Random Ramblings of a Raconteur

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Spikins goes a long way to explaining why all successful fraudsters and con men are well groomed Schlipsträger and why scruffy, though notoriously honest engineers never succeed in public office. It remains to be shown, whether disregarding these extremes grooming and focus on externalities are useful proxies for trustworthiness — several results tend to suggest the opposite. Insofar as success is determined by superiors, may the willingness to submit to the meaningless dictates of fashion signal an unswerving follower unlikely to challenge authority in other ways?

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Too much cleanliness is unhealthy, says Weinstock, and worms in your gut may well be good for you.

I’d like to quote one of the fathers of nuclear engineering, Alvin Weinberg (1972) on safety evaluation. A true engineer and his words are a far cry from the cavalier attitude of ideologues, like those trying to replace reliable stable power sources with unreliable and variable ones without proper storage or backup.

“Let me close on a somewhat different note. The issues I have discussed here—reactor safety, waste disposal, transport of radioactive materials—are complex matters about which little can be said with absolute certainty. Read the rest of this entry »

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Scientific journals are not daily newspapers punctually delivered and the comment by Cartlidge in the current (to me) issue of science was written a fortnight before the verdict. It does provide a very good background summary though, Read the rest of this entry »

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Schurger et al. summarily debunk the main and most important experiment behind the denial of true free will. Philosophically I find this result extremely pleasing and am looking forward to more in the same vain.

Marasco, but also Orozco-terWengel of last week, are two of many newer results about evolution not being completely random and at least partially reviving some of Lyssenko’s and Lamarck’s ideas. Read the rest of this entry »

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At first glance Lavner et al. seem to disprove my preconceptions. Looking more closely their results are quite beside the point. High-risk small children have different and far bigger problems than those expected from same-sex parenting at a much higher age. Few children have ideal and perfect natural parents, that less than ideal adoption may well be far superior to no adoption at all is a truism.

Moss-Racusin and Mervis leave several questions open. I don’t have the raw data to prove it, but in all four subcategories female staff differentiated more between male and female students and I’d be very surprised if that very visible aggregate result were not statistically significant. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ackerman has more on antibiotics. In addition science NOW report on MRSA detected in wildlife. (The primary source is unavailable except for the abstract.)

Where Callaway reports on criticism about the interpretation of Ashraf & Galor’s results (list of 2012-09-27) I failed to see their supposed correlation in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

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The mechanism documented by Jensen et al. or an analog may go far in explaining the frequently claimed efficacy of homeopathy in pet animals.

I for one am surprised by Myrskylä & Fenelon. I had always assumed that biologically, i.e. health-wise the traditional age of about 16–20 for first motherhood was an advantage over our modern 35. It seems I was wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

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According to Davidai it is not personal values or morals nor even hassle or inertia that determines people’s choices and actions but their perception of what is “normal” and what the exception as governed by language alone – not fact. All successful dictators have known this for centuries and the first thing they all brought under their control was the public language. Read the rest of this entry »