Geoff's Miscellany

Seth Roberts wrote The Unreasonable Effectiveness of My Self-Experimentation. He explains how self-experimentation improved his sleep, mood, health, and weight.

Self-experimentation is similar to foraging and hobbies more than strict lab-science, he says:

"My self-experimentation resembled foraging, hobbyist, and artisanal exploration, Professional science is a poor match for any of them. The similarity of foraging, hobbyist, and artisanal exploration suggests that our brains are well-suited for jobs with a lot of exploitation and a little exploration. Although full-time scientists are expected to explore full-time, full-time exploration is very uncomfortable."

I've mentioned before that I have a genetic bone disorder and have utilized my interpretation of scientific publications to self-experiment.

This self-experimentation has had positive health results. Other times I have merely yielded knowledge about what does not help. For instance, I've had pretty bad acid reflux for the past few years. I recently discovered from my mother that I also had terrible reflux as a baby. I might even have a weak LES muscle. I don't know, I haven't been to the doctor for it for years because they just prescribe proton pump inhibitors or histamine blockers. I can buy those and as far as I can tell, they have long term deleterious effects on the human body. 

One of the mostly commonly utilized conceptual weapons in the rhetorical attack on being a normal person is ‘sexual fluidity.’

In a nutshell: “Sexual fluidity is one or more changes in sexuality or sexual identity (sometimes known as sexual orientation identity).”  It’s a favorite concept among third wave feminists, especially those who argue against hetero-normativity (which is another way of saying, ‘reproductively viable intercourse’). It is especially important to these theorizers because sexual fluidity is allegedly very common among women and therefore central to female experience. I suspect it’s actually common due to the difficulty some feminist theorists have finding partners of the opposite sex. 

As in all cases “science fact” is used loosely.

The Main Claim About Teacher Somatotypes

"Teachers who are ectomorphic are usually perceived by students as anxious and less composed but perhaps intelligent. The endomorphic teacher is generally perceived by students as slow, lazy, under-prepared, and not dynamic in the classroom. The mesomorphic teacher is perceived as credible, depedable, likable, and competent but possibly tough and dominant." Virginia P Richmond and James C McCroskey, Nonverbal Behavior in Interpersonal Relations (Boston: Pearson/A and B, 2004), 269

1. Ectomorphs are lanky body types
2. Endomorphs are dad-bod types
3. Mesomorphs are beefy (muscly) types

Is that a reasonable claim? What is the evidence?

I don’t know.

Cleverness, sarcasm, and smug retorts are the order of the day. But what if you want more out of life? The title is a quote from Fight Club, but it’s an important question. How is it working out for you?

Several months ago I wrote a review of the book Superstition. Thinking back to numerous of its claims one in particular came back to mind. Park stated often that when Christians believe in God in prevents them from doing science because they already know that God made it, therefore nobody has to ask any questions. I rarely make claims to know what people believe without asking them, I also rarely make attempts to clarify physics for physicists (though I've discovered that with a bit of reading I can do a lot of physics). But I am trained to study ancient texts and history, something Park couldn't do. 
Christians today may really think that science is dangerous to Christianity. But in the medieval era (an era you'll recall was not really the Dark Ages) science was considered a gold mine of important data about the world. Etienne Gilson note in The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy: