Water: The First Priority...
Posted by kevindick in Climate, Interventions, Poverty on 05 31st, 2008 | View Comments
As I mentioned in my introductory post, I hope you'll pay particular attention to interventions where Rafe and I agree something should be done. Whenever such agreement emerges, we plan on letting you know. Hopefully, we'll inspire you to support them as well. As it happens, we have just identified such...
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Happy to Be Here…...
Posted by kevindick in Point of Order on 05 31st, 2008 | View Comments
I'd like to thank Rafe for graciously inviting me to occasionally co-blog with him here. I see this collaboration as an extension of the many engaging discussions we've had over the years. You see, we're sort of kindred spirits. We both grew up in Southern California beach towns as children of middle...
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Welcome, Kevin Dick...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Point of Order on 05 31st, 2008 | View Comments
True to its title, this blog itself is adapting.  I'm pleased that one of the smartest people I know has accepted my invitation to join me as a primary contributor.  I'll let Kevin introduce himself from...
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Beyond the Gene...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Epistemology, Science, Science 2.0 on 05 29th, 2008 | View Comments
In an earlier post, I argued that the gene concept is in bad need of a makeover.  It turns out that Evelyn Fox Keller and David Harel feel the same way and have made an actual start of it in a paper titled Beyond the Gene.  In the paper they propose a new lexicon: dene - "Like the gene, our notion of...
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The Socioeconomics of Cancer...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Cancer, Epidemiology, Poverty, Society on 05 28th, 2008 | View Comments
Pop Quiz: Which is a bigger determinant of cancer mortality in America, being poor or being black? According to Dr. Harold Freeman of the National Cancer Institute, poverty is the bigger factor today, but it hasn't always been so: During  250 years of slavery (1619-1865) and to a lesser extent during the...
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How Much Water Does it Take to…?...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Climate, Common Knowledge on 05 22nd, 2008 | View Comments
An eye-opening graphic from Wired's cover this month on "Peak...
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Sigmoids vs Exponentials...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Epistemology, Models on 05 15th, 2008 | View Comments
In a previous post, I argued that we humans suffer from a destructive oversimplifying habit of linear extrapolation.  This professor argues the same point, but he falls into the next logical trap, thinking that exponential extrapolation solves the problem. From my earlier post, it should be clear that pure...
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Global Warming...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Alternative Institutions, Limits of Knowledge, Markets, Models, Society on 05 6th, 2008 | View Comments
A few months ago a friend of mine engaged me in a discussion about the controversy surrounding global warming.  If you are surprised to hear that there is still controversy, read on; I was equally surprised. The controversy is not so much whether the atmosphere is heating up, but rather the cause and...
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TED Talk: Rives...
Posted by Rafe Furst in TED on 05 5th, 2008 | View Comments
4 a.m. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORYKKNoRcDc] Click here for Discussion...
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Dangerous Media, part 2...
Posted by Rafe Furst in Culture, Education, Government, Media, Society on 05 1st, 2008 | View Comments
I have talked about some of the dangerous aspects of main stream media in the past.  Recently I was reading The Black Swan, in which the author argues that watching TV news, listening to news on the radio, and even reading newspapers actually makes you less informed (and dangerously so) than if you were to...
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