Taking journalism seriously, but not literally
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, […]
Why non-quantitative public commentary talks about race & gender (& religion)
One of the major problems with the intellectual commentary class is that 90% of them are college-educated (about half probably have some graduate education). In contrast, about 1/3rd of the public is college-educated. About half the employees at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are graduates of elite universities. This isn’t that […]
Mehdi Hasan’s hypocrisies
As I am trying to withdraw from Twitter food-fights I did not want to comment on this on that medium. But, since I have a platform of this weblog, I did think it would appropriate to point out a peculiar sort of behavior by Mehdi Hasan, a relatively prominent commentator in the UK who is …
Beware scientists laundering their credentials
Recently Vox had a really bad piece up, How a pseudopenis-packing hyena smashes the patriarchy’s assumptions: Lessons from female spotted hyenas for the #MeToo era. The first thing you’ll notice is the crass inverse naturalistic fallacy that seems to be operating here. That is, you think of a state you’d find desirable (in this case, “matriarchy”), […]
Quartz, kind of a big deal?
A site called Quartz is going to go live today. I have been hearing a lot about it in the media (e.g., The New York Times). One of the people who launched ScienceBlogs, Chris Mims, is involved. I’ve seen a guideline for its freelance writers, and…