Why economists don’t reach agreement.
Category Archives: Education
“Charlie,” Free Speech, And Climate Change
Thoughts from Judith Curry:
Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. It will be interesting to see if Charlie and the defense of satirists changes the dynamics of the Mann vs NRO/CEI/Steyn lawsuits.
For the record, I have never sued, or threatened, let alone committed any acts of violence against people who call me a “denier,” a term I find quite offensive (particularly when they can’t describe exactly what it is I “deny”). I have this crazy idea that the proper response to speech I don’t like is more speech.
[Afternoon update]
“Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the right to be comfortable.” I like the phrase “Stepford students.”
The Federal Drinking Age
It’s long past time to abolish it. It was an idiotic idea from Elizabeth Dole, during the Reagan administration. It’s a major contributor to college binge drinking (and associated sexual regrets that some people want to redefine as rape).
How Science Goes Wrong
A good survey from The Economist why we can’t blindly accept the “authority” of “science” or scientists:
Too many of the findings that fill the academic ether are the result of shoddy experiments or poor analysis (see article). A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated. Even that may be optimistic. Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce just six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research. Earlier, a group at Bayer, a drug company, managed to repeat just a quarter of 67 similarly important papers. A leading computer scientist frets that three-quarters of papers in his subfield are bunk. In 2000-10 roughly 80,000 patients took part in clinical trials based on research that was later retracted because of mistakes or improprieties.
It’s a mess.
Whiny Harvard Professors
It’s a brave new world.
[Update a few minutes later]
We need transparency in health care (and government in general), just as we do with fast food.
The New Trauma
Thoughts on “microaggressions” and “trigger warnings.”
My sympathy for your suffering, whether that suffering was real or imaginary, ended when you demanded I change my life to avoid bringing up your bad memories. You don’t seem to have figured this out, but there is no “I must never be reminded of a negative experience” expectation in any culture anywhere on earth.
If your psyche is so fragile you fall apart when someone inadvertently reminds you of “trauma”, especially if that trauma consisted of you overreacting to a self-interpreted racial slur, you need therapy. You belong on a psychiatrist’s couch, not in college dictating what the rest of society can’t do, say or think. Get your own head right before you start trying to run other people’s lives. If you expect everyone around you to cater to your neurosis, forever, you’re what I’d call a “failure at life”. And you’re doomed to perpetual disappointment.
Good thing people aren’t putting themselves into hopeless levels of undischargeable debt to get so “educated.”
Oh, wait.
[Update a while later]
This seems related, somehow: Advice for shy, male nerds:
[Update Monday morning]
Here is a guy who will never get laid:
Obviously, Parton must have been really hurt, perhaps even more hurt than when people ask him to say “Cool Whip.” But because he’s a really sensitive guy, he did not “blame her one bit” for not understanding.
In fact, he said her calloused response made him realize that he might have committed a microaggression against another person at some time in his life without even realizing he was doing it!
“I am afraid because microaggressions aren’t harmless — there’s research to show that they cause anxiety and binge drinking among the minority students who are targeted,” he writes.
I’ve got a better solution to binge drinking. Lower the drinking age.
The Climate-Change Debate
Common Core And Campus Sexual-Assault Policies
Here‘s the link to the George Will column she cites.
The Nutritional Junk Science
…of our government nannies (and ninnies). My thoughts, over at PJMedia.
Writing Versus Typing
Is it cognitively different?
I don’t care. They’ll take away my keyboard from my cold, dead hands.