NY Times reports bogus science claims

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?_r=3&

The New York Times article cited above reports that some books and articles about the human brain have gone overboard trying to explain things by brain chemistry, and that some scientists are blogging to correct this inaccuracy.

As an example of an inaccurate, misleading book, they mention The Republican Brain which was published earlier this year:

"which claims that Republicans are genetically different from — and, many readers deduced, lesser to — Democrats. “If [this] argument sounds familiar to you, it should,” scoffed two science writers. “It’s called ‘eugenics,’ and it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior.”

(Just FYI, eugenics was the theory that inferior people should be stopped from reproducing. Eugenics has been completely discredited and is considered dishonorable.)

The lesson here is to not blindly swallow everything somebody writes or says!  Even if it sounds scientific.

This article from the NYT says it very well, " bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth."

So you will still have to think things through, even when it looks like an expert said it.

New LOWER Class

This book, Coming Apart, says that there is a New Lower Class (NLC) in America at the same time as the New Upper Class described in my earlier posts.  This is the reason that America is "coming apart" - greatly  increasing distance between the two new classes is pulling our country apart in a number of ways according to this author.

How are they different?  In education and affluence of course.  But in addition to that, there are some differences that you might not expect.   Sociologist and author of Coming Apart, Charles Murray, references studies to show the following:

• The core of religious believers is less influential in the NLC
• Marriages overall are fewer in number and less happy in the NLC
• People generally, but especially men, are less industrious in the NLC 

And in the New Upper Class?

• Religion is still important
• Marriage is more common and happier 
• Men in particular as well as women work longer hours