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Oster’s work stirred debate for a few years in the epidemiological literature, but eventually she admitted that the subject-matter experts had been right all along. One of Das Gupta’s many convincing counterpoints was a graph showing that in Taiwan, the ratio of boys to girls was near the natural rate for first and second babies (106:100) but not for third babies (112:100); this pattern held up with or without hepatitis B. In a follow-up blog post, Levitt applauded Oster for bravery in admitting her mistake, but he never credited Das Gupta for her superior work. Our point is not that Das Gupta had to be right and Oster wrong, but that Levitt and Dubner, in their celebration of economics and economists, suspended their critical thinking.

In SuperFreakonomics, Levitt and Dubner use a back-of-the-envelope calculation to make the contrarian claim that driving drunk is safer than walking drunk, an oversimplified argument that was picked apart by bloggers. The problem with this argument, and others like it, lies in the assumption that the driver and the walker are the same type of person, making the same kinds of choices, except for their choice of transportation.

The world economy is crumbling and unemployment is soaring. But let me talk to you about an intangible tipping point that could change your life forever or tell you what happens in your brain when that proverbial light bulb goes off in the cartoon equivalent of a thought bubble. Because talking about the actual economy is much too real and depressing.

Science writers have always had to try harder to be interesting. In trying to entice the general public with the tedious, sometimes boring work that goes on in a research lab, they often reduce the nuances and complexities of science—workings of intricate systems like evolution and the human body, the mathematics of financial bubbles, and the inevitable warming of the earth— to interesting tales that combine a tiny bit of data with copious amounts of speculation without context or background.

Pop-science writers like Gladwell, Lehrer, Dan Ariely, and Charles Duhigg take a slightly different approach—they combine decades of scientific research with hearsay and speculation, metaphysical analysis and societal trends, and offer it to the audience in bite-size palatable pieces.

The happy truth, of course, is that this is all complete nonsense. Nothing like this is happening in the Netherlands. No such bracelets exist. Santorum’s nightmare is entirely false — it’s a fabricated delusion based on a fantasy apparently invented out of whole cloth by the Louisiana Right to Life Federation.

That’s the difference between you and Sen. Santorum. You both agree that the scenario he described would be a Very Bad Thing. But for you that means you don’t want it to be true while for him that’s reason to wish it were. He believed this story and promoted this story because he wanted to believe it was true. He needed to believe it was true.

1. It’s exciting to believe in imaginary monsters.Santorum wants to imagine himself doing battle with Dutch death panels for the same reason that I spent hours as a teenager fighting dragons, trolls, goblins and orcs. It’s exciting to pretend that you’re a brave hero struggling against the forces of evil.

The typical answer to this is, well, “the election.” But getting the election right was no great feat.

The betting markets got the election right. The pollsters got the election right. The polling aggregators, like Real Clear Politics, got the election right. The modelers — which included Silver, but also included Sam Wang and Drew Linzer, among others — got the election right. Wonkblog’s election model called the election right — and it did it in June.

The premise is false. A substantial proportion of the human genome is derived from viruses.

Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.

That year, Christianity Today — edited by Harold Lindsell, champion of “inerrancy” and author of The Battle for the Bible — published a special issue devoted to the topics of contraception and abortion.

Oleg Kalugin, the onetime KGB head of operations in the United States, thinks the story "is a sign of the decadence of the Russian intelligence services." So, is that the real story here--the degree to which corruption, favoritism, and nepotism pervades Russian society?

And second, a warning to anyone who believes in an iron law that the more protein-coding genes in a species, the more sophisticated/complex/cool/human that species is: I for one welcome our grapey overlords.

The recent debate over the stimulus bill has lead some observers to think that economists are hopelessly divided on issues of public policy. That is true regarding business cycle theory and, specifically, the virtues or defects of Keynesian economics. But it is not true more broadly.

The world of the ancient Near East was on a deep level culturally alien to our own, and the period between 1200 and 800 spans a extremely sharp rupture between what came before, and what came after.

This is a shame, because during the second half of the 20th century and continuing through the past decade, professional thinking about the future has grown from a niche field dominated by military strategists and predictioneers into a diverse global practice.

The Institute for the Future’s work is heavily influenced by disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. By looking at the convergence of social and technological forces that shape our communities, we help individuals and organizations make better, more informed decisions about the future. 

Animal tests have linked BPA exposure to a range of health problems, including cancer, obesity, diabetes, and early puberty. The studies are controversial though, and how they related to human health is not fully clear, according to WebMD.

If you're worried about being exposed to the cancer-causing compound BPA, you may already know to be wary of some water bottles and food cans. But you'll never guess where BPA, a.k.a. bisphenol A, is showing up now:Cash register receipts.

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

That’s not correct. Of course this report is deniable. That’s what deniers do: deny. And we’ll be hearing from them in the comments below, have no doubts.

Mind you, I am distinguishing, as I always do, between deniers and skeptics. Those are two very different things. I am, quite literally, a skeptic of global warming. I do think it’s happening, but that’s because that’s what the evidence is telling me.

If Iraq invaded Saudi Arabia, something that it probably could have accomplished in less than a week, Saddam could have potentially controlled 45% of the world's total oil reserves. It was no wonder that the U.S. was able to get quick international support for Operation Desert Shield.