Random Thoughts

Archaic list of "Fields"

This is my first posting, and already I'm in trouble.  The pull-down menu for "Field" belies an excruciatingly conventional taxonomy of human endeavour.  If I want to deliver a critical comment on Economics, it'll have to go under " ...

Blog Post - Jess H. Brewer - Jan 27 2015 - 7:54pm

Can You Be An SS Doctor In A Nazi Concentration Camp And Still Be A Good Guy?

In 1993, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave us "defining deviancy down", a clever bit of alliteration based on the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim from his defining work of 1895. Durkheim wrote that crime is normal, it is going to happen, bu ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Feb 3 2015 - 2:26pm

How Mr. Spock Changed Our Perception Of Science

In 1966, when the "Star Trek" television show debuted, it was revolutionary- not just in the ways that are commonly stated, like that it took a stand against racism and petty geopolitics, we had Sidney Poitier and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. by then, ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Mar 3 2015 - 7:22pm

Music For Cats

More and more animal shelters and zoos have begun playing human music, the kind of fad that people who anthropomorphize animal behavior say works even though there is no evidence. Now a new study by animal behaviorists has gone beyond that and says while t ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2015 - 4:02pm

NSA Transgender Tragedy and Major Media Insensitivity.

R ecently two Transgender women were shot to death because they made a wrong turn and did not listen to or possibly did not understand the commands of the guards at the gate of the NSA.*  That was unfortunate.  The tragedy is in a day and age where the no ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Mar 31 2015 - 4:33pm

What Savants Can Teach Us

When Seattle man, Jason Padgett, walked into a bar for a drink a few years ago, he was an ordinary man with seemingly average intelligence leading an unremarkable life. He worked contentedly in his father's furniture shop and had never done well acad ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2015 - 10:30am

Ten Commandments For Airlines

Following my Ten Commandments for Tech Companies – which changed their behavior not one whit – I offer these shalt-nots for US airlines. ...

Article - Fred Phillips - Apr 19 2015 - 5:23pm

I've Been Named The New President Of The American Council On Science And Health

Science 2.0 family, it is with great pride that I announce I have been named the president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).  ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jul 10 2015 - 4:39pm

Big Science: Ernest Lawrence Gets His Hagiography

When we think of science today, we think of Big Science, like the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project. That makes sense, Americans like big and bold, but that was not always the case. It used to be thatg science was a lonely occupation and a ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 6 2018 - 1:56pm

From Prohibition to Ferguson?

G.K.Chesterton (1874 – 1936) visited the United States twice, in 1921 and 1930.  I have recently been reading Sidelights on New London and Newer York and Other Essays, published in 1932 after his second visit. One of the essays has particularly struck my ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Oct 2 2015 - 10:40am