Debunking!
In the wake of pretty much every outbreak of every vaccine-preventable disease, comments on the news articles fill up with people who still think that vaccines cause autism. One article keeps getting referred to, “22 Studies that Prove Vaccines Cause Autism.” I’m not going to link, it doesn’t need any more hits, because it already shows up on the first page of many searches on vaccines. Instead, I’m going to direct you to Liz Ditz’s excellent rebuttal.
Foodbabe proves over and over that she’s all style and no substance. The Foodentists dissect her attack on Lean Cuisine and the Grocery Manufacturers Association with many facts about GMOs that she apparently doesn’t know – or chooses to ignore.
On the topic of GMOs, Gilles-Eric Séralini’s paper linking glyphosate to tumors in rats, which was retracted last year because of methodological and statistical flaws, has been re-published in a journal with apparently less exacting standards. I’m thinking along the lines of “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”
SFARI tells us that autism is not the only neurodevelopmental disorder that’s on the rise. The numbers may actually be a good thing, because it means that more people are getting needed treatment.
You know that study that said watching porn shrinks your brain? Well, maybe not so much. Christian Jarrett at Wired talks about the study’s many shortcomings.
Business Insider has an interesting piece on the Myers-Briggs personality test. By the way, I’m ENFP.
Sometimes things are partly true, or true but misrepresented. In those cases, we don’t need debunking, we need. . .
Critical Thinking
I got a little gut-punch here, because I hate neuroscience hype, but I also did a few little happy dances reading about optogenetics. I pick on optogenetics, but… and Moving on from optogenetic frustrations are actually not too far from the mark, though. I think it is possible to get excited about a new method without looking at it as a be-all and end-all breakthrough. . .as long as you look at the research and stay away from the media version.
Another thing that gets oversold is brain imaging. Again, cool, but not as magical as it’s portrayed sometimes. Lots of times. Virginia Hughes talks realistically about the limits and potential of neuroimaging.
A longread (28 pages) on critical thinking. I have to admit, it’s still open in another tab as I write this. Written from a legal viewpoint, as in how something would stand up in court when exposed to scrutiny, but relevant in a general sense as well.
I often take issue with people who are strict “nurturists” because they are so unspecific about what “environment” is and what it does. Genetics and epigenetics are mechanisms that are, while still being incompletely understood, more logical and straightforward than the more nebulous claims of environmental influence. Many of the people I’ve run across take a Lamarckian viewpoint, or even imagine evolution as a personal change (more akin to Pokemon evolution than anything we see in biology!) So I read Developmental Plasticity and the “Hard-Wired” Problem all the way through, and was pleasantly surprised to see a thoughtful and detailed approach to the “Nature vs. Nurture” question. I don’t know how convinced I am, but it’s more than I’ve been by anyone else presenting this argument.
Genetics/Epigenetics
If you wish to make a gene from scratch explains that, well, it’s not really as easy as that.
Cath Ennis explains how epigenetics works in two parts.
Video – Pallas Cat kittens
Somehow not as freaky when they’re kittens, and funny to see domestic cat behavior in response to the intrusion of the camera.