Blog 3 Columns

The Science of Why People Don’t Listen to Facts 0
- April 19, 2017
You know something is true—for example, that vaccines are good for children, or that socialism doesn’t work. You’ve done the research, you’ve carefully weighed the arguments against your position and found them wanting, and you’ve diligently formulated your own reasoned case for it. And then you try to convince someone else (repeatedly, in some
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The Berkeley Battles Are a Sign of Things to Come 0
- Culture
- April 19, 2017
Just how close are we to repeating the political violence of interwar Germany? How bad is it, and how bad can it get? ??Populist-right demonstrators and radical-left protesters clashed in Berkeley, California yesterday. The belligerents used such weapons as fists, feet, rocks, pepper spray, smoke bombs, barricades, and a trash dumpster/battering ram. There was one
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Study: Political Bias is Bipartisan 0
- Culture
- April 19, 2017
In recent months, the phrase, “You’re biased,” seems to have become one of the most common epithets tossed between the media, Donald Trump, and yes, even the American public at large. The question is, who’s right? Is it possible that a certain political leaning tends to be more biased than another? Researchers from the University
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How the Ethanol Mandate is Destroying America’s Prairies 0
- Economics
- April 19, 2017
color:#222222″>Many years ago, I wrote an article on the research of Cornell University professor David Pimentel. color:#222222″>Pimentel, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist, claimed it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than the combustion of ethanol yields. Because of this fundamental input-yield problem, corn is a really lousy crop for making ethanol, Pimentel said.
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How I Caught Pope Francis Sharing Fake News 0
- Culture
- April 19, 2017
Pope Francis is a pastor who loves telling stories. One of his most memorable is a vignette drawn from To Every Man a Penny, by the Scottish novelist Bruce Marshall. A young officer in the Gestapo has been condemned to death by the French Resistance after the Germans have evacuated Paris. L’Abbé Gaston, a wise
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Did Respect Go Out the Door When We Abandoned ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’? (See Chart)0
- Culture
- April 19, 2017
Not long ago, a young and recently married friend of mine confessed that she had encountered a bit of a disappointment in married life. Contrary to what many might think, her disappointment was not with her husband, or their home, or any other common aspect of a newlywed’s life. Instead, she mournfully declared, “Nobody calls
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Busting the ‘Free College’ Myth 0
- Economics
- April 19, 2017
A new program just passed by New York’s state government promises “free tuition” for middle-class students to attend a public college or university in the state. While there are similar programs elsewhere in the US, this is the first to include four-year schools. All of the headlines include some variation of the term free college, which makes
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Tuition-Free College isn’t Free—But it Does Have Some of the Makings of a Pyramid Scheme 0
- Education
- April 18, 2017
Proposals to make public university and college attendance tuition free were floated by Democratic candidates during the 2016 presidential election primaries. Bernie Sanders was and still is one of its most ardent supporters. Hilary Clinton advocated it during the general election. For many Republicans—such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and President Donald Trump—it is
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Is Berkeley the Fort Sumter of a New Civil War?0
- Culture
- April 18, 2017
Could the college town where the “Free Speech Movement” began be the place where it ends? That’s the question asked by Frances Dinkelspiel, writing in The Daily Beast, after covering the confrontation this weekend between far-left anti-free-speech groups and far-right pro-free-speech groups. “As a reporter who has covered Berkeley since 2009, when two journalists and
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The Science of Why People Don’t Listen to Facts 0