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David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.)
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years. Oliver Sacks found Reef Madness "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." Check it out.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
Category: Brains and minds
This is a good example of how reflexive diagnoses, as PTSD has become for any combat veteran (and sometimes even prospective combat veterans -- i.e., troops preparing to deploy), can do harm. They can lead you to ignore other possible causes of the symptoms on display.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:36 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
Nurses and doctors have won a victory in their battle for their "right" to infect patients with easily prevented...
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:47 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
The steps we've taken, while half-measures to be sure, reflect the state's essential decency and civility. Yet Vermont's distinction is not in curing the healthcare problem. We're just stanching the bleeding a bit better than other states.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:37 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
The tone of discussions of reform in both Congress and the blogosphere has changed remarkably over the last few days. It's gone from pessimistic to optimistic, and from a sense of retreat and a whittling away of substantive reform toward a careful expansion of reform -- including the inclusion of a public option.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:21 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
Probably dreaming. But now and then it all seems so real.
Posted by David Dobbs at 12:08 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
That post reported the news (via FiercePharma) that Pfizer had tucked away in its financial disclosure forms a $2.3 billion charge to end the federal investigation into allegations of off-label promotions of its Cox-2 painkillers, including Bextra. ... Because my post was was one of the few things already on the interwebz before Justice held its news conference, the Google rush shot it toward the top of the search results.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This implies that religious beliefs and behavior emerged not as sui generis evolutionary adaptations, but as an extension (some would say "by product") of social cognition and behavior. May be something to that, Razib says — but it would be nice "get in on the game of normal human variation in religious orientation (as opposed to studies of mystical brain states which seem focused on outliers)."
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:51 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Healthcare policy
"The greatest fear Democrats should have at this point is what will happen when millions of hard-working, lower-middle-class American families without health insurance are told they're about to be slapped with a $500 to $1000-a-month bill to buy a plan ... [and] be told that their employers and the government aren't going to help out."
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:36 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
"Every other industrialized country has a national health care system that makes keeping track of these elementary facts possible. The US doesn't."
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:11 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Eric Michael Johnson contemplates the hearts, minds, teeth, and claws of bonobos and other primates, while -- no fault of Eric's -- the flu, the end of publishing, and the death of the uninsured march on. Plus some great old surgery footage.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:46 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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