I was thinking recently, about how many audiobooks are consumed by people these days. I would guess that the main reason behind this consumption is convenience. Many people just don’t have the time, or don’t create the time, to really sit down and get their head in a book. But I understand that for many, Read More…
Media
Remember when the lab-leak theory of COVID-19 was “just a conspiracy theory”?
Matt Ridley: We don’t say this virus definitely jumped out of a laboratory, but we do say that if there is one city in the world where a laboratory leak of a novel SARS-like virus from bats would be most likely to happen, it would be Wuhan.
Science mag goes bonkers on abortion, and related stories
At The Scientist, we are informed, “Scientists Predict “Brain Drain” From States That Ban Abortion: Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, numerous researchers have announced plans to either vacate or decline career opportunities in states where abortion is or will soon be illegal.”
At Mind Matters News: Why science news sucks — a response to a disgusted physicist
Science writers, and their readers, often seek a certainty from science that it can’t really provide. They graft it in — so, of COURSE, they find it.
It turns out that fact-checker “credibility” ratings don’t affect people’s views of news much
Researchers: Notably, the researchers also found that a majority of people rely on credible sources of information, with two-thirds completely avoiding unreliable news sites.
Science writers complain about online harassment
If the science journalists want to run a test: Just try claiming that the universe shows evidence of design. And defend yourselves against the trolls. Otherwise, cry the rest of us a river.
Breaking: Twitter accepts Musk’s Share offer buyout plan
Breitbart, as I just saw: After a two-week battle against opposition from the platform’s board members, self-declared free speech absolutist Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and currently the richest man in the world, has succeeded in his bid to buy Twitter. In a press release, the Twitter board announced that they had Read More…
Has interest in intelligent design WANED?
A new ID the Future episode continues the debate between design theorist Casey Luskin, an editor of The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, and science historian Adam Shapiro, co-author of Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction.
Ultra-In mag New Yorker: “For our nation and our species, the future depends” on Francis Collins’s success…
One way of looking at it: In light of the appalling treatment of infants under Collins’s regime, he is just the sort of individual that the New Yorker would want to represent evangelical Christians — or any other group that its staff despise.
Has Bill Nye sold out to… Coca Cola?
The writer at Gizmodo is not convinced that “the good people at Coca Cola” are making anything like the difference Nye says they are but interested readers can read the article and watch the vid.
To get change, create or exploit a crisis . . .
to control the change, set the agenda and control thought to a thesis, an antithesis and your desired synthesis. So, we see, in a cartoon: Where, let us recall the change challenge: . . . thus the fallacy of the false dilemma pushing a simplistic dichotomy of choices: . . . and the Overton Window Read More…
At Mind Matters News: Could decentralization fix Twitter’s censorship problems? Or Wikipedia’s?
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, interviewed at Mind Matters News, warns that decentralized networks can still be captured and controlled.
Trust the Science! Instructive testimony from media efforts to squelch debate about the COVID panic
It would be good to study how “science” became a synonym for “what people do when they are in a panic” and how “disinformation” came to mean “casting doubt on panic-stricken responses.” But obviously, there is a larger message here…
At last someone is asking: Why are science reporters so credulous?
Another way of putting it is that too many people are — at best — naive about government-led and government-funded science. And science writers can make a living out of avoiding realities and catering to their illusions while retaining a sense of impeccable righteousness.
Yes, law schools have changed. Now here’s a key way media have changed
Media people today see freedom of speech in a much more hostile light. During the Convoy response to the COVID crazy here in Canada, we were explicitly given to understand that freedom of speech is a “right wing” value. That view is now widely shared. It would certainly have surprised generations of liberal-minded journalists. But if we ponder the matter for a moment, we can see what drives the change of view.