Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Americans have been told countless times that public policy was based on Science (with a capital S) and that the public should just obey the scientists. But the accuracy of their predictions and the consequent appropriateness of policies seems to have been little better than Ask Dr. Science
READ MORESevere shortages of critical medical supplies have prompted governments to compel private companies to fill the gap. In the U.S., President Donald Trump invoked rarely used powers to force General Motors to make ventilators, while the leaders of France, the U.K. and Japan have put pressure on companies to make more medical supplies. But, judging
READ MORELet’s face it – no one likes being caught in a lie. The husband who says he has to work late, is entangled with his secretary, and gets caught; the kid who tells his parents he’s going to study with a friend and winds up drunk and arrested: getting snared in a fabrication is never
READ MOREWhen schools reopen in the U.S. amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they will be even more restrictive than they already were. Schools have long controlled students’ movements and imposed constraints on where they can go, when, and with whom. With virus concerns, those controls will increase in quantity and intensity. NPR recently proclaimed that “disruption
READ MOREParents overwhelmed with caring for their children as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cancel school and all of their children’s other activities can take heart. A new robot arriving this fall will handle your parenting duties. Meet Moxie, the new dystopian product from Embodied, Inc. The sound you hear when this robot boots up in Embodied, Inc.’s advertisement
READ MOREIn a 2008 TED Talk, psychologist Jonathan Haidt said the worst idea in psychology is the notion that humans are born as a “blank slate.” Like the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, Haidt was rejecting the notion that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, an idea that can be traced to thinkers from
READ MOREAmerica’s economy is in the early stages of “reopening” after dealing with the coronavirus pandemic for months. It’s a process that won’t be easy, simple, or without hiccups. Meanwhile, many in the mainstream media are being true to form in making it a game of ensuring conservatives and Republicans look like reckless, heartless monsters for
READ MOREFear is a powerful emotion: it is sometimes rational, but it can cloud our reasoning. A number of fallacies pervade the COVID-19 debate. One is the fallacy of the missing denominator: we are told that X number of people have died of COVID-19, but we don’t appreciate the size of the population in which these
READ MOREOn Wednesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz eased restrictions on his state’s lockdown. But the eased restrictions quickly lost the spotlight as the inconsistency with which he issued them took center stage. “Restaurants and bars are integral to what makes Minnesota great,” Walz said, announcing that they could reopen in a limited, outdoor fashion with up
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