Social Sciences
sa smith | September 11, 2010PARADE magazine has published a series of articles on pit bulls recently:
Michael Vick's Pit Bulls: Where Are They Now?
Can You Teach a Bad Dog New Tricks?
Top 5 Myths about Pit Bulls
Hehehehe. Amazing how many pit owners have the same "HE/SHE DESTROYED AN ENTIRE SOFA!!!" story. PRO-TIP-- Pits that get walkies every morning and every evening dont eat sofas. Thats why rain makes me nervous... Arnie + Cabin Fever = Something getting destroyed, LOL!!
Remember, folks-- The Humane Society of the United States wanted each and every one of those dogs killed. They want all pits killed. Just like…
drorzel | September 10, 2010
NFL 2010: The biggest thing fans don't understand about life in pro football. (1) - By Stefan Fatsis, Nate Jackson, Josh Levin, and Tom Scocca - Slate Magazine
A great discussion of the modern NFL, including a couple of former players.
(tags: sports football slate culture)
I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
"This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that starts by attacking me and often returns to this sport. But it has persuaded me that I was wrong.…
pharyngula | September 7, 2010It looks like I have to add another book to my currently neglected reading list. In an interview, Cordelia Fine, author of a new book, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), has a few provocative things to say about gender stereotypes and the flimsy neuroscience used to justify them.
So women aren't really more receptive than men to other people's emotions?
There is a very common social perception that women are better at understanding other people's thoughts and feelings. When you look at one of the most realistic tests of…
pharyngula | September 7, 2010Two children are missing in Belize, and no one knows what happened to them. So a helpful 'psychic' declared that they had been fed to the crocodiles in a nearby sanctuary. The results were predictable.
Reports are that the mob shot and killed some of the 17 crocs held in captivity at the sanctuary. Also destroyed were the Rose's two story home that included a laboratory and nursery for baby crocs. One baby American Crocodile was to be flown to Chicago to the Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest, Ill. USA for the first ever animal exchange program between Belize and the USA. Over $2,500 in…
pharyngula | September 6, 2010Gregory Koger is an ex-con and a revolutionary communist…and none of that should matter in the slightest. He's also a person who was beat up, handcuffed, maced, arrested, and now faces the prospect of a three year jail sentence for the crime of holding up his iPhone to take pictures of police harrassment. Koger is the young man who was documenting Sunsara Taylor's protest of the behavior of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (which, by the way, ought to change their name to drop the first word), and who, oddly, was manhandled and arrested for taking videos of the event, while Taylor…
mikethemadbiologist | September 6, 2010
(from here)
Last weekend, Glenn Beck and his Tea Party dupes decided to 'reclaim' Martin Luther King's legacy. In light of that, this speech King gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis seems appropriate--and puts the lie to Beck's propaganda:
My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and…
sastyk | September 3, 2010Let us start with persona, since one goes to any prizefight to see the metaphorical battle of two created characters, embodying sides, virtues, faults.
In this Corna... John Michael Greer, owner (by a whisker over Bob Waldrop) of the finest beard in Peak Oildom, Archdruid, moral descendent of Toynbee and Gibbon, considerer of declines in centuries, not weekends. No Zombies for Greer - we are Rome, and we might as well deal with it, dammit.
And in this Corna...Rob Hopkins, beardless founder of the Transition movement, permaculturist, endless energetic optimist and municipal leader, student…
drorzel | September 2, 2010
BBC News - Would more holiday be good for America?
"Whenever citing Americans' acceptance of the longer hours they work or their lack of paid leave, the cliche is to say it goes back to the country's Puritan heritage or the Protestant work ethic.
I disagree. I think it comes from raw fear."
(tags: us world society economics class-war vacation jobs)
The View From Mercury : Starts With A Bang
A slew of pictures of Mercury, plus one of Earth from Mercury.
(tags: science astronomy pictures blogs planets starts-with-bang)
Science and religion vs. humanities and religion § Unqualified…
gregladen | September 1, 2010Natalie Munro (UCONN) and Leore Grosman (Hebrew University) have reported an interesting site dating to about 12,000 years ago in northern Israel. It is interesting because it seems to be the remains of feasting, a specific activity that any cultures around the world engage in. I'm actually writing something about feasting and related activities, so this is quite interesting to me. From the abstract:
We found clear evidence for feasting on wild cattle and tortoises at Hilazon Tachtit cave, a Late Epipaleolithic (12,000 calibrated years B.P.) burial site in Israel. This includes unusually…
dolittle | August 31, 2010The oil spill in the gulf has me thinking about gators. Have you ever been to a restaurant in New Orleans and enjoyed the tasty alligator selections on the menu? If not, you are missing out. Although I have to admit, they really do taste like chicken. Anyway, you probably know that alligators are cold-blooded because they are ectotherms. But did you know that their hearts are linked to their ability to digest food? It's true! I was just listening to an interview of Dr. Jim Hicks at UC Irvine conducted by Dr. Martin Frank of The American Physiological Society. Many of us are aware that humans…
pharyngula | August 31, 2010A reader, Sam, sent some fascinating excerpts from a court decision in 1824, Updegraph v. Commonwealth. It was a small case that prompted the judge to write a seventeen page furious rant, and reading it will make you realize what Glenn Beck's America would like to return to — no, thanks, I wouldn't like it.
This was a blasphemy trial. The guilty party (and yes, he was found guilty), had said this one terrible, awful, horrifying sentence:
"That the Holy Scriptures were a mere fable: That they were a contradiction, and that, although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a…
lborkowski | August 27, 2010Scicurious at Neurotic Physiology is publishing a bunch of "Back to Basics" posts that are well worth a read, and I found her series on depression particularly interesting. In Depression: Part 1, Scicurious explains why we should care about this disease:
Right now, depression is thought to occur in 21% of women and 13% of men worldwide, with 18 million people affected in the US (this is according to the lecture I had in 2006 on it, though other people say it's 8-17% of the total population). It's a big deal for research, depression is second leading cause of disability, and antidepressants…
sa smith | August 27, 2010Me: HAI GUYS! U NEED TO EAT GUD FUDS LIKE EGGS! EGGS ARE GUD AND CHEEP! LOL! YAY EAT EGGS U GET ABS LIKE ABS LOL!
News: Salmonella outbreak in eggs, Massive recalls
Me: FUUUUUUUUUU......
News: lol.
But thats not the only reason I bring this up. SciBlogs 'special' friend, HuffPo, scavenged an article from AP, which noted that one of the reasons why this salmonella-in-eggs recall is so epic, is because the US government doesnt require hens be vaccinated against salmonella. I thought this was neat info, and it turns out the eggs I normally buy do vaccinate their hens ($2.35 a dozen -0.35…
drorzel | August 26, 2010
"Mumble mumble shoulder something": R.E.M., Guided By Voices, Ghostface, and the pleasures of lyrical ambiguity | Music | The A.V. Club Blog | The A.V. Club
"The Stipe of R.E.M.'s early recordings uses words to create abstract compositions. It's not the only way to approach lyric-writing in rock music, or even the best way. Some of my favorite lyricists favor strong statements and clear narratives. Bruce Springsteen's "Stolen Car," to choose just the first example to spring to mind, is an extraordinarily effective, deeply sad song that would lose much of its power if Springsteen were to…
sastyk | August 25, 2010It is tempting to despair of all action. And sometimes those who despair are right. But sometimes they aren't. And this, I think is an important and central point for everyone who hits those moments when they simply don't believe society will self-correct in any measure from its impending ecological disaster. I should be clear - I don't believe it will self-correct in every measure, or even as much as I wish desperately it would. But I also do not believe that what one does to mitigate suffering, soften impacts, make life livable or plan for a better outcome is wasted.
I'd tell you why…
gregladen | August 24, 2010I am sad to report that it is indeed confirmed by official sources that primatologist Marc Hauser engaged in several instances of what is being termed misconduct while carrying out experiments in his lab.
Dean Michael Smith issued the following letter to members of the Harvard community today:
Dear faculty colleagues,
No dean wants to see a member of the faculty found responsible for scientific misconduct, for such misconduct strikes at the core of our academic values. Thus, it is with great sadness that I confirm that Professor Marc Hauser was found solely responsible, after a…
thescian | August 20, 2010A seemingly simple question. It's what a hot or cold body--any body, for that matter--has. And, the perfectly valid answer. But, Nature, as we have learnt over the course of humanity's scientific discoveries, is like an onion without a core, it's layers all the way. So, after we peel the question what-is-heat another layer reveals itself. Now, things get a little interesting and a little misty. Macroscopic properties. That's the new layer. Shape is an macroscopic property. Sound is another. These are things we perceive which are caused by a collection of stuff. Shape is caused by a lot of…
drorzel | August 20, 2010
An 18 Billion Mile Journey is almost complete! : Starts With A Bang
In honor of the upcoming completion of Neptune's first full orbit since its discovery, a discussion of how it was found.
(tags: science astronomy planets blogs starts-with-bang)
Fixing a Hole: The Beatles' Imaginary Post-1970 Albums, Part 1 | Popdose
"I'm actually quite surprised there isn't something like this out there already. A few web searches I did unearthed one article in Reader's Digest that did put together three such albums out of the early '70s material, but then stopped. But why stop at three? I'm going to…
jrosenhouse | August 17, 2010And speaking of evidence for God, here's Matt Rossano putting forth an interesting idea:
Now this may seem too whimsical to be taken seriously, but the important point is this: however one envisions convincing scientific evidence of God, let's suppose we've got it. Let's further suppose that this god is pretty much the god we all expected to find -- not Aristotle's reclusive thought-contemplating-itself god or Plato's disappointingly limited Demiurge, but the “golden rule,” Ten Commandments kind of god with whom we are all pretty familiar. This God is now on the same footing as gravity,…
jgoldman | August 17, 2010This post considering the evolutionary origins of numerical cognition, specifically in terms of the approximation of large numbers, is meant as a companion to this week's series on the developmental origins of numerical cognition and developmental dyscalculia, at Child's Play.
What are the origins of number representation in the mind? Are there any innate building blocks that contribute to our understanding of mathematics and number, or must everything be learned?
Number is an important domain of human knowledge. Many decisions in life are based on quantitative evidence, sometimes with life…