Uncategorized
gregladen | December 22, 2009While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the globe skimmer, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world.
ddobbs | December 22, 2009Amid the various recent whacks at considerations of Gladwell lately, I find this one, by Razib Khan, particularly helpful in defining what sometimes goes amiss with Gladwell â and the danger that waits every science writer:
[Gladwell's problem is that] out of the possible set of ideas and models, only a subset can be turned into an interesting piece of prose, and only a subset are actually non-trivially true (that is, they stand the test of the time, not just falling below the p-value for the purposes of getting published once, and, add something which isn't a mathematically fluffing up of…
pharyngula | December 22, 2009I thought I'd stumbled onto FSTDT, but no…it's a collection of quotes from the Texas board of education collected over the last year. At least I learned that Don McLeroy is an honest man.
Am I a religious fanatic? Absolutely. You'd have to be to do what I do.
cortex | December 22, 2009My latest Wired article is now online and on the newsstands. It's about the messiness of experimental science, the blind-spots created by knowledge, Thorstein Veblen, European Jews and the background static created by the Big Bang.
rallain | December 22, 2009Haiku:
The daylight grows short
Blogging time is scarce for now
Repost is now here
I am ready. Bring on the comments about the proper way to write a haiku. Of course, I should warn you that I am technically a professional Haikuer - here is my winning entry to ThinkGeek's haiku contest
Here is the deal. I am going to pick 12 posts from my old stuff and post 1 a day for 12 days (hopefully). Yes, technically, this is not the 12 days of Christmas. Also, I have some other stuff that I am working on, so don't worry - it is not ONLY reposts in the next twelve days.
Anyway, I figure some of you…
agelman | December 21, 2009Stephen Dubner quotes Gary Becker as saying:
According to the economic approach, therefore, most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent "suicides" in the sense that they could have been postponed if more resources had been invested in prolonging life.
Dubner describes this as making "perfect sense" and as being "so unusual and so valuable."
When I first saw this I was irritated and whipped off a quick entry on the sister blog. But then I had some more systematic thoughts of how Becker's silly-clever statement, and Dubner's reaction to it, demonstrate several logical fallacies that I haven't…
gregladen | December 21, 2009I just want everyone to know that I am awaiting resolution on an order from Trebonics, a used book seller on Amazon. Since I often link to books on Amazon from this site, I want you to know that I'm having trouble with this particular vendor. If they resolve the issue to my satisfaction (which would mean sending me the item I paid for) I'll be happy and I'll let you know. Otherwise ....
... I'll blog their freakin' asses!!!!!!!!!
gregladen | December 21, 2009Senate Democrats won a crucial test vote on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, putting them on track for passage before Christmas of the historic legislation to remake the nation's medical system and cover 30 million uninsured.
All 58 Democrats and the Senate's two independents held together early Monday against unanimous Republican opposition, providing the exact 60-40 margin needed to shut down a threatened GOP filibuster.
More
gregladen | December 21, 2009Fellow bloggers: You might find this resource to be very useful. I know I will.
Intelligence as a human characteristic and IQ as a measure of that characteristic are among the most misunderstood ... often willfully misunderstood ... concepts. Stephanie Zvan has put together an annotated bib of mainly web-based resources on the topic and posted it at Quiche Moraine.
Readings in IQ and Intelligence
~
kthompson | December 20, 2009If you go through our archives, you won't find too many posts that rise above toilet humor or self-depreciation (I mean, why would you want to?), but I present the exception below. It's a long one, however it's incredibly interesting. I'm sure you'll feel smarter when you're done. And don't worry, we'll be back to posting about Benny's bat obsession or Andrew's batboy resemblance soon.
So we can look back on 2009 and know we didn't waste ALL of your time:
gregladen | December 20, 2009A form of comment moderation has been turned on. This is an experiment. If your comment is held in moderation don't take it personally. Just be patient. I'll be checking the moderation tank frequently.
agelman | December 20, 2009The following is the last paragraph in a (positive) referee report I just wrote. It's relevant for lots of other articles too, I think, so I'll repeat it here:
Just as a side note, I recommend that the authors post their estimates immediately; I imagine their numbers will be picked up right away and be used by other researchers. First, this is good for the authors, as others will cite their work; second, these numbers should help advance research in the field; and, third, people will take the estimates seriously enough that, if there are problems, they will be uncovered. It makes sense to…
agelman | December 19, 2009Mike Spagat writes:
I hope that this new paper [by Michael Spagat, Andrew Mack, Tara Cooper, and Joakim Kreutz] on serious errors in a paper on conflict mortality published in the British Medical Journal will interest you. For one thing I believe that it is highly teachable. Beyond I think that it's important for the conflict field (if I do say so myself). Another aspect of this is that the BMJ is refusing to recognized that there are any problems with the paper. This seems to be sadly typical behavior of journals when they make mistakes.
Spagat et al's paper begins:
In a much-cited…
gregladen | December 19, 2009Nelson, D-Neb., said he made his decision after winning fresh concessions to limit the availability of abortions in insurance sold in newly created exchanges, as well as tens of million in federal Medicaid funds for his home state.
source
gregladen | December 19, 2009Asking Clarifying Questions about Evolution and Religion
Rare gorilla subspecies photographed
More animals swallowing strange stuff.
Artichoke-Crab Spread, which is a good thing to swallow.
MS Windows Takes Browser Hostage!!!
gregladen | December 19, 2009Let me go bloggy on you for a moment ....
This morning, I gave a talk for the Humanists of Minnesota. The talk was organized by Scott Lohman, and I want to give a shout out to August Berkshire for supplying his projector. The talk was about key events in human evolution, and overlaps somewhat with a Cafe Scientifique I'll be doing early in 2010.
I love giving talks to groups like the Minnesota Humanists, because I know I'm not going to get those questions ... the ones from people who question the basic premise of the science (or of science itself). Not that I mind having those…
gregladen | December 18, 2009
The latest addition to Huxley's Library: Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems. Here's Mo:
Willems explores, through the story of a dresser in a naked world, the social angst of unconformity as it can only be explored in the milieu of Bathyergids. Wilber, a Heterocephalus glaber with a penchant for pants, is at first disdained then accepted but only after a positive word from the mole rat Patriarch.
The plot is riveting and the theme tense and poignant, but suspension of disbelief is challenged near the end because Naked Mole Rats do not have Patriarchs. They have Matriarchs.…
gregladen | December 18, 2009Right-wing media have highlighted recent snowfall during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, often suggesting that the winter storm is evidence that climate change is, in Rush Limbaugh's words, "a fraud."
source
Oh, have you joined my new (and first, and only) facebook group? ... Chris Matthews: Stop Asking Pat Buchanan about Global Warming