This is fascinating news: the classic “Obedience to Authority” experiments of Stanley Milgram, one of the most famous and influential pieces of research in the annals of psychology, have more or less been duplicated. If you’re unfamiliar with the Milgram … Continue reading →
Gerard Vanderleun provided the following US weather map yesterday. If you study it, you’ll see it was much colder than usual in the entire country: It’s easy to quip that this puts the lie to global warming. It doesn’t quite … Continue reading →
This is interesting. And here’s something related. It’s from a year ago, when a number of previously convinced scientists were having doubts about the proof that global warming is generated by human activity. That number seems to have increased since—and … Continue reading →
Want to photograph snowflakes? The approach of winter makes it seem an attractive proposition. If so—and if you can follow these incredibly complex instructions—no doubt you’ll be rewarded with some wonderful photos. And if you can, no doubt you are … Continue reading →
The ten most amazing Hubble photos—sent by a friend, and surpassingly beautiful. Here’s my favorite, perhaps because of its simplicity. But please look at them all; you’ll be glad you did. They might even put you in a holiday mood, … Continue reading →
I’ve long had a soft spot in my heart for Neanderthals. The ancient ones, that is, those early humans who’ve gotten a bad rap as powerful heavy-browed vulgarians, but about whose culture we really know very little, and who seem … Continue reading →
You’ve probably heard the radio ads. T. Boone Pickens, the man with the thickest Oklahoma/Texas accent any side of the Pecos, has a plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Pickens’ plan
Continue reading →One of the more formative experiences of my life was reading Theodor Rosebury’s book Life On Man back when it first came out in 1969. It revealed that our efforts to sanitize the world and rid it of those seemingly … Continue reading →
Last week a proposal to lift the moratorium on shale oil extraction was narrowly defeated in a Senate committee. The vote was along strictly party lines, Republicans for lifting the ban and Democrats against. What a surprise. All of this … Continue reading →
A Canadian study reports that brain changes involving ribosomal DNA have been detected on autopsy in victims of childhood abuse who ended up committing suicide. This finding somewhat complements animal studies showing that early neglect changes the dendrites of rats. … Continue reading →
While researching my recent series on questioning authority, I got the idea to write a post about the seminal Milgram experiments on obedience to authority. When I was a psych major back in college, part of our learning experience involved—as … Continue reading →
[Part I.] Science is certainly far from infallible. That’s especially true of studies related to human beings, on whom any sort of research is notoriously difficult to perform and evaluate. The variables are myriad and uncontrollable, and ethics ordinarily prevents … Continue reading →