Consider the recent rumor that there's a videotape of Michelle Obama saying "whitey". Dave Weigel has thoroughly debunked the rumor - the "facts" of the videotape have mutated from day to day - but it's still worth considering the impact of the rumor, even though it's not true. I think one of the most troubling aspects of the way rumors work is that mere repetition is often confused with truth. When the brain hears a claim repeated endlessly - and that's all cable news ever does - it can't help but take that claim into account, even if the evidence is, at best, ambiguous. Basically, we're the worst Bayesians ever.

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