Links 2019/05/29

The state agency that regulates and licenses plumbing in Texas is being abolished. According to one state representative, "our plumbing shortage is solved because we can all become plumbers." Link. Yee-haw!

Sweden has a tradition called "Lordagsgodis" (Saturday candy), where you shouldn't eat candy on any other day of the week, but on Saturday you eat as much as you want. "When participating in the 'Lordagsgodis' tradition, the average Swedish family of four eats about 1.2 kilos (2.65 lbs.) of candy!" Link.

Does College Turn People Into Liberals? In a study following 7,000+ students across 120+ colleges through their first couple of years, "48 percent viewed liberals more favorably in their second year of college than when they arrived on campus. However, among the same students, 50 percent also viewed conservatives more favorably. In other words, college attendance is associated, on average, with gains in appreciating political viewpoints across the spectrum, not just favoring liberals."

One Step For Animals is an animal welfare organization that, instead of advocating vegetarianism, is focused just on getting people to stop eating chicken. "If we can convince someone to stop eating birds, they would go from being responsible for the factory farming and slaughtering of more than two dozen land animals per year to fewer than one." "It takes more than 200 chickens to provide the same number of meals as one cow."

Everyone learns about the Stanford Prison Experiment, but the whole thing was basically bad science and a sham. People know this and still teach it because, in the words of one professor, it teaches a lesson "bigger than the science". THIS REALLY GETS ON MY NERVES! Link.

"Paying American students cash incentives causes them to do better on the PISA, an international standardized test of math skills. But similar incentives had no effect on Chinese students, implying that Americans are slacking while Chinese students are trying hard." Link. IMO, it's often the case that what people are "good" or "bad" at is more matter of how motivated they feel to do it.

In a study trying to determine why people deny science: "Subjects were asked to justify their rejection of the scientific consensus. In 33% of cases... subjects simply restated their position, essentially giving no justification." Link. ...

Links 2019/05/22

The Day The Dinosaurs Died: The asteroid's impact "formed a fiery plume, which reached halfway to the moon". Hollywood has really dropped the ball on cool/scary asteroid explosions.

"Our belief in the benefits of low salt consumption are largely based on mis-information and myth-information." Link.

"Saudi crown prince defends China's right to put Uighur Muslims in concentration camps." ??? This has been up to 1 million people. Link.

"August birthday (read: enter school younger) associated with 30% increase in ADHD diagnoses relative to September birthday. But only in states with September school cutoff." Hmmm... Link.

California used to allow medical and non-medical exemptions for school-mandated vaccines. Then, to try to increase vaccination, they repealed non-medical exemptions. But this only led to a 1% decline in total exemptions, seemingly because many of the people who were getting non-medical exemptions switched to medical ones instead. What a coincidence! It makes you doubt how effectively we can change people's behavior in general... Link.

"A Women's March planned in Eureka has been postponed by the organizers over fears that participants were not diverse enough." Link.

You Have No Right to Your Culture: "Do you have more cultural ground in common with your grandparents - or with foreigners of your own generation?"

After reading the full Mueller report, Justin Amash, a GOP congressman, now says that "Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report", "Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct" (obstruction of justice), and "few members of Congress have read the report". Link. I have no doubt that nothing will come of this.