Now on ScienceBlogs: The future of human evolution
Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.
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.
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. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.
Category: Drugs
Radley Balko over at Reason summarizes the collateral damage that has been incurred in our nation's drug war. These casualties include police militarization, repeated foreign policy travesties (read: the entirety of Latin America has good reasons to hate us), the...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:55 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Two good articles on libertarian politics this week. First, the Economist covers Freedom House's "How Free?" report on the US: But the verdict on the Bush years is nevertheless sharp. "How Free?" not only details and condemns the administration's familiar...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:24 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Things I did not visualize reading this morning. 1) David Mamet wrote a piece in the Village Voice -- of all places -- disavowing his faith in government. Money quote: For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:36 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Boo Universe! Boo American politics and your absence of choices! You can try this electoral quiz that tells you who you should vote for here. The Universe has apparently determined that I should vote for Ron Paul -- which is...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:43 AM • 16 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Ron Paul just lost my vote (not that he really had it before). See the video below the fold (the question is at about 2:40):...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 3:34 PM • 26 Comments •
Category: Other People's Work
I am clearing out links, so here are two quotes on a libertarian persuasion. From Jane Galt (about media coverage of the Hillary/Obama foreign policy debate: It's not really my business, since I don't think anyone will ever describe me...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:42 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Brian Doherty from Reason has an interesting article on NY's place as a libertarian mecca: New York City is the celebrated center for many vital aspects of American culture: publishing, finance, and the arts. It rarely has been credited, however,...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:21 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Government Paternalism
I wrote about my skepticism about libertarian paternalism before. Here is some more skepticism. Glen Whitman writes about one type of policy advocated by libertarian paternalists -- the opt-out program. In opt-out programs, you are enrolled in what the government...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:03 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Ilya Somin from the Volokh Conspiracy has this post on a resurgent paternalism -- using as its justification new findings from behavioral economics: "Libertarian Paternalism" is all the rage in law and economics circles these days. To slightly oversimplify, libertarian...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:51 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Cathy Young has an interesting column on the tension among libertarians between the desire to be tolerant about other people's lifestyles and personal convictions about those issues: Within the libertarian milieu, there is a tension between political libertarians, whose chief...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:26 AM • 3 Comments •
