Paul's Perambulations a personal blog

‎”…research and development at nonmilitary agencies — including those that sponsor science and health research — would fall 12.3 percent, to $57.8 billion, from Mr. Obama’s request of $65.9 billion for fiscal year 2011.” (NYTimes report of Republican platform promising reduction in science and health research.)  But don’t suppose that we will get nothing. Instead, we will get science for financial investors, brought to you by those who discovered Vioxx (recalled), Meridia (recalled). Propofol (recalled), Avandia (warning) etc. etc. See http://www.drugrecalls.com/propofol.html and http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm  So let’s restrict funding from going to the already underfunded FDA. Give people back their freedom to choose their own (heavily-advertised) poison. “I demand my junk food and Fen-phen!”

“Sponsorship almost invariably predicts the results of research. David Ludwig and his colleagues demonstrated this phenomenon in studies of the effects of soft drinks on childhood obesity. Independent studies almost invariably find an association between habitual consumption of soft drinks and obesity. By contrast, industry-sponsored studies almost never do.” (more…)

This article helps explain some of my issues with what has become of Affirmative Action. ML King and Bayard Rustin had it right when they said poverty was a “people” problem, not a “black” problem. (more…)

Glen Beck declares that Harvard banned military recruiters from campus when Kagen was Dean of Harvard Law School. Not so. (more…)

This NYTimes article presents research that attempts to establish that incompetent people are too incompetent to realize their incompetence. The authors note that those grammatically challenged actually believe that they are good writers. Sometimes overall incompetence may be the answer, but there is another possible explanation for why incompetent writers think that they are doing so well. I posted the following response on the NYTimes Comment site. (more…)