Science & Society

Sabine Hossenfelder attempts to answer the question of transgender youth healthcare by applying a physicist mindset to the literature on this matter.   I've commented on this to her elsewhere, but, the fundamental error is applying a physicist mindset to science that is very different from physics.   Reading around the net some responses to this go on about how she's a "quantum physicist" therefore she knows more than psychologist about psychology.  This blog is as much of a response to that mindset among the public.   She makes only one hard error of fact.…

America doesn't have a science literacy problem, at least in a relative sense. Though only 29 percent of American adults can demonstrate good science literacy, that is still enough to be number one in the world.(1) Though 70 percent have poor science literacy, if you ask most how much of their belief system is grounded in science, a lot will say The Science Is On Their Side. It is not, but confirmation bias let them think it is. For example, nutritionists, diet gurus, and wellness influencers prey on those who claim to be science literate. Poor people with little education are far less likely…

For eight years I have studied digital nomadism, the millennial trend for working remotely from anywhere around the world. I am often asked if it is driving gentrification. Before COVID upended the way we work, I would usually tell journalists that the numbers were too small for a definitive answer. Most digital nomads were traveling and working illegally on tourist visas. It was a niche phenomenon. Three years into the pandemic, however, I am no longer sure. The most recent estimates put the number of digital nomads from the US alone, at 16.9 million, a staggering increase of 131% from the…

An analysis of over 4,300,000 patients in 8,119 161 primary care visits found that publicly insured people, those using the Affordable Care Act public exchanges subsidized by government, were more likely to be given inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in cases of upper respiratory tract infections and opioids and benzodiazepines for patients with pain symptoms.  The reason is that doctors may be unable to spend enough time with them. It's not that doctors are unable or unwilling to do the job but time is limited and the Affordable Care Act and states have mandated that everyone must…

NIMBY - not in my back yard - is an acronym for those allies who express support for a cause, as long as it is 'somewhere else.' Wind power, for example, is well-liked by people on the coasts of the US and Norway, until government decides to actually put wind power installations there. Then it's time to bring in Greta Thunberg. In San Francisco, nearly 80 percent of residents say they want to help the homeless but routinely hire private security to patrol their own neighborhoods - to keep out the homeless. Sexual minorities would seem to be exempt from all of that, the only place you see…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lot of confusion about what would help mitigate risk and what would not, and when rules seemed arbitrary (e.g. you can go to a tattoo parlor but not get a haircut) it may have caused resentment - and therefore quiet dissent. A recent survey found that up to 25 percent broke one of the seven rules that were instituted by government and too-eager-epidemiologists and 70 percent of the respondents were women. When they were supposed to quarantine, for example, but did not because their child may have been 'exposed' but was asymptomatic, they didn't deny…

Michael Knowles said at CPAC and I quote “Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely”.  He would claim that he means to get people to not engage in the ideology in public.  The thing is what do you do with all of the people who are transgender and what will they and their supporters do back?  There is a base of solid and settled science that says why people are transgender, that it is rooted in neurology and biology.  Transwomen are males XY who due to various genetic, and hormonal reasons are neurologically feminized in key regions of the brain. …

During my long trip to South America, which just ended (leaving me fighting with a record pile of unanswered emails, an even higher pile of laundry, and a headache for jetlag-induced sleep deprivation), I had the real pleasure to make acquaintance with a Colonel of the British army (Guy Wood) during a cruise of the Galapagos archipelago. One of the recurring topics of our evening chats was of course international travel - the cause of our encounter - and in one occasion he pointed out that Air France is the airline with the worst record in terms of plane accidents. Since I often fly with Air…

The scientific consensus on the causes and treatments of transgenderism are well known and settled just as much as the round Earth, the big bang, evolution, or a myriad of other things that superstitious people argue against.  As any science creator on Youtube who spends time debunking flat earth conspiracies, or the great flood will know no amount of evidence will convince some people.  So what I have here is a compilation of what is the most important recent evidence on these issues.  This article merely summarizes the findings and places them in a political context. …

In the past I have talked about the GMO candy I wish they'd make for Halloween, and all of the carcinogens in a 100% Organic Non-GMO Project Thanksgiving Dinner, but today I get to talk about the best pot for Valentine's Day. Obviously your marijuana habit didn't cause your heartbreak, though it probably isn't helping. Nor would playing Marvel's "Midnight Suns" game 12 hours per day. Still, if you find a holiday someone will take your money, be it for Xbox or a pipe. And since nearly half of people in America describe themselves as 'single', the market for anti-Valentine's Day positioning is…