Science & Society
The Objective
The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which humans go about “mastering” a task. Mastery is characterized by comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject. To be a master or specialist of a task demonstrates dedication, perseverance, and ability, and all these elements are sought after in individuals no matter the field. Thus, understanding how people develop mastery is important for discovering a path for success in any variant of the word.
This paper synthesizes the works of bestselling authors and academics to demonstrate how the mastery process is not just…
Hank |
You've heard of Egypt; they were in the news last year for riots and for making Twitter relevant. But dictatorships, oppression of women, sexual discrimination and religious intolerance are apparently not the most important cultural fight they face, in the eyes of ultra-conscious New Yorkers - getting people to smoke less is.
Bloomberg Philanthropies announced today the winners of the Bloomberg Awards for Global Tobacco Control and Egypt's Ministry of Finance was recognized because they raised taxes - ooooh, higher taxes. Revolutionary! Or not. That sounds like what a Ministry of…
This blog will be devoted to a consideration of the Science of Facilitated Communication Training (FCT), as someone who uses it (as a facilitator, not as a person with a disability). Given the way that FCT appears to have become a bogeyman for skeptics, this counts, I think, as degree of difficulty about 3.1. So: first step. What is FCT? It's generally accepted that, at least under the name of FCT, the method was thought up by Rosemary Crossley. Her book Facilitated Communication Training defines the method as
"Facilitated communication training is a…
Hank |
When Energy Secretary Steven Chu was appointed, it was a bit of a policy worry. Yes, he has a Nobel prize in physics but being a scientist has never shown to be any great benefit for policy. Despite the myth that scientists are stoic and serious and unemotionally obeying the Scientific Method it isn't the case at all. Like all other people, they have irrational fixations, and Chu's was a belief that CO2 was the only driver in climate change, which meant we might have a bunch of expensive solutions that actually solve nothing in climate change.
$44 billion of wasted money for…
Hank |
A study by Indiana University researchers on "coregasm" says it has confirmed anecdotal evidence that exercise can lead to female orgasms.
Good news for health clubs everywhere? Maybe. But it's been darn hard to pin down reliable data on it. It makes the media rounds - and of course, this site - every few years.
Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in Indiana University's School of Health, and J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor at the IU School of Medicine and Center for Sexual Health Promotion affiliate, administered surveys online (so…
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Futurologists tend to look at the impacts of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics in isolation. It is a simple matter to single out a technology and then make a linear regression projecting its future. The most commonly referenced current example is ‘Moore’s law’. Gordon Moore was originally speaking about IC complexity – which was applied by Dave House to computer performance, predicting it doubling every 18 months. Popular acknowledgment of Moore and House is that ‘Moore’s law’ has successfully predicted the…
Hank |
Food stamps are not food stamps now, they are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits - and record numbers of Americans are receiving them.
Given that, it was only a matter of time before attention efforts turned toward getting poor people to overpay for organic food. One way to do that is to make it even easier to buy the stuff. Currently, buying is already a model of easiness, but only for regular stores. SNAP participants use - sorry, 'access their benefits' - through an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which is like a credit card. Swipe and…
Hank |
Young people have to be greener, right? That crying Indian commercial(1) was 40 years ago, we have to have made progress in pollution by now.
Well, we have. But it's not because of young people. Young people are not more likely to be 'green' than their elders, they are less - in defiance of popular perception - just like right wing people conserve energy just as much as the left, despite the perception that they care less about conservation.
Millennials, young adults who grew up with the global warming discussion and calls to "reduce, reuse, recycle", list the environment among…
Hank |
People on the left - to international readers they go under the umbrella of 'liberals' in America, but run the gamut from social authoritarian progressives to activists to freedom-loving liberals in the traditional sense - are a lot less concerned about tolerance and diversity when it comes to differing viewpoints.
New Pew research shows that the left is far more likely than the right - 75 percent more - to have unfriended someone for posting opposing political views. More telling, they also unfriended and even blocked people more if the person with opposing views argued with one of…
The question as to how many meanings a word can have came up in the discussion that followed "The Intelligence Paradox". Two excited respondents found the whole thing so alarming that they volunteered the following helpful hints to improve my approach; “hogwash” “pseudo questions” “vacuous sophistry” and “hogwash” again, just in case I missed it the first time. I was also told that intelligence could not be cooperation because cooperation is cooperation.
So let’s see if a word can have two meanings, and a good place to start would be that emotion-charged hot-potato that we know as life.
In…