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.
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Psychology:
I often rant about bad coverage of the psychology of sex differences, so it is always satisfying to see an article that really has their facts straight. Amanda Schaffer and Emily Bazelon, writing in Slate, have an excellent article reviewing...
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Posted on July 7, 2008 12:50 PM • 0 Comments •
A lot of people have read The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. In the book, he gives an example of a group of people forced to estimate the weight of a cow. (This was actually an experiment that geneticist...
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Posted on June 30, 2008 1:17 PM • 3 Comments •
PsyBlog is soliciting your favorite psychobabble. Head over there to give your favorite instance of the complete misinterpretation of psychology in pop culture. My favorite is number one on their list of examples: "Their brains lit up in the scanner."...
Posted on June 23, 2008 11:45 AM • 0 Comments •
Lots of people get mad behind the wheel, but who are the people likely to try and kill you at the intersection? A CSU psychologist found that road rage correlates with large numbers of bumper stickers: Szlemko and his colleagues...
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Posted on June 17, 2008 10:51 AM • 2 Comments •
I am in blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er. Strange things I have in head that will to hand, Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd....
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Posted on June 12, 2008 9:31 PM • 3 Comments •
The NYTimes has a great interview with Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert: What we've been seeing in my lab, over and over again, is that people have an inability to predict what will make us happy -- or unhappy. If you...
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Posted on April 22, 2008 3:36 PM • 5 Comments •
It has been a big month for talking about the demographic transition here at Pure Pedantry. (See here and here.) Ronald Bailey at Reason had this interesting article speculating why people choose to have less children: children don't make you...
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Posted on February 27, 2008 12:00 PM • 4 Comments •
The NYTimes has an article today about the "science" of online match-making. I put that in quotes because there really isn't any clear evidence about whether it works either way....
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Posted on January 29, 2008 8:16 AM • 2 Comments •
I read this article in the Economist that summarizes a paper showing that men wanting to attract women spend conspicuously and women wanting to attract men volunteer conspicuously. All I could think about when I read it was, "Well, I...
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Posted on August 13, 2007 11:05 AM • 4 Comments •
Simon Baron Cohen writes in entelechy on theories of imagination (scroll down): In what sense might something as intrinsically human as the imagination be biological? How could the products of the imagination - a novel, a painting, a sonata, a...
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Posted on June 6, 2007 10:57 AM • 0 Comments •
Harvard Psychologist Steven Pinker was on the Colbert Report. Priceless. Videos under the fold:...
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Posted on February 12, 2007 11:07 AM • 4 Comments •
"So I am a Libra. I enjoy science and blogging. I dislike dogs, people who talk in movies, and other people's children. I am looking for a woman who breathes regularly and is at least partially heterosexual." -- so speaketh...
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Posted on February 7, 2007 1:11 PM • 9 Comments •
