One Change in Career can Change the World

A lot of us fantasize about changing the world when we grow up but how many people can really claim to have done that?  I don’t think it’s many.  You can count a lot of dictators who turned their countries into police states and started horrible wars but you can probably count on one hand the dictators who changed the world (Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin) in the last 200 years.

There are important people who make vital contributions to science, society, and technology every generation, even every year.  But few of them achieve the far-reaching success that only a very small number of people have.  And the funny thing is that we don’t always hear about those people or recognize their achievements.

The Science of Investing

The name of the inventor of the Scientific Method has been lost to history. Maybe there was no one responsible party, but a catalog of scientists, philosophers, artists, and religious figures who drew the world out of the Dark Ages by replacing superstition with rational thought.

We trust scientists to protect our food supply, design and perfect our mass transit systems, perform our surgeries, and determine the outcome of our elections. It’s strange, then, that when it comes time to invest our money, most people turn to the services of brokers or other financial professionals. Or worse, they try to manage their investments on their own.

We trust scientists with our lives on a daily basis – so why do we turn to decidedly un-scientific profession to manage our money?

Skeptics Challenged for Using Faux Science in Debunkery Attempts

The Skeptic Community is a loosely grouped selection of people around the world who have interests in different topics. They share one common thing: they believe they are skeptical about something popular, even to the point where they are publicly challenging whatever they believe is maybe too popular. That’s a crude description because as soon as you try to describe who the Skeptics are and what they do, some of them come back and say, “Well, not in all cases” or “That’s not right.”

There is no one kind of Skeptic and no one approach to Skepticism. But these people identify themselves as Skeptics and many of them hang out together, or contribute to the same publications, and they support each other on the Internet.

Stock Market Predictability Easier Than Most Believe?

If you think that investing in the stock market drives people crazy, you may be right. A report published earlier this year shows that steep declines in stock indexes coincides with increases in hospital admissions for mental disorders. Of course, any good statistician may quickly point out that this correlation does not pinpoint any causes. Still, it’s good fodder for starting a bar discussion after work.

The Internet Did Not Kill the Newspaper Star

If you have been following Internet news at all for the past five years you know that newspaper companies are blaming the Internet for killing their sales. But it turns out that the Internet is not really responsible for declining newspaper subscriptions. New research shows that newspaper subscriptions have been declining at the same rate since 1980, more than a decade before most people had access to the commercial Internet.

Stock Market Crashes May be Predictable

I don’t expect anyone to be able to short the market on a massive scale any time soon but new research suggests we can see the crash coming by observing the fractal nature of stock prices. A fractal is a simple geometric pattern like a triangle that is repeated over and over again in a large set of data. Computer graphics software uses fractal geometry to create natural-looking shapes like water, mountains, trees, etc.

Treat National Resources Like Capital Wealth, Researchers Say

A very interesting research project suggests that tracking natural resources as if they were capital assets like in a stock market results in a better assessment of the economic value of natural resources instead of treating them like commodities.

NSA Comes Down on Edward Snowden’s Campaign of Lies

I have never been a fan of Edward Snowden. That coward stole over 1 million classified documents, fled the country, and gave them to anarchists like Glenn Greenwald to do with as they please. Snowden meanwhile fled to Russia where he has sought asylum with one of the most oppressive countries in history while claiming to be defending Americans’ right to privacy and constitutional freedoms. That just doesn’t add up.

Scientific Speculation and Environmental Realities

NASA scientists have grown concerned about recent solar flare activity that they speculate has the potential to plunge us all into a year-long world-wide black out, but before you go out screaming onto the streets in a blind panic, or stock up on 19th century style lanterns, remember that this is still mere speculation. Scientific speculation, yes, so it is with some knowledge that our astronomers are looking at this, but speculation nonetheless.

Weak Science and Dubious Claims Relating Aspartame and Cancer

Weak Science and Dubious Claims Relating Aspartame and Cancer

Since its first appearance in the 1980s, the sweetener aspartame has been blamed for all sorts of health risks. Claims made about this substance range from the mild to the severe – some say it causes headaches and body pains, still others say it can lead to a diagnosis of cancer. Though a recent FDA work-up on artificial sweeteners suggests that an adult could consume as many as twenty cans of diet soda per day with no ill effects, rumors about artificial sweeteners and cancer abound. This is weak science at best, and at worst an attempt on the part of a few “scientists” to bring down an entire industry.