The disturbing part of this story is the reactions of so-called medical professionals to this couple's situation and decision. Now there are two ways to look at this. The one that might make more sense (though certainly no more palatable) is that these physicians et al are concerned with Insurance…
We do many inefficient things. Why don’t we simply do those things differently, in a more efficient way? Often, we don’t change things because we’ve done them a certain way for so long that it would take too much time and psychological effort to do them in new ways, even though the new ways would be easier and more inefficient in the long run.
The QWERTY keyboard is a great example. We could rearrange our keyboards, which would cause us to struggle with our new configurations for a few months or years, but then we’d all be better for the change. We don’t do this, however. It would take too much initial effort.
Scientific theories are quite often strained by the discovery of new evidence that doesn’t fit the theory, yet we cling to the old inadequate theories. This is another tendency toward path dependence. For example, until the 17th century, “epicycles” were used to explain the perceived retrograde motion of planets and stars. Epicycles were finally discarded in response to Kepler’s work. Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn pointed out that scientific progress does not occur smoothly, but rather in the form of periodic revolutions that that he termed paradigm shifts. The fact that scientists tend to hold onto old unworkable theories longer than they should can be seen as another manifestation of path dependence.
It would make a lot of sense to simplify the spellings of many words used in the English language. We don’t do …
Last night I saw The Da Vinci Code for the first time. I had read the first chapter of the book some time ago and frankly it so did not capture my imagination that I haven't picked it up since. Years before, I'd read Holy Blood Holy Grail, the book…
As reported by Scientific American, Researchers have concluded that only 10,000 years ago, the human transition from living off the land to actively raising crops and domesticated animals was accompanied by an accelerated rate of evolutionary change. The pressure for this change occcurred because populations became highly concentrated compared to hunter/gatherer…
I received the following from a friend of mine, who sent it to his local paper as well. I’ve asked his permission to post it here, in its entirety. It concerns an issue which, while we may hope represents an unfortunate part of our history long outgrown, still rears its…