‘Hurricane Truthers’: Bonkers Conspiracies Are Putting Lives in Danger
First ant-vaxxers, now hurricane skeptics……
Read more...Category Archives: Science and the scientific method
Are Evidence-Based Decisions Impossible in Politics?
How human psychology and institutional incentives undermine making good decisions in the political arena, and what can be done about that.
Read more...Do We Actually Grow from Adversity?
Americans in particular like to reframe hardship as an opportunity to grow….but how valid is that notion?
Read more...Ilargi: Energy vs Waste
Why the problem of human energy consumption is intractable.
Read more...What Randomised Control Trials Can and Cannot Do: The 2019 Nobel Prize
A long-form discussion of the randomised approach celebrated in this year’s “Nobel” for economics.
Read more...Computer Science Now Counts as Math Credit in Most States – Is This a Good Idea?
Tech squillionaires are the moving force behind a succesful campaign to have secondary schools in the US give math credits for computer science courses.
Read more...Gene Editing Could Help Save the Planet — If Scientists Can Avoid the Typos
Gene editing does not always work as advertised. And that’s before getting to the fact that genetically modified crops have been found to be less robust than native strains.
Read more...Ideology is Dead! Long Live Ideology!
Economists like to say they’re immune to ideology. Research shows the opposite.
Read more...‘This Is the Beginning’: New Study Warns Climate Crisis May Have Been Pivotal in Rise of Drug-Resistant Superbug
How rising temperatures helped create superbug C. auris and may turn other fungi lethal.
Read more...EPA Changes Math to Allow Burning of More Coal
EPA proposes methodology change to allow states to opt to burn more coal.
Read more...We Need to Stop the Overdiagnosis Disease. Step 1: Remove Vested Interests
Time to stop treating people as targets for disease treatments.
Read more...MMT Scholars’ Predictive and Policy Successes – Part A
Bill Black highlights how prominent economists apply double standards with respect to MMT.
Read more...Mortality, Medical Coding and the (Purported) Drop in Hospital Readmission Rates
The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, patient mortality, and a medical coding debacle
Read more...Listening to Nature: How Sound Can Help Us Understand Environmental Change
Sound is a powerful indicator of environmental degradation and an effective tool for developing more sustainable ecosystems.
Read more...Jane Sanders: Climate Crisis Critical Issue in 2020 Elections
In this Real News Network interview, Jane Sanders discusses the climate crisis and tells Paul Jay that voters shouldn’t support candidates who claim to be progressive, but don’t prioritize the fight against fossil fuel interests.
Read more...