Civilpooch

12 ways to avoid bias in newspapers

This is a subject dear to my heart: "When all you want is the facts, navigating the newspaper might be a tricky ordeal. Sometimes bias is the result of laziness, and sometimes it's a deliberate attempt to push a particular point of view. Either way, you should always be on the lookout for bias. I liked this rule: 6. What's missing from the article? Is there a source, witness or explanation that has obviously been ignored? Is the "why" unclear? Does the article fail to present the position...

Friday, 20 March 2009 21:15 | 276 hits |  Email | Read more

If H. sapiens sapiens can't evaluate themselves, how can they evaluate canis lupus familiaris?

We humans can barely handle accurate criminal interrogations. Human interrogators can induce innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit.  There is an eerie parallel to canine behavior evaluations. The dog is, in effect, on trial for their life. The stakes for the dog and the community are high.  We are faced with two problems: (a) a dog who is shown to be innocent during a behavior evaluation, and subsequently turns out to be a danger to society; and (b), a dog who is shown to be...

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 10:52 | 108 hits |  Email | Read more

The cost of NOT thinking critically

What's the Harm? has stories of 670,000 people who have been injured or killed as a result of killed due to a failure to think critically. Here's one example: President Warren G. Harding Age: 57 Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California Died August 2, 1923 Despite the misgivings of a physician, his personal homeopath let him do arduous tasks and speak in the heat. When he had a bout of food poisoning, the homeopath applied heavy doses of purgatives to flush out toxins. He died. No autopsy...

Sunday, 29 March 2009 19:41 | 224 hits |  Email | Read more

The Neuroscience of Magic or Magic of Neuroscience?

Or maybe the magic of neurscience? Our brain makes up much of what we think we see, simplifying a complex reality into a form we can digest. Magicians Penn and Teller discuss how magic works at their show in Las Vegas. Pen starts with the "Seven basic principles of magic. Palm, ditch, steal, load, simulation,misdirection, and switch." Our brains don't see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with...

Monday, 27 April 2009 12:52 | 467 hits |  Email | Read more

What adults should understand about science

This is pretty reasonable list of things for adults to know! California Science Standards grade 9-12. (Available free online from CA Dept of Education) Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content of the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations.

Saturday, 21 March 2009 18:39 | 231 hits |  Email | Read more