Category Archives: Science

THE EFFECTS OF MINOR VARIATIONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT ON GENETIC EXPERIMENTS. To envision the kind of experiments that Nature would have to run to shed light on the economy, compare this article by Robert Sapolsky in the Wall Street Journal … Continue reading →

“10-TRILLIONTHS OF YOUR SUNTAN COMES FROM GALAXIES BEYOND THE MILKY WAY.” My first post on this blog was about how dust from the Big Bang, thirteen billion years ago, is still in our skies, causing static in our radios. Josh … Continue reading →

THE EFFECTS OF PLACEBOS ON PARTICULAR DISEASES. One indication of progress in learning about placebos would be a showing that placebos are helpful with particular diseases. In this article in the Wall Street Journal (July 18), Sumathi Reddy says that: … Continue reading →

PLACEBOS—THE MOST STUDIED DRUGS. The book Rosen reviews is ORDINARILY WELL: THE CASE FOR ANTIDEPRESSANTS by Peter Kramer, who wrote LISTENING TO PROZAC 23 years ago. The review and the book report on the last 23 years of research on … Continue reading →

STEVE MARTIN’S TAKE ON PLACEBOS. In this book review, Jonathan Rosen refers to “Steve Martin’s routine from the 1970s—’If you ever get a chance to take these drugs, do it; they’re called placebos!’”