No information, no problem. See no evil.

If you're worried about the effects of pesticides on honey bees, simply stop collecting information to solve the problem. That's the position of the Trump administration.

On the heels of the EPA's June approval of a bee-killing pesticide, the White House said it would stop collecting data on declining honey bee populations—potentially making it impossible to analyze the effects of the chemical and the administration's other anti-science policies on the pollinators.

The next step might be to stop collecting criminal justice statistics, statistics related to failing schools to "solve" those problems too. That strategy would be in line with our tendency to start wars based on faulty intel and lies. And we've already cut the budget for gathering climate data and analysis. No information, no problem.  See no evil.

Continue ReadingNo information, no problem. See no evil.

The brain’s precursors to volitional action

I don't have much to add to this Wikipedia excerpt, but I saw a reference to Benjamin Libet's experiments in an article by John Horgan.  To oversimplify only a bit, Horgan argues that "free will" somehow "emerges" at a level higher than "the level of body and brain understood solely as a physical system."  This sounds like hocus pocus to me.  Here's the Wikipedia excerpt on Libet's experiments:

Implications of Libet's experiments Libet's experiments suggest to some[8] that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, and free will therefore plays no part in their initiation. If unconscious brain processes have already taken steps to initiate an action before consciousness is aware of any desire to perform it, the causal role of consciousness in volition is all but eliminated, according to this interpretation. For instance, Susan Blackmore's interpretation is "that conscious experience takes some time to build up and is much too slow to be responsible for making things happen."[9] Libet finds that conscious volition is exercised in the form of 'the power of veto' (sometimes called "free won't"[10][11]); the idea that conscious acquiescence is required to allow the unconscious buildup of the readiness potential to be actualized as a movement. While consciousness plays no part in the instigation of volitional acts, Libet suggested that it may still have a part to play in suppressing or withholding certain acts instigated by the unconscious. Libet noted that everyone has experienced the withholding from performing an unconscious urge. Since the subjective experience of the conscious will to act preceded the action by only 200 milliseconds, this leaves consciousness only 100-150 milliseconds to veto an action (this is because the final 20 milliseconds prior to an act are occupied by the activation of the spinal motor neurones by the primary motor cortex, and the margin of error indicated by tests utilizing the oscillator must also be considered). Libet's experiments have received support from other research related to the Neuroscience of free will.
I question whether even Libet's "power of veto" is "volitional" or "free." I suspect (though I cannot prove) that it's physics all the way down and that everything felt to be "volitional" or "free," even the "power of veto" (I admit that I too experience this apparent power) is physics, not some spooky homunculus bearing our name and facial features, who is pulling our levers.

Continue ReadingThe brain’s precursors to volitional action

The complexity of the human immune system

The immune system is an unsung hero most days of our lives. We would all quickly die without its efficient functioning. But how complex is it. Take a look at this animation which is an extremely simplified version of this incredibly complex system. Then thank your immune system for doing a good job today. For another animation focusing only on the production of antibodies, see the following:

Continue ReadingThe complexity of the human immune system

Be careful who you choose as your friends, because you tend to imitate them.

Think carefully about who you will spend time with, because you tend to imitate the people around you. That is the message from this article from BBC, "How Your Friends Change Your Habits - For Better or Worse." Excerpt:

“There is good reason to believe that when we use normative behaviour it makes us feel good because we’re connecting with a social group,” says Higgs. “If you are with a new social group, you are more likely to imitate behaviours.”

Continue ReadingBe careful who you choose as your friends, because you tend to imitate them.

The State of Missouri is on the verge of closing Missouri’s last remaining clinic that provides abortions.

The State of Missouri is about to force the closure of Missouri's last remaining abortion provider, a Planned Parenthood clinic in the City of St. Louis. Here is the article by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Excerpt:

Planned Parenthood officials said Tuesday the facility's license was in jeopardy after the state sought to "interrogate" doctors as part of an annual license renewal process. Officials said the move was an "intimidation" tactic by the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The Missouri State Government wouldn't force this closure without having a plan to address the resulting large increase of unplanned pregnancies, would it? Or is this a plan to fill the cities of Missouri with thousands of unwanted children?

If the plan is to encourage people to use birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies, then why does Missouri support (with generous tax credits) fraudulent "crisis pregnancy clinics" that lie about birth control options? See this Naral report (p. 4) listing the prevalence of lies by these dishonest tax-supported clinics. See also, John Oliver's investigation of these fake clinics.

Perhaps the people who have been protesting Planned Parenthood will now occupy their time in other ways. Maybe each of them will be adopting and raising hundreds unplanned unwanted babies each year.

Or maybe this is really a plan to help fill the coffers of private prisons. See the Dubner post here.

The closure of this Planned Parenthood clinic would be an immense problem for all residents of Missouri (as detailed by this Guttmacher report), even for those whose instinct is to put a band-aid on an issue that gives them discomfort, with the assumption that the underlying complex problem will just go away.

Continue ReadingThe State of Missouri is on the verge of closing Missouri’s last remaining clinic that provides abortions.