I just want to get this psychic prediction on record, so James Randi can award me the million dollars.
In the wake of yet another outpouring of popular furor over Rush Limbaugh’s offensive comments, advertisers including AOL, Sleep Number, The Sleep Train, Citrix, LegalZoom, QuickenLoans, and Carbonite, have pulled their advertising from his show. My psychic prediction is that within a month or two, they’ll all be back. Quote me on this. Continue reading
I am always happy when I get a chance to catch up on my “Skeptoid” and “The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe” podcasts. These 2 shows, along with other science and skeptically based shows not only help me think better, but they deliver news and other knowledge in a way that is entertaining yet informative. Skeptoid and SGU in particular are programs I feel comfortable sharing with new people to help them become interested in science and skepticism.
Whenever good science education can intersect with someone’s hobby, sense of humor, or any other aspect of someone’s life, it is an opportunity that cannot be passed up. Continue reading
Image: liquidleds.com.au
My feelings are split over how I feel about the United States Congress delaying their phase out of incandescent light bulbs here in the good old U S of A. They will be effectively banned beginning in October of this year.
The scientist in me realizes that the incandescent light bulb is one of the least energy efficient products available today. A pathetic 5-8% of the energy it uses is given off as visible light. The rest, as you will realize if you’ve ever tried to unscrew a bulb that was recently on, is given off as heat. Lots of finger scorching swear inducing heat. Easy Bake ovens used to use a 100 watt bulb as their source of heat. I say ‘used to’ because I read that they have been re-designed due to the upcoming ban. Continue reading
Today I was alerted to a blog post entitled “Outrageous: Agent Orange Maker Monsanto Seeks Return to Vietnam for GMO Crops“. The headline is certainly startling and attention-grabbing; it includes just about every shock-inducing term known.
To summarize the article, it states that Monsanto manufactured Agent Orange, the infamous strategic defoliant used in the Vietnam War. That very same Monsanto is now trying to get back into Vietnam to deliver another dose of destruction; this time in the form of GMO. The post is basically an exaggerated version of this news report from a Vietnamese paper, which notes that activists in that country are concerned that the very same company that profited from poisoning them might now profit from feeding them. Continue reading
Image: buddylevy.com
Hopefully you have already read and/or listened to my recent piece on one of my favorite shows, History Channel’s Decoded. If you haven’t, go do so now. I’ll wait. If you’ve watched Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, you’ll certainly remember Buddy Levy. He’s the down to Earth, no-nonsense, supremely likable member of the investigative trio (nothing against the two others, they have their own super powers). Continue reading
There’s been quite a lot of noise in the news lately. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the United States’ largest and most active philanthropic foundation for breast cancer, halted its $600K+ annual funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest and most active provider of women’s reproductive health services. Under intense public criticism, Komen reversed its decision and reinstated its funding.
I’m a fan of both organizations. My wife and I did a large charitable photography project for Komen for the Cure a few years ago, and we used Planned Parenthood services early in our relationship. Having said that, I guess I’m a pretty lonely voice: I was not bothered by Komen’s decision to pull their funding. Continue reading
Thousands of people recently lined up hoping for a job at Foxconn in China, the company that assembles high-tech gadgets such as the iPhone and iPad for Apple and other companies. The article mentions some of the hand-wringing about working conditions there.
At least 14 workers in Foxconn plants in the Chinese cities of Shenzen and Chengdu have committed suicide since early 2010. And this past May, a large explosion at a Foxconn plant in Chengdu where iPads were built killed three people and wounded more than a dozen.
Setting aside the industrial accident for now, I really wonder about that “string of suicides”. The data I’ve found indicate that Foxconn has about 1.2 million employees. The overall suicide rate in China is tragically high, about 22.23 per 100,000 according to the CDC. (Official Chinese government figures are, not surprisingly, much lower.) If, as reported, 14 workers have committed suicide over a period of 16 months, then the suicide rate at Foxconn is substantially lower than in the rest of China.
This reminds me of “going postal“, where the sheer number of workplace violence incidents at the United States Post Office masked the fact that, on average, it has a lower than average rate of such incidents. Foxconn is a very big company. I would expect a large raw number of suicides, worker violence, and industrial accidents even if it is relatively safer than most of its peers.
If you have access to more solid numbers please link to them in the comments. It’s admittedly difficult to get trustworthy data out of China.
Meanwhile, the skeptical point is to be wary of drawing conclusions from raw numbers in sound bites. Also, remember the “News Effect”: Things that get reported on the news are almost always extremely rare. If they were common they wouldn’t get reported. So, when you see something bad happen to somebody on the news, you know right away that it’s something not likely to happen to you.
Image: brownbutterbeautyshop.com
Disclaimer: You are about to read a shampoo article written by a bald man. That doesn’t invalidate anything I have to day, I’m just letting you know in the name of full disclosure. Heaven forbid someone gets upset in the comments section and lashes out saying, “What does he know. He apparently hasn’t needed shampoo in years”.
On one of my daily internet information mining sessions I came across ads for SLS-free shampoo. Now, anytime I read about “______ – free” anything it raises a big red skeptical flag. Gluten-free comes immediately to mind. Next comes fat-free, sugar-free, PABA-free and on and on ad infinitum. Ironically, when a product has the word “free” in the title it usually costs more, as if the absence of something gives it a greater value. We Americans are suckers for this kind of stuff. Just for the record, you can buy gluten-free shampoo if you are so inclined. Continue reading
The End of the World pt 2: Algorithms
Let’s start with a list of predictions. No, not the kind involving a crystal ball and a woman called Mme Arcady who claims to be able to see a tall dark stranger in your future. This is a list of practical predictions, the kind we might expect professionals to make in the course of their work.
• predicting the success of electroshock therapy
• predicting criminal recidivism
• diagnosing patients as either neurotic or psychotic
• predicting academic performance in college entrants to medical and law school
• assessing loan and credit risk
• assessing newborns at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
• predicting the quality of a vintage for red Bordeaux wine (I’m pretty good at this one)
They all might seem very different, but in fact they all have something in common. What?
Last year I was privileged to give one of my talks at Google’s headquarters, called an Authors@Google talk.
Google is a very interesting environment, intellectually speaking. There genuinely are a lot of really smart people there. There are also an even larger number of “smart by association” people. Google is located in the San Francisco bay area, which is one of the world’s vortex focal points of New Age woo. It’s also very metro – lots of foodies and environmentalists, and a lot of style. Many Google folks are young and hip and see themselves on the Cutting Edge. Thus, smart as many of them may be, or indeed are, my experience was that they are one of the world’s great low-hanging fruit customer bases for anyone selling anything positioned as alternative, enlightened, or “open-minded”.
Thus I was not surprised to hear from the informal skeptics’ group on campus (who sponsored my talk) that a naturopath was coming to give an @Google talk of her own. The intent of this blog post is to offer a foundation on naturopathy for those in the audience to better contextualize what they’re about to be told, and to ask informed questions. If this naturopath is coming in and planning to state that any of her treatments can diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, that’s an illegal medical claim; and her information should not be promoted by Google as true or reliable. My sense is that this naturopath feels this opportunity is going to be her free sales pitch. Not if we can help it. Continue reading
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