Culture
sheril | February 24, 2009Former Representative Florence Dwyer (R-NJ, 1957-1973) once explained:
"A Congresswoman must look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, speak on any given subject with authority and most of all work like a dog."
I've written about sex in Congress before because it's a subject where the percentages could probably benefit from a bit of adjusting. By no means do I imply any candidate should be chosen based on number of X chromosomes, but as I've explained in the past, it's important for women to be a larger part of the decision making process given we represent about 50% of the…
amillikan | February 24, 2009
When considering the virality of internet memes—that is, the likelihood that a given item of web goodness will be passed from one person to another as fast as you can press Control+C, Control+V and send—there are many theories as to what causes these explosions of web transference. But examining pieces of Internet phenomena from the early days of the dancing baby to the more modern use of Rick-rolling, it's clear the logic of virality has yet to be uncovered through the scientific method.
Here at Seed, we couldn't help but notice the abundance of cute-themed videos showing up on the…
razib | February 23, 2009The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now. A woman was using a Kindle at Starbucks the other day. She really didn't get much reading done, people kept wanting to talk to her about her Kindle, and look at it themselves. The Kindle will have made it when people can actually use it in a public place without being harassed.
razib | February 23, 2009Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street:
In hindsight, ignoring those warnings looks foolhardy. But at the time, it was easy. Banks dismissed them, partly because the managers empowered to apply the brakes didn't understand the arguments between various arms of the quant universe. Besides, they were making too much money to stop.
...
They didn't know, or didn't ask. One reason was that the outputs came from "black box" computer models and were hard to subject to a commonsense smell test. Another was that the quants, who should have been more aware of the copula's weaknesses,…
sheril | February 23, 2009
According to CNN, former Governor Gary Locke (D-WA) is likely to be nominated by President Obama as our next Secretary of Commerce.
Given NOAA accounts for up to 65% of the Commerce Department budget, you bet I'm eager to learn more. Among many duties, the incoming Secretary of Commerce faces enormous ocean related challenges so I will be following this story with interest.
sheril | February 23, 2009In lieu of blasting the Washington Post again over their recent faux pas, I'm interested in finding out whether you're as intrigued as I am lately over LOST...
During my recovery, I've been catching up on past episodes and this season includes a lot of 'science' in the script as the island jumps through time and space. And what is the DHARMA Initiative? Presently, we've got a physicist wandering through the jungle, years that span days, and the occasional troublesome nosebleed. All of which has inspired wide speculation about what's really going on.
Regular Intersection readers know this…
cmooney | February 23, 2009My post last week about the death knell of science journalism prompted some incredible responses. Here's Larry Moran, putting it more bluntly than I expected, and enunciating an opinion we'd better hope does not prevail:
Seriously, most of what passes for science journalism is so bad we will be better of without it.
Maybe the general public would have been more interested in science if science journalists hadn't been writing so much hype about "breakthroughs" for the past twenty years. Maybe the public would have been more interested in science if so-called "science" journalists hadn't been…
razib | February 23, 2009Since I asked regular readers to fill out a survey, I've received over 300 responses. My own experience with these surveys is that about 50% of the total responses come within 24 hours. Next weekend I'll put up the .csv file with all the data, and present some of my analyses as well. But below the fold I've placed the raw frequency data if you are curious; there isn't likely to be any major changes in proportions with the next 300 respondents, and there weren't any great surprises. Here's a foretaste of weirdness in the survey data that I'll present next week. 66 respondents claimed they…
razib | February 22, 2009
Obit Magazine has a fascinating rumination on the life & times of Socks Currie-Clinton:
One of the most telling political photographs of the past few decades is a snapshot of a cat. Against an unassuming suburban backdrop, the picture shows a black-and-white feline crouched on a sidewalk while an equipment-laden quintet of photographers close in. The paparazzi, it turned out, had lured the cat outside so they could get the shot all America wanted to see. It was November of 1992, and that animal's owner, Bill Clinton, had just been elected president of the United States.
razib | February 22, 2009In light of my previous comments on Judeo-Christianity, here is a interesting survey about Israeli Jewish views of other religions, in particular Christianity. Some results:
* 41% believe that Christianity is closest religion to Judaism
* 32% believe than Islam is closest religion to Judaism
* 50% agreed that Jerusalem was central to the Christian faith
* 75% percent believe the state should not allow Christian organizations to purchase land to construct new churches in the city (the state or state-sanctioned organizations own most land in Israel)
* 80% of secular Jews believe it is…
razib | February 22, 2009In Turnabout, Children Care For Sick Elders:
Partly paralyzed, with diabetes and colitis, Linda Lent needs extensive care at home.
But with her husband working long hours at a bowling alley, Ms. Lent, 47, relies on a caregiver who travels by school bus toting a homework-filled backpack: her 13-year-old daughter, Annmarie.
Younger people caring for the aged or ill is nothing new, it's the way it's always been. Widespread outsourcing the care of the elderly and the very young to "professionals" is an innovation of the market economy. But there are other issues that the modern world imposes
1)…
razib | February 22, 2009I was curious as to how trust in science related to questions like human evolution or the danger of nuclear power. So I looked at the variables NUKEGEN, SCITEST4 and TRUSTSCI in the GSS, which ask questions about the danger of nuclear power, the truth of human evolution and our trust in science, respectively. Below I report those who:
1) Agree or strongly agree that we trust too much in science
2) Definitely accept, or believe it is probable, that humans evolved from animals
3) Believe that nuclear power is not very dangerous, or not dangerous at all
I combined the weak and strong opinions…
sheril | February 22, 2009Having recently emerged from the hospital, I'm catching up on the news I've missed--beginning with the Washington Post nonsense Chris has covered here.
Apparently reporter George Will is about as informed on climate change as octuplet mom Nadya Suleman is on the fiscal responsibilities of raising children. There's not much I'll add that hasn't already been written, except given Will's influential position, his dishonesty is far more reprehensible.
amillikan | February 21, 2009
Thursday, February 19 ScienceBlogger Bora Zivkovic from A Blog Around the Clock gave a presentation on open science as part of a panel discussion at Columbia University in New York City. The event, titled "Open Science: Good for Research, Good for Researchers?" was organized by the Scholarly Communication Program and also featured presentations by Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University, and Barry Canton of Gingko BioWorks and OpenWetWare.
For those who have read Bora's many posts here on ScienceBlogs promoting the open science movement, it was obvious before he even uttered a word that…
razib | February 21, 2009Ed Yong has an excellent post reviewing new research which suggests that collective religious rituals are more predictive than religious belief as to support for suicide bombings. The novelty and insight from these studies is that they decompose the independent dimensions from which religious phenomena are constructed. Consider for example that religion may consist of:
A) Belief in supernatural agents
B) Participation in communal rituals
C) Regulation of personal behavior under religious law
D) A metaphysical system which explains the nature of the universe
And so forth. A study like the…
razib | February 21, 2009Ziel points me to an amusing post, The Credit Snobs:
I rather like the title "voodoo priest of free market economics" so I am happy to take the blame for the sub-prime mortgage defaults and at the same time stick a few pins in Nouriel Roubini.
Roubini and others generating hysteria about defaults in the mortgage market are credit snobs - they think credit is something that only the rich can handle. Just look at the language that Roubini uses to analogize borrowers - they are "reckless patients" who "spent the last few years on a diet of booze, drugs and artery clogging junk food." Similarly…
razib | February 20, 2009One of the great things about the internet is that you can always look back. See the 5 star reviews for The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy. Pretty funny. Here's a sample:
Jeff and Larry have written a volume destined to stand alongside "The Hoover Miracle" and "Lyndon Johnson: Triumph in Vietnam". If you have to buy one book about a nonexistent phenonmenon this year, this is it. In the bizarro world there really is a Bush boom. But over there Larry Kudlow is a vegan with a ponytail delivering tofu pizzas for minimum wage.
That's a review which came out…
razib | February 20, 2009Over at The Atlantic. Shiller is the author of Irrational Exuberance, The Subprime Solution and Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global. As I've noted before, Shiller's specific arguments about the causal sequences behind manias and crashes leave a lot to be desired, but it seems entirely correct that he bet on the right horse when it comes to behavioral economics and the importance cognitive biases outside of the bounds of rationality in a market. The same phenomenon can be described from a different angle, such as Benoit Mandelbrot's The…
sheril | February 19, 2009
Listen to NPR's News & Notes today for our friend Al Teich--the Director of Science and Policy Programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science--will discuss science under the Obama Administration, the stimulus package, and more.
Find your local station or listen to the podcast here.
sheril | February 18, 2009You've likely already seen this story all over the news:
Chimp's owner calls vicious mauling 'freak thing'
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The owner of a 200-pound chimpanzee that viciously mauled a Stamford woman calls the incident "a freak thing," but says her pet was not a "horrible" animal.
Sandra Herold told NBC's "Today Show" in an interview aired Wednesday that Travis, her 14-year-old chimpanzee, was like a son to her.
Herold tried to save her friend by stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and bludgeoning it with a shovel.
I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue…