Wave Of Apoplexy About To Be Unleashed
Dear reader, it is your duty to memorize these signs of stroke. Use the helpful FAST mnemonic. F = Face: ask the victim to smile; does one side of her…
Posted inCulture Philosophy
Plato On Democracy’s End Game
Via Nick Steves via this site, I was reminded of a passage in Plato's Republic about what the end stages of democracy would look like. Incidentally, an invalid response to…
Posted inCulture
Reddit Bans Dissent
I tried posting a thing or two at Reddit a while back (by invitation), but one of my i's wasn't dotted, or a t wasn't crossed, and the ankle biters…
Posted inCulture Philosophy
Belgian “Doctors” To Kill Kids They Think They Can’t Cure
Belgium has just made it legal for "doctors" to kill children. Not those who haven't yet escaped the womb---those kids have been fair game for any quack with a sharp…
Posted inCulture Philosophy
Entry For The Most Pompous Statement Of Scientism
Our friend John Cook came (via The Renaissance Mathematicus) across what is easily one of the most pompous declarations by a scientist we have ever seen. The words came from…
Posted inCulture
Professor Confesses Why She Inflates Grades
I had a student come into my office (where I was a visiting mathematics professor) shaking with emotion. This was a day or two before the final exam. I couldn't…
Posted inCulture Statistics
Lord, Save Us From Impact Factors
Randy Schekman, a Big Cheese in the sciences, is right: people use "place of publication as a proxy for quality of science". Where a paper is often counts more than…
Posted inCulture
On Who Regulates Medicine
From Louis Jolyon West, "The Medical World of Dr Stephen Maturin", in Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and a Bibliography, 1994, edited by A.E. Cunningham, WW Norton, New York, First American…