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Do we need algebra? Are you kidding me?

And now for something completely different... Well, not really, but kind of different. I realize that my niche here has become discussing science-based medicine, evidence-based medicine, and the atrocities committed against both by proponents of so-called "complementary and alternative" medicine, but every so often I need a change of pace. Unfortunately, that change of pace was something I came across in the New York Times on Sunday in the form of a commentary so bad that I seriously wondered if it was a parody or a practical joke. Alas, it wasn't. I'm referring to an article by Andrew Hacker…

Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) and autism at Autism One: Kerri Rivera’s apologists strike back (Part 2)

Here we go again. Remember how last week I said I wouldn't write about the Miracle Mineral Solution (abbreviated MMS) again for a while? I lied. Well, actually, I didn't. At the time I wrote that, I really did mean to give it a rest for a while, and for a while at least I was a good boy. I even managed to ignore Todd Drezner's excellent post on—of all places!—what is normally a wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, entitled The Curious Case of Autism and MMS. Then came this post by an MMS apologist that we've met before, a man named Adam Mr. Abraham who goes by the handle…

Pharma and vaccines turn you into a zombie?

When I saw the latest screed from that very living embodiment of crank magnetism, Mike Adams, I chuckled. I sent it around to some fellow skeptics, including, for instance, the crew at The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, as well as acquaintances and friends of mine because I couldn't believe it. Adams, as loony as he is, had topped himself. In the meantime, I couldn't decide whether or not to write about it, particularly after Steve Novella took a swipe at it. After all, there are things that are so loony, so out there, that one seriously has to worry about whether they are the result of…

Now there's some "anti-science"...

I'm sometimes criticized for referring to various people who are "anti-science" as, well, "anti-science." People, for whatever reason, have a hard time believing that anyone is anti-science; so when I point out how much, for example, antivaccinationists, alternative medicine believers, or creationists are anti-science, they have a had time believing it. This is particularly true because, just as antivaccinationists loudly protest that they are not "antivaccine," those who are anti-science equally loudly protest that they are not "anti-science." Such protestations are almost inevitably…

The architects of a "disinformation campaign" against homeopathy are revealed

He's ba-ack. Has it really only been two weeks? A mere two weeks since everybody's favorite advocate of The One Quackery to Rule Them All promised the woo-friendly readers of the "health" section of that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post that he would "provide further specific evidence of the unscientific attitude and actions from those individuals and organizations who are leading the campaign against homeopathy." Like pretty much every skeptic who's made any sort of name for himself, no matter how minor, in having fun taking down the pseudoscientific nonsense known as…

Regularity über alles, revisited

File this under "Well, duh!" In thinking about "alternative" medicine, occasionally I contemplate the deepest, most profound questions having to do with health and healing, the difference between science-based medicine and evidence-based medicine, and how to maximize the therapeutic effect of scientifically validated treatments. Other times, I contemplate the question of just what is, based on logic and basic science alone, the most ridiculous "alternative medicine" therapy of all time. Certainly, there are many contenders. For example, there is homeopathy, which is basically nothing more…

A happy little case

[Note: The following is based on an aggregation of multiple patients. It does not represent any single patient's case.] It was a little case. I know, I know, I've said in the past that there's no such thing as a little operation, at least not when it's happening to you, and that's true. Nonetheless this case was as close to "minor surgery" as you could get while still actually having to wield a scalpel to cut through skin. As I spoke to her before the operation to get informed consent, the patient ran her fingers across her short hair, only now starting to grow back after her having completed…

British science accused in the wake of the MMR scare

I was originally going to blog this yesterday, but Dr. Oz's offenses against science and medicine on his show that aired on Tuesday kind of pushed it out of the way. It's not that I didn't think the third part of Brian Deer's expose of Andrew Wakefield's fraud worthy of my attention. Rather, the Oz thing really got me peeved, peeved enough to push aside (temporarily, at least) Brian Deer's deconstruction of how the editors of The Lancet scrambled to cover their proverbial asses, which they proceeded to do with alacrity, as the title of Deer's article implies: The Lancet's two days to bury bad…

When big pharma pays a publisher to publish a fake journal...

It's times like these when I'm happy that I haven't published in too many Elsevier Journals during the course of my career. I say that because on Thursday, it was revealed that pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp & Dohme paid Elsevier to produce a fake medical journal that, to any superficial examination, looked like a real medical journal but was in reality nothing more than advertising for Merck. As reported by The Scientist: Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only…

Suing DAN! practitioners for malpractice: It's about time

Now that's what I'm talking about! This is what we need to see more of! A father whose child underwent the quackery that is the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) protocol is suing the doctors who administered it for malpractice: The father of a 7-year-old Chicago boy who was diagnosed as a toddler with autism has sued the Naperville and Florida doctors who treated his son, alleging they harmed the child with "dangerous and unnecessary experimental treatments." James Coman and his son were featured last year in "Dubious Medicine," a Tribune series that examined risky, unproven treatments for autism…

A crazy mixed up kid comes up with a crazy mixed up conspiracy theory about a crazy mixed up blog collective, part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about Jake Crosby, the token college kid on the spectrum over at the happy home for wandering anti-vaccine zealots, Age of Autism. Specifically, I felt sorry for him because of his rather tortured bit of conspiracy mongering that postulated deep, dark connections between Adam Bly, the founder of Seed Media Group, the company he founded, ScienceBlogs, and multiple big pharma countries, all tied together with a breathtakingly tenuous connections all wrapped up into a big fat ball of nonsense. Ooops. He did it again, with part 2 of Part II Seed Media's "Science"Blogs: A 180…

Health care reform = Nazi euthanasia: The equivalent of Holocaust denial?

I hadn't planned on writing about this topic again. Really, I hadn't. The reason is mainly that politics is usually not my bag. I've said it time and time again: political bloggers are a dime a dozen, and I have no reason to suspect that my pontifications and bloviations on politics would be any more valuable or worthy of your attention than anyone else's pontifications and bloviations on politics. Besides, I've made quite the little niche for myself in the blogosphere writing about skepticism, critical thinking, and science in medicine, in particular how unscientific or pseudoscientific…

Ron Paul: Quackery enabler, part II

While I've let myself get sucked into commenting on health care politics (well, not exactly "sucked in"; I was pissed off enough at the "Obama = Hitler" analogies that I enjoyed skewering some of the idiots making them), there's another issue that's popped up that I can't resist commenting on in my usual inimitable fashion. It comes from, of all places, this blog's favorite den of quackery propaganda, NaturalNews.com and from, of all places, one of our favorite wingnut politicians, a man who's been a tireless promoter of quackery in Congress for many years now. That's right, Ron Paul's back,…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Help me Obi-Wan. You're my only hope.

In the year and a half or so that I've been doing Your Friday Dose of Woo, I must admit that I've come across some truly weird stuff. Stuff so weird that, after reading it, you wonder either, "How on earth could someone seriously think something like this is true or would work?" or "How can anyone be so unscrupulous as to scam people like this?" Not infrequently, both questions come to mind simultaneously. Other times, I realize that it's fundamentalist religion of some sort or bizarre spiritual quasi-religious beliefs that are behind the woo. I've also started to notice recurring themes,…

The unbearable lightweightness of being David Kirby

Remember how I speculated that appointing die-hard antivaccinationists to the new federal panel on autism research and policy would be a propaganda boon to the antivaccination movement and the mercury militia? Surprise, surprise! It's already happening. Even less of a surprise, first off the mark to gloat is everybody's favorite whore for the mercury militia appearing (as usual) in his favorite house organ of antivaccination propaganda, The Huffington Post. First, of course, he has to "frame" things to represent himself as the brave, brave iconoclast, fighting against those evil scientists…

I fought the Hitler zombie, and the Hitler zombie won...maybe

Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 23, 2005 and is the fourth ever Hitler Zombie post. Although the Undead Fuhrer himself has not yet made an appearance, the concept is there, and this forms the basis for what the monster became. Enjoy! It would be no fun at all to write this blog if everyone always agreed with me. (Of course, it would be even less fun if everyone violently…

The 100th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: The trouble with Orac

PROLOGUE LOCATION: The Liberator, cruising through space. GAN: Are you sure it's fully switched on? ORAC: Of course I'm properly switched on. Having depressed the activator button what else would you expect? CALLY: It's his voice. BLAKE: It's exactly as though Ensor were speaking. ORAC: Surely it is obvious even to the meanest intelligence that during my development I would naturally become endowed with aspects of my creator's personality. AVON: The more endearing aspects by the sound of it. ORAC: Possibly. However similarities between myself and Ensor are entirely superficial. My mental…

Obama Pledges Major New Commitment to Science in Speech to NAS

Today, President Barack Obama addressed the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), making him only the fourth president in modern times to do so (the other three were John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush). He touched on a variety of areas, but the major theme was a renewed commitment to science. Specifically, Obama pledged that under his leadership, the US will devote more than three percent of GDP to research and development. In his words, this will be the "largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American History," even exceeding the…

Anders Behring Breivik Admitted Mass Murderer - A Survivor's Story

Anders Behring Breivik is an admitted mass murderer of the victtims at Oslo, providing some answers. He referred to his own crimes as "atrocious" but "necessary." More than 92 people are dead because of his actions. Most media coverage has focused on the terrorist, the mass murderer, the anti-Islamist and far right fundamentalist Christian. No one really knows why he did this. I want to shift the focus to the story of one of the survivors. It deserves to be heard. Leah McElrath sent this translation of a survivor's blog via Twitter. She describes herself as a "Human rights activist,…

Mixing unvaccinated children with vaccinated children: Whose rights prevail?

Last night was a late night at work, and I didn't have time to apply my usual annoyingly long-winded analysis to a study that I found interesting and had intended to look at today. It'll keep. In the meantime, there are always the brief "link-and-comment" (or in my case "link-and-snark") posts. Also, there was an article a couple of days ago that I have been meaning to bring up since I saw it but somehow allowed myself to get distracted. With the impending resurgence of measles and other previously controlled or even vanquished infectious diseases, courtesy of Jenny McCarthy, Generation…

One surgeon behaving badly as an excuse to bash surgeons

You know, it really annoys me when I see idiocy as idiotic as the idiocy of this surgeon in New Jersey: In a lawsuit filed yesterday, a Camden County woman accused her orthopedic surgeon of "rubbing a temporary tattoo of a red rose" on her belly while she was under anesthesia. The patient discovered the tattoo below the panty line the next morning, when her husband was helping her get dressed to go home after the operation for a herniated disc, her attorney, Gregg A. Shivers, said in a phone interview yesterday. "She was extremely emotionally upset by it," said Shivers. The suit, filed on…

"All truth comes from public debate": A corollary to crank magnetism

A long, long time ago in a ScienceBlogs far, far away (well, it seems that way anyway, given the halcyon times back then before Pepsigate), Mark Hoofnagle coined the term "crank magnetism." It was a fantastic term used to describe how susceptibility to one form of quackery, pseudoscience, or just plain crankery tended to be associated with other forms of quackery, pseudoscience, or crankery. It explains why so many creationists tend to be into quackery and/or antivaccinationism, why so many 9/11 Truthers also tend to flirt with Holocaust denial or anthropogenic global warming denialists go…

HIV/AIDS denialism versus science

As a skeptic and a blogger, my main interest has evolved to be the discussion of science-based medicine and how one can identify what in medicine is and is not based in science. Part of the reason for this is because of my general interest in skepticism dating back to my discovery that there actually are people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, which led to a more general interest in pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and other non-evidence-based and non-science-based viewpoints that now includes quackery, anti-vaccine nonsense, 9/11 "Truth," creationism, and anthropogenic global warming…

Quoth an antivaxer: Vaccines are making dogs autistic!

If there's one thing about antivaxers, it's that they're single-minded beyond belief. No matter what the chronic health problem, it's always about the vaccines. To them, vaccines are always the cause. Autism? Vaccines must be the cause. Asthma? vaccines. Diabetes? Obviously vaccines. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)? What else could it be but the vaccines? (Never mind that there's plenty of evidence suggesting that vaccinated children have a lower risk of SIDS.) That's how antivaxers think. Monomania doesn't even begin to describe it. I was reminded of this yesterday when I came across yet…

The 21st Century Cures Act: Still alive, and still poised to endanger patients

it was less than a year ago that I described a bill wending its way through Congress called the 21st Century Cures Act “old vinegary wine in a new bottle.” The reason I characterized the bill that way was because it really was nothing new and it rested on a very old fallacy, namely that the only way to speed up medical “innovation” is to weaken the FDA and its standards for drug and medical device approval, which is exactly what the 21st Century Cures Act would do if passed into law. It’s basically the American cousin to the British Saatchi Bill, which in essence proposed to do very similar…

αEP: Complexity is not usually the product of selection

This is another addition to my αEP series about evolutionary psychology. Here's the first, and unfortunately there are several more to come. By the way, people are wondering about the α in the title. Don't you people do any immunology? α is standard shorthand for "anti". I mentioned in the last one this annoying tendency of too many pro-evolution people to cite "complexity" as a factor that supports the assertion of selection for a trait. Strangely, the intelligent design creationists also yell "Complexity!" at the drop of a hat, only it's to prove that evolution can't work. They're both…

Paleontological Profiles: A reply from Bob Bakker

Last month I posted an interview with paleontologist Bob Bakker, and while the scientific questions I asked stirred some discussion (including a response to some of the points from Jack Horner) a number of readers got hung up on the last part of the interview dealing with science & religion. Many of the comments on the original post disagreed with Bakker's criticism of Richard Dawkins, while creationists elsewhere on the web quote-mined the interview to support of their own views (see here and here, for example). Just this past weekend Bakker sent me a reply to the comments that centered…

Atheism, feminism and the Overton window

One of the peripheral strands in the ropy debate about framing is the question of how and whether religion ought to be part of the debate. PZ Myers advances an analogy by Larry Moran between atheists now and feminists back at some point in history. He quotes Larry saying: Do you realize that women used to march in the streets with placards demanding that they be allowed to vote? At the time the suffragettes were criticized for hurting the cause. Their radical stance was driving off the men who might have been sympathetic to women's right to vote if only those women had stayed in their…

Solidarity forever

Hand in hand together We shall not be moved "We Shall Not Be Moved," Trad. civil rights song On Wednesday, November 2, the people of Oakland peacefully, politely, closed downtown Oakland and the Port of Oakland – the nation's fifth busiest port. It's hard to say how many people spent at least part of their day at the intersection of 14th Street at Broadway. Broadway was closed for two long blocks, the side streets were, too, and all were filled with people. The plaza in front of City Hall was filled as well, with tents, with free food, with DJs, with silkscreening stations, with…

Creation/evolution continuum, or NCSE is too nice to theists … and to atheists!

There are those who say "Not only does the NCSE not criticize religion, but it cuddles up to it, kisses it, and tells it that everything will be all right." There are others who say: The continuum [between creationism and evolution] as described on the NCSE site strongly implies that “atheist science is better science”. Even though the objective of the continuum is to counter the belief that “evolutionists must be atheists”, it indirectly implies that evolutionists should be atheists. For this fact alone, I think the model needs to be replaced. A simpler person than I would take this to mean…

Cancer Treatment Centers of America, naturopathy, and "naturopathic oncology"

Note: Parts of this post have appeared elsewhere, but not in this form. If there's one aspect of so-called "alternative medicine" and "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often refer to sneeringly as "conventional" or "scientific" medicine is that -- or so its practitioners claim -- alt-med treats the "whole patient," that it's "wholistic" in a way that the evil reductionist "Western" science-based medicine can't be. Supposedly, we reductionistic, unimaginative physicians only focus on disease and ignore the "…

Train wreck, thy name is Egnor!

It figures. After my having written repeated debunkings of various physicians who are creationists (mostly of the "intelligent design" variety), in retrospect I should have seen this one coming. I should have seen that the Discovery Institute, eager to use anyone they can find whom they can represent to the public as having scientific credentials (never mind whether those credentials have anything to do with evolutionary biology) and thus dupe the public into seeing them as having authority when they start laying down ignorant brain farts about how they "doubt Darwinism," would settle on…

ADL Reverses Its Position on Armenian Genocide

The Anti-Defamation League reversed its previous position that held the genocide of Armenians wasn't genocide yesterday. Sort of, anyway: The national office of the Anti-Defamation League reversed its long-held position today and acknowledged the Armenian genocide of 1915, saying in a statement that the mass killings of that era at the hands of the Ottoman Turks "were indeed tantamount to genocide." However, the statement reaffirms the national ADL's belief that the legislation pending in Congress to recognize the genocide is "a counterproductive diversion." From the ADL statement, the non-…

The Secret Behind Huckabee's Strong Showing

I try to avoid blogging about 'horse race' politics, in no small part because about nineteen percent of voters don't make up their minds until several days before an election. For a long time, I've been privately telling people that Huckabee is a serious candidate that could pose real problems for Democrats: he's very personable and non-threatening, and he's batshit loony (just the way Republicans like 'em!). So I wasn't surprised by his strong showing in the Ames straw poll in Iowa. What did surprise me was the issue that generated his support. I thought it would be his wingnut…

What Happens When One Stops Taking VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE Very Seriously

Consider this the Fouad Ajami edition. Some of you may have read that Ajami compared Scooter Libby to fallen U.S. soldiers in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Recently, Ajami tried to defend his statements on MSNBC's Hardball. Before you click away for the video, several meta-observations (since Ajami's claim is offensive, ludicrous, and not worth refuting): 1) This is the first time I can remember that a conservative columnist got dogpiled enough to actually shift the 'debate.' They didn't bring Ajami on the show to defend Libby, but to defend himself (not that the dumb summabitch doesn't…

Not Everyone Is Losing Out in the Housing Market

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is doing just fine. From The Boston Courant (Jan. 26, 2008): Tom Brady, the New England Patriots star quarterback, is a winner on and off the field. Brady has sold his 314 Commonwealth Avenue condominium for $5.3 million, as reported last week by Banker & Tradesman, turning an approximately $1.2 million profit on the sale to a surburban couple. Brady purchased the three-bedroom condo in the Burrage House, located at the corner of Comm Ave. and Hereford Street, for $4.1 million in 2004. The 10-room, 3,422-square-foot home comes with three-and-a-…

The Big Two Dems Display the Quality of Leadership-iness

If you think that preventing Bush from granting retroactivity immunity for the telcos is a good thing, you might expect Democratic presidential candidates to demonstrate leadership by filibustering the bill. Or maybe not: Bush is about to get his number one priority through Congress, a move that could be stopped by Edwards, Obama, or Clinton, especially the latter two. This is the move to implement retroactive immunity for telecom companies who spy on Americans and violate core constitutional principles. All that is required to fight this is for Clinton or Obama to put the glare of the…

Competition and Antibiotic Resistance

At a recent conference I attended (pdf file), one speaker (Dominique Monnet) presented a very interesting observation about the relationship between the number of different antibiotics available and the amount of antibiotics prescribed. Quite simply, as the number of potential competiting drugs increases, the amount of drugs prescribed increases: (from here; the y-axis is the number of daily doses per 1000 residents) There are at least two reasons for this pattern: 1) Advertising aimed at doctors and hospitals is more likely to increase use simply because doctors will be influenced to use…

First They Came for the Unions

(from here) Because if janitors get healthcare, then the terrorists win Last night, Houston police used horses to break up a peaceful demonstration by unionized janitors, who on average, make $5.35/hr and have no health care. You know, if the Houston police were civilized they would have tasered them. One janitor described the scene thusly: The horses came all of a sudden. They started jumping on top of people. I heard the women screaming. A horse stomped on top of me. I fell to the ground and hurt my arm. The horses just kept coming at us. I was terrified. I never thought the police would…

Some Weekend Links You Might Have Missed

Here's some good weekend stuff from the internets. First, the science: Neaderthal introgression, in an easy to understand graphic format. A wonderful roundup of some fascinating endangered species. Make sure to check out the Dracula ants. If you're an itty-bitty microbe how do you outcompete some big charismatic megafauna? Be stinky. The Washington Post describes investigations into the suppression of science. I have some thoughts on the subject. The other stuff: Jamison Foer reviews the last few years of media ineptitude. An excellent article in the role introductory economics plays…

I See Stupid People: the Pro-Torture Evangelical Edition

So, an evangelical group has come out against the National Religious Campaign Against Torture because it's focusing on Guantanamo, and not repressive regimes. There are several reasons why that's an idiotic argument to oppose the NRCAT: Just because another country does more torture or more awful forms of torture does not excuse our behavior. If your country is engaged in torture, ultimately it's your responsibility to stop it, particularly if you live in a democracy. Like most of the batshit loopy 23% percent, they do not actually state what should be done about Guantanamo--except to deny…

There ought to be a qualifying exam for parenthood

It's another of those cases where people unfit to be parents abuse their children. Samuel McGehee is accused of murdering his youngest son, suffocating him to death because he wouldn't take a nap. That's horrible, but the next question I have to ask is why this guy was allowed in the same room with small children after what he did last year. A detective testified that in March 2008, McGehee, concerned about the family's financial state, decided to circumcise his other son at home, using a filet knife. "There was severe damage to the shaft of the penis," Detective Shawn Jenkins said. "There…

Oldie moldies that are pretty darned fascinating

The Royal Society of London is releasing free pdfs of some of its best-known papers — and we're talking real classics. Check out their timeline which lets you scan for papers in chronological order; the oldest are a pair for 1666-1667 by Robert Boyle and Robert Hook(e), which will horrify modern audiences: they describe experiments in blood transfusions and examinations of the lungs in dogs. I would not have wanted to be a dog in 17th century London, that's for sure. One that is particularly interesting is this account of a new technique in preventative medicine from 1736: "An Account of…

Have faith in the church, not god

Religiousness and Infidelity: Attendance, but not Faith and Prayer, Predict Marital Fidelity: High religiousness has been consistently linked with a decreased likelihood of past infidelity but has been solely defined by religious service attendance, a limited assessment of a complex facet of life. The current study developed nine religiousness subscales using items from the 1998 General Social Survey to more fully explore the association between religiousness and infidelity. Interestingly, logistic regressions using currently married participants (N = 1,439) demonstrated that attendance, but…

Wild times with the laughing godless

One of the fun surprises of the Global Atheist Convention is that, after a long day of shrill talks from rabidly militant atheists (…and a few accommodationists, shock horror), the evening sessions are all about the humor. So last night we got The Chasers, and I also got to meet Nonstampcollector, who showed this video to the group. In case you're wondering what he looks like, it's kind of amazing: Nonstampcollector has a face that is a perfect circle, two tiny eyes, and only two expressions. So don't knock the crude animation style, that's simply an accurate rendition of his people. Oh,…

Ernst Mayr and the elevator

I've finished the 5th chapter of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, but I don't have time to put up a review right now. But I do want to comment on a funny passage: I ran into Ernst Mayr as I was completing this chapter and asked if he had ever met de Vries. "No," he said, "botanists and zoologists didn't talk to each other very much in those days, and anyway, I was a Lamarckian then." Ernst Mayr lived from 1904 to 2005. Hugo de Vries didn't die until 1935. So a meeting is certainly plausible; and it reiterates just how long Mayr lived that it is plausible he knew one of the founders…

Substance & style

Richard Cohen's column dismissing the importance of algebra is so plainly stupid that it beggars the imagination. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that mathematics is important in "practical" contexts because it is a collection of unified techniques which happen to have wide ranging utility in the world around us. But Cohen's point that kids should take more history and English is actually a good one, technique must be married to material, tools without tasks are as worthless as tasks without tools. In other words, more scientists need to be aware of the humanities and more…

The Genetics of Genealogy on Radio Open Source

Radio Open Source is going to do a show on The Genetics of Genealogy. I've recently expressed some skepticism about many of the tests peddled by corporations and their scientist promoters, so I'm primed to jump into this discussion. I have already offered a few comments, and will probably post more as the show comes up. Until then, I also highly recommend John Hawks' comment on this topic. Update: On Point with Tom Ashbrook interviewed Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his new series African American Lives, which leverages genetic science in exploring the genealogy of many prominent black Americans…

Unemployment and Employment Both Drop: Not a Lot of Good News

About the decrease in U3 unemployment (the 'strict' measure) from 9.2% to 9.1% (which, of course, beats the alternative increase): well, that's the good news. The bad news is that the employment rate actually dropped 58.2% to 58.1%. Among men, we hit another all-time historical low. So how do you have a lower unemployment rate and a lower employment rate? It's very simple. People with jobs are employed (duh). Unemployed people are: Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.…

The Long and Horrible Latency of Anti-Semitism

And what it might mean for racism in the U.S. Over at VoxEu, there's an interesting post describing the correlation between German pogroms in the 1920s and those in 1349. Yes, 1349--seven centuries earlier. Here's the key result: The authors note: Of the 19 pogroms recorded, fully 18 took place in towns and cities with a record of medieval violence against Jews. The chances of attacks on Jews went up from 1/79 (1.3%) in locations without attacks in the 14th century to 18/214 (8.4%), an increase by a factor of 6. Other indicators point in the same direction. We use the Nazi Party's…