When political adversaries become friends.
The demonization of people with whom you disagree in good faith is one of the more depressing aspects of modern life. I follow a lot of science writers on Twitter (many of them women), but I avoid discussion of politics with them, based on their political tweets. It’s one of the reasons I have separate accounts for space/sci/tech and my general commentary.
Are they impeded in their work by their refusal to accept evolutionary psychology?
In short, yes. It’s part of the Left’s war on science, and its war on human nature. If people aren’t tabula rasas, how are we to create the New Soviet Man?
[Update a few minutes later]
This is interesting:
On an optimistic note, Buss and von Hippel point out that their survey found that a substantial minority of social psychologists did endorse findings rooted in evolutionary biology. But still there is a long way to go until the schism in psychological and theoretical perspectives is bridged – a situation they believe is likely made worse by the lack of proper training in evolutionary sciences in psychology*. “Not a single degree-granting institution in the United States, to our knowledge, requires even a single course in evolutionary biology as part of a degree in psychology,” they write, adding that this is “an astonishing educational gap that disconnects psychology from the rest of the life sciences.”
I hadn’t been aware of this, but it’s one more reason to not take the field seriously.
This is from last summer, but I finally got around to reading it. I’m wondering what the implications are for space colonies, potential botanical gardens and zoos in the solar system, and the O’Neillian/Bezos vision of earth as a nature park.
[Update a while later]
In reading this:
Because one cannot conceive of the length of geologic time, one cannot comprehend the brevity of the past 75 years in relation to it. The Anthropocene, if officially recognized, would be inconceivably ephemeral, momentary — indeed, instantaneous — existing only in real time. But it will endure until the Götterdämmerung, that is, until humans go extinct; it will run to the end of recorded history — turning the hourglass of geologic time upside down.
…I’m reminded of people who believe that every hurricane or fire is some unprecedented event, caused by our SUVs, when most are unaware of what happened a century ago, let alone millennia.
It’s everywhere, and the media eats it up.
To me, he appears to have been driven insane by Trump. Jonah elaborates.
She is criticized for decorating the WH for the holidays with the skulls of her enemies.
Really? Honestly, this just makes me like her more.
It will be transformed by flying cars and transport robots.
This is one of the many reasons I hate going out to eat. In fact, last time we went out, it was on a patio on a pier, listening to the waves, which was quite pleasant.
Myths versus facts, from Nina Teicholz:
I think the larger question is why we are seeing such a sudden rash of anti-keto stories. So many of them quote no experts [sic] sources and do not provide citations for their claims. Skeptics with little acquaintance with the diet are quoted exclusively instead. From a journalistic perspective, this lack of balance of viewpoints and the failure to back up claims with evidence falls below basic reporting standards. Offenders on this list include even the Harvard School of Public Health, which recently published more than one unsourced, one-sided article on the keto diet (This is in addition to the Lancet Public Health article cited above, by Harvard researchers, which suggests that a low-carb diet kills you). These stories could reflect lazy reporting or they could very well be scare tactics to steer people away from the keto diet. Why would reporters or scientists at Harvard be doing such a thing? That’s material for another post. Stay tuned.
I’ll look forward to her thesis.
Monica Lewinski says that Bill Clinton pressured her to lie.
This is only news to people who didn’t actually follow what was going on at the time, or people who have been fed a false history for two decades (he was impeached for a BJ, or “lying about sex”). Which is most people. Subornation of perjury (and not just Lewinski’s, but from Linda Tripp, via Lewinski, with physical threats to her family) was one of the reasons he was impeached.