- Shocking yet (possibly) very effective domestic violence ad
- Randa Jarar’s experiences in ‘the Arab Room’ at Ben Gurion airport. This is a room I had visited myself under more relaxed circumstances — but that’s a tale for another day.
- Little girl’s food blog on the quality (or lack thereof) of school lunches gets results
- US used Sesame Street music as a form of torture in Guantanamo
- Excellent article on transgender children and the kinds of ways the interviewed families have coped with transition.
- Using Google to research estimates on how much of a role racism played in the 2008 US presidential election
- QuestForRight: a fascinating website of wingnuttery. Essentially it challenges every aspect of modern science including theories of electrons. Naturally it’s from a religious perspective *mock surprise*. They are publishing text books and want to have them used in schools. Wingnuttery of the finest caliber, to rival Conservapedia.
Friday Links (27-Jul-12)
July 27th, 2012
2 comments ↓
Thanks! QuestForRight made my head ache, just from looking at the 3 sample chapters. Here’s Volume 3:
“Why do scientists and educators treat Avogadro’s vanity as though it were an absolute, a law? It stands to reason that, if one researched the issue, a haunting question would arise: how did Avogadro, working without instrumentation, know there were exactly 6.02 astronillion molecules in a thimbleful of water?”
and later
“Firstly, the actual number of molecules in either a gaseous liquid, or solid sample, must be accurately assessed. The thought is quaint, if not altogether preposterous, in that a molecule refuses to stand in line to be counted.”
The thought is indeed quaint. Of course we don’t count the molecules in a kg-mole of gas. We measure the masses of many individual molecules, observe that they all have the same mass, and divide 1 kg-mole by that mass to get the number of molecules in it.
Did no-one in the whole publishing project know that, and see that the book would be a laughing-stock?
And of course Avogadro, without instrumentation, didn’t know the value of his number. Nor did Copernicus know the size of the planetary orbits. That doesn’t invalidate their work. We know now.
“Did no-one in the whole publishing project know that, and see that the book would be a laughing-stock?”
I think therein lies the crux of it — the authors most likely genuinely believe they’re better at science than the scientists in an astounding case of the Dunning Kruger effect.