Recently, an exchange on social media concerning Lyme disease and ticks prompted a good deal of disinformation, which was followed by several text messages to me asking such questions as, "Can ticks really carry rabies?" or, "Is there a vaccine for Lyme disease?" At a time of climactic change, we are seeing a rapid rise in …
How the Evolutionary Left-overs of Intuition, Bias, and Instinct, Hinder us in the Technological Age.
The philosopher William James believes that there were two different parts of thinking; that he labeled these two parts associative thinking, and true reasoning. According to this dual process theory, associative thinking was based in large part on past experiences from which we drew comparisons or abstractions. While true reasoning was reserved for tasks like …
What if you could live to be 500?
This morning, as I listened to the news, such as it is today; I heard part of a story that championed the significant advances in life and longevity due to the public health movement. While no one would even a tertiary understanding of public health could deny the enormous advances made in the past 125 …
Why knowledge is the new commodity, and why your degree may ultimately be useless.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote “New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with the richer we become.” But is that true of all knowledge, or just some? Look closely at developed nations, those with un-launched missiles and un-dropped bombs. Then look at those nations and cultures that do …
Continue reading Why knowledge is the new commodity, and why your degree may ultimately be useless.
Mycobacterium Tuberculosis: 150 Million Years in the Making
If you were to ask the average person to name the worst epidemic diseases in history, they would probably start that list with bubonic plague, or the Spanish flu. Some would even list Ebola. Few, however, would think to mention tuberculosis. Moreover, while it is not a common infection in the modern industrialized world today, …
Continue reading Mycobacterium Tuberculosis: 150 Million Years in the Making
Bullies, Bullying, and the Long-term Consequences.
Recently, one of my followers on LinkedIn and a reader of my Medical Science Blog messaged me to ask my opinion on bullying. While I have not practiced psychology for some years, I had some experience in this capacity, although from a more personal standpoint. Any child growing up in the 1960s and 1970s most …
Continue reading Bullies, Bullying, and the Long-term Consequences.
A Christmas Message
In 1914, on Christmas Day, On the Western Front the guns all died away And lying in the mud on bags of sand, We heard a German sing from no man's land He had a tenor voice so pure and true. The words were strange, but every note we knew. Soaring o’er the living, dead and …
