The Demon-Haunted World

BP thinks an oil spill in Australia would be ‘welcome boost’ for locals 

Harvard Study: Clearing Your Mind Affects Your Genes And Can Lower Your Blood Pressure WBUR 

Entering murky waters over Chinese plan for naval base

 

Crime is about more than policing.
"The UK's Serious Crime Strategy tries to capture the complex web of issues which lead to people becoming perpetrators and victims: from mental health problems, to deprivation, and lack of parental support. These are all issues which go well beyond the police’s remit." (Institute for Government)

More bad reviews for citizen juries.
"A juror on the ACT government's first citizens' jury walked out on the final day, angry at what he calls a "grossly corrupted" and "misleading" process." (ABC)



Sandilands’ former HR boss becomes NSW public service commissioner.
After being the HR boss for the company that has controversial radio host Kyle Sandilands on the payroll, surely a few hundred thousand public servants shouldn’t present too much of a problem.

Recovering daughter of poisoned Russian spy may be given new identity and granted political asylum to live in Britain as it’s claimed her secret boyfriend has ‘links to Putin’s secret service’ Daily Mail

Comfort dogs in Courts - Christian Science Monitor: “As dogs and other animals are increasingly used in courts to comfort and calm prosecution witnesses, a few voices are calling for keeping the practice on a short leash, saying they could bias juries. The use of dogs in courts has spread quickly across the United States amid a growing number of laws and rulings in its favor – and, outside of the legal world, a significant increase in the use of emotional support animals by the public. There are now more than 155 “courthouse facility dogs” working in 35 states, compared with 41 dogs in 19 states five years ago, according to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation in Bellevue, Wash. And that’s not counting an untold number of “emotional support dogs” that have been allowed case by case in many states. Many witnesses have been child sexual assault victims. There has been a divide among judges, however, with some not allowing dogs because of potential bias against defendants. And many defense lawyers don’t like the practice.”

In his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World, astrophysicist Carl Sagan presented a partial list of “tools for skeptical thinking” which can be used to construct & understand reasoned arguments and reject fraudulent ones.

Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.

Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.

If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.

Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.

Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

I found this via Open Culture, which remarked on Sagan’s prescient remarks about people being “unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true”.

Like many a science communicator after him, Sagan was very much concerned with the influence of superstitious religious beliefs. He also foresaw a time in the near future much like our own. Elsewhere in The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan writes of “America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time…. when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few.” The loss of control over media and education renders people “unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true.”

This state involves, he says a “slide… back into superstition” of the religious variety and also a general “celebration of ignorance,” such that well-supported scientific theories carry the same weight or less than explanations made up on the spot by authorities whom people have lost the ability to “knowledgeably question.”

Michael Shermer has been accused by several women of sexually inappropriate & predatory behavior andrape at professional conferences. I personally believe women, and I further believe that if Shermer was actually serious about rationality and his ten rules for critical thinking listed above, he wouldn’t have pulled this shit in the first place (nor tried to hamfistedly explain it away). I’ve rewritten the post to remove the references to Shermer, which actually made it more succinct and put the focus fully on Sagan, which was my intention in the first place (the title remains unchanged). (via @dmetilli)

Yeeeeeeeep.

Vox's podcast keeps it lighter 

The strains of AC/DC blasted, but the lyrics were about gerrymandering. In another episode, the music to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” rat-a-tatted, with new verses on Trump associates and indicted campaign workers.

The Vox podcast “Today, Explained,” isn’t a millennial update of “Schoolhouse Rock,” but host Sean Rameswaram and executive producer Irene Noguchi are seeking to inject something new into a suddenly profitable space that includes “The Daily” from The New York Times and NPR’s “Up First.”

“I don’t think the news needs to sound like the world is going to end in six minutes,” says Rameswaram, a former reporter for WNYC’s “Radiolab” and “Studio 360” as well as the PRI podcast “Sideshow.”

In roughly 20-minute chunks, the six-member “Explained” team attempts a journalistic high-wire act: go deep on one issue a day, explaining, entertaining and hoping to leave listeners with a lingering takeaway. They combine an emerging newsroom’s curiosity and public-radio-level audio quality, as Noguchi, shown, a former daily show producer at KQED, helps keep the pace and topics fresh.

Vox reporters and first-person contributors aim to keep it informal, which they explain to guests.

“Then I’m taking off my pants,” one remote guest responded to Rameswaram.

Fine.

Since the show’s debut on Feb. 19, “Explained” has had indelible episodes, such as the conversation between a Parkland survivor and a Columbine survivor, or an interview with a former Border Patrol agent who grew disgusted and quit.

“At the end of the day, you realize you’re sending them back to the place they want to flee,” the former agent, Francisco Cantú, soberly concluded.

Here’s the link to download “Explained,” as well as audio from an end-credits sequence like you’ve never heard, via @today_explained.

PRUITT COUNTDOWN: In ethical hot water for having his housing subsidized by an energy lobbyist, EPA head Scott Pruitt came under more scrutiny Thursday with reports that five EPA officials were sidelined after raising concerns about his management and spending. For those who want this in limerick form:

3 GOP REPS URGE PRUITT TO RESIGN: Elise Stefanik of New York on Thursday joined Florida representatives Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen  in calling upon Pruitt to exit the EPA over multiple ethics scandals.

TRUST: People don’t have enough of it in journalism. That’s a problem that many similarly named organizations want to solve. Nieman Lab’s Christine Schmidt lists and defines seven of those groups.