Category Archives: Science and the scientific method

Holiday Special: Something That Changed My Perspective (#2)

Yesterday, I took advantage of this (hopefully) quiet week to share some things I have come across that affected how I view the world. I can’t recommend strongly enough that you view the four-part 2002 BBC documentary, The Century of the Self. Creator Adam Curtis said, “This series is about how those in power have […]

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Humans May Have Shortened the Life of the Universe

Never mind global warming. Human observation of the universe may have accelerated its demise. An article in New Scientist discusses the theory developed by cosmologists Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and James Dent of Vanderbilt University. They believe that the observation of dark energy made in 1998 may have caused the universe to […]

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The Role of Emotion in Risk Assessment

PhysOrg.com reports on the results of a study funded by the National Science Foundation which looked into why people decide to live in homes in risky places, like coastal Florida and areas where wildfires are common. Answer: “the emotional benefits interfere with their ability to assess the risks.” What is surprising it that this finding […]

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Chemistry Sets a Casualty of War on Terror

The article below, from the 12 Angry Men Blog, mourns the dumbing down of home chemistry kits. One has to wonder at these heavy-handed efforts to contain threats, particularly in a society that lacks gun controls. Are we next going to make styrofoam a controlled substance, since mixed with gas, it produces a decent napalm […]

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2007 Ig Nobel Winners

The Ig Nobel Prize is given annually by the Journal of Improbable Research to “celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative – and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology”. From the BBC, whose favorite award was for the “gay bomb”: 2007 Ig Nobel Winners Medicine – Brain Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, […]

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"Russian scientists discover radiation-absorbing mineral"

The headline above, from Russia Today (“the first 24/7 English-language news channel to present the Russian point of view”) sound like cold fusion to me, but the story is too skeletal to ascertain whether there might be some truth to it: Russian scientists in the Khibinsky Mountains in the Arctic Circle have made an important […]

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Food Additives May Worsen ADD in Children

You may have heard the saying, “Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” There ought to be a similar formulations for other forms of distress, such as, “Just because you are neurotic doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons to be worried.” Today the neurotics got affirmation that widely held […]

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On Cognitive Biases and Markets

I am reading a very useful primer, “Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks,” by Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the contributors to the blog Overcoming Bias (we made use of one of his posts yesterday). He focuses on existential risk, meaning risks to human existence. Since many people would regard an economic collapse as […]

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Beware of Consultants Touting Anomalous Findings

In case you haven’t come across it yet, I highly recommend the blog Overcoming Bias, where a number of academics write about epistemology. Given how we are bombarded with new factoids, studies, and commentary on a daily basis, it’s helpful to consider the views of those who think about the nature of knowledge and the […]

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