Pure Pedantry : Dude, what the hell is happening to the cranes in NYC?

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

Profile

Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.

Search this blog

Dude, what the hell is happening to the cranes in NYC?

Category: Breaking News
Posted on: May 30, 2008 11:42 AM, by Jake Young

Another crane has collapsed in NYC. This is the second crane to collapse in the past several months, and this one is even closer to my house.

Yikes. I would say that I would never walk under these things, but it is kind of impossible.

Comments

I note the typical mayoral grandstanding as Bloomberg immediately pronounces the incident "unacceptable and intolerable" (that's what mayors are supposed to say), but you can't make that judgement before you know what happened. That reaction is coming from the very widespread fallacy that engineering should be able to achieve zero accidents. Sure, probably carelessness and greed were the main causes of the accident, but maybe not, you don't know yet. There will never be such a thing as no accidents at all.

Posted by: Vasha | May 30, 2008 8:01 PM