AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: NASA: Meteor exploded with force of 20 Hiroshima bombs.
Archive for 2013
February 15, 2013
HOW NAPOLEON CHAGNON BECAME AMERICA’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: I think, actually, that the field of anthropology nearly self-destructed with its attacks on him, as illustrated here:
At an open-mike A.A.A. session, attendees, few of whom had read the book, weighed in on the controversy. Thomas Gregor and Daniel Gross later described the event in a damning article in American Anthropologist: “Virtually every aspect of [Chagnon’s] behavior, relevant or otherwise, was open for public dissection. One participant took the microphone and claimed that Chagnon had treated her rudely in the field during the 1960s. A colleague from Uganda praised Tierney’s book and suggested that Westerners manufactured the Ebola virus and disseminated it in his country, just as Chagnon and Neel had started the measles epidemic. Members of the audience applauded both speakers.” For Gregor, who recently retired as an anthropologist at Vanderbilt, the session was “a watershed moment.” “These are people who are supposed to be scientists,” he told me. “This had the look of an emotionally charged witch hunt.” . . .
As Gregor and Gross put it, what the inquiry most clearly demonstrated was not Chagnon’s guilt or innocence but rather anthropology’s “culture of accusation,” a “tendency within the discipline to attack its own methods and practitioners.”
This is what happens when science is politicized. On the other hand, the Yanomamo understand: “They fight, and this makes them happy.”
DAVID KIRKHAM EMAILS:
All Instapundit readers are invited to our Annual Open House at Kirkham Motorsports.
Tomorrow Feb 16 from 10 am – 3 pm at our shop.
Kirkham Motorsports
2575 West 1680 North
Provo, Utah 84601We will debut our new Coupe.
Wish I could be there.
WHEN THE PERSONAL is political.
SOMETIME IN THE NEXT HOUR, I’ll be on Bret Baier’s Special Report on Fox, talking about my Due Process When Everything Is A Crime piece.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: George Leef: The Spirit of Adam Smith Returns: At one time, professors were independent contractors paid by students; that relationship may return.
Adam Smith, perhaps the most perceptive observer of human action of his time, pointed out from experience that incentives mattered to professors. At Scottish and English universities in the 18th century, some professors were in the main paid directly by student fees, while others were paid entirely by the university, thus putting a middleman between the customers and the providers of teaching services.
In the former case, Smith wrote (in Book V of The Wealth of Nations), a professor’s reputation is important and depends “upon the affection, gratitude, and favourable report of those who have attended upon his instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in no way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and diligence with which he discharges every part of his duty.”
In universities where professors were paid entirely by the institution, however, their incentives were markedly different. Smith observed, “if his emoluments are to be precisely the same whether he does or does not perform some laborious duty, it is certainly his interest…either to neglect it altogether or…to perform it in as careless and slovenly manner as authority will permit.”
Would this promote grade-inflation and easy assignments? Possibly — but, of course, we have those under the current system, too.
PERHAPS THE “PUBLIC HEALTH” PEOPLE SHOULD FOCUS ON ACTUAL DISEASES INSTEAD OF TRENDY POLITICAL CAUSES: ‘Ongoing, severe epidemic’ of STDs in US, report finds. “. In 2008, there were 20 million new incidents of infection in the United States, and a prevalence (new infections plus ongoing infection) of 110 million, according to CDC estimates. (Because one person may have more than one infection, the 110 million figure does not mean 110 million people have a sexually transmitted disease.) As a result, the United States incurred estimated direct medical costs of nearly $16 billion. Previous such estimates, for years 1996 and 2000, estimated approximately 15 million and 18.9 million new incidents respectively, though these reports used somewhat different data sources and methodology so the CDC cautions against making direct comparisons.”
ANN ALTHOUSE ON RUTH MARCUS’S TED CRUZ COVERAGE: “He pontificates? You mean he’s uppity? The liberals need to pre-ruin any people of color on the GOP side. After Marco Rubio’s career went down in flames because he drank a glass of water, the appetite for destruction rages. Look! There’s another Hispano-Conservo! Get him!”
They’re not journalists. They’re Democratic operatives with bylines.
HMM: Bacteria boost fixes symptoms of autism in mice. “Replacing missing gut bacteria in a mouse model of autism reverses adverse social behaviours and gut disorders associated with the condition.”
RAND SIMBERG: Chelyabinsk: What, Exactly, Just Happened? “The jury should still be out on whether this was related to the other asteroid.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Gene Therapy Cures Diabetic Dogs In Only One Shot.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling men’s sandals and beach shoes. Summer is coming.
WILL E15 ETHANOL DAMAGE YOUR ENGINE? “This is a tricky question and the subject of a lot of hand-wringing right now.”
SCIENCE: Manuka honey opens door for effective treatment of chronic wounds. Is this big news? People were treating wounds with honey in ancient times.
ARE “EMOTIONAL AFFAIRS” REALLY “just as devastating” as physical ones? Color me skeptical.
IS IT SAD THAT I WANT ONE? Behold The 900mph Ping-Pong Bazooka.
LAW SCHOOL CLASSES: How Big Is Too Big?
IN THE MAIL: From Steve White, Sunset of the Gods.
ERDOGAN TAKES DOWN THE GENERALS:
Four retired Turkish generals were jailed today pending an inquiry into a “coup attempt” in 1997. This is yet another calculated maneuver by Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ensure that the Turkish armed forces are never again able to illegally take over the government. It was a stern reminder of who’s boss. . . .
Analysts in the West often celebrate Turkey for its economic success and relative stability in a tumultuous region. But this success does not mean Turkey is fully free and open. Hundreds of Turkish soldiers, including dozens of high-ranking officers, have been jailed under Erdogan’s administration over the past few years. More than 300 were jailed in September for allegedly plotting to overthrow Erdogan’s Islamist government 2003. An additional 300 or so civilians are awaiting trial on related charges. Forty-nine civilian reporters languish in Turkish prisons, making Turkey the world’s worst jailer of journalists.
In the post-Arab Spring Middle East, where Islamist led governments like Egypt’s try to tame powerful militaries and establish permanent civilian governance, Turkey often serves as a model. There, the Islamists conquered the generals and now rule unchallenged. Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi can only dream of bringing the military to heel like that. But take a look at Turkey today. Is this a good model?
No.
WHY THE LEFT IS DOWN ON DOWNTON ABBEY. “On second look, the left’s reaction is understandable. Julian Fellowes and they are on the opposite side of something. But it’s not that Fellowes is on the right, and they on the left. It is that Fellowes is in the middle and they on the far left. Downton Abbey is not an apologetic for the old order. It just gives them a fair shake. . . . It also shows something equally important to the future of our culture: that there is no inherent need for good TV to be left of center. Stories sympathetic to virtue, preservation of property and admiration of nobility and of wealth can be told beautifully and to wide audiences, and I suspect they will be more and more in the future.” Me, I’m more a House Of Cards guy.
TA NEHISI COATES: Christopher Dorner Was Not A Hero. “I don’t really know how anyone, with any sort of coherence, adopts Christopher Dorner as a symbol in the fight against police brutality, given how he brutalized those two human beings.”
WITH ALL THE BROKEN-GLASS INJURIES FROM THAT RUSSIAN METEORITE — 950 people according to this report — maybe it’s time to remind people to Duck And Cover upon seeing a bright flash of light. . . .