Lunch at the Labs

Items of Interest

Various web links I found to be of interest recently:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson Slammed For Dismissing Philosophy As 'Useless'

  On a recent episode of the Nerdist podcast, Neil deGrasse Tyson dismissed philosophy as a useless enterprise, advising students to avoid it. It's not the first time he's made such remarks, prompting biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci to write a must-read response.

• Uber and Airbnb Are Waging a Libertarian War on Regulators

  First, companies like Airbnb have honed in on parts of the economy where powerful regulators have traditionally deterred new entrants. Second, and largely as a result, the upstarts must not only innovate with their technology and business strategy, but also when dealing with the government officials who control their fate.

• Munk Debates

  A Canadian charitable initiative established in 2008

  Two panelists argue for a debate style motion and two against. The format is short opening statements followed by a civil and substantive moderated panel discussion, followed by short closing statements.

• Is Israel an Apartheid State? (Jeffrey Goldberg)

• Dollars for Docs

  How Industry Dollars Reach Your Doctors

  In recent years, drug companies have started releasing details of the payments they make to doctors and other health professionals for promotional talks, research and consulting. As of 2012, 15 companies published the information, most because of legal settlements. Use this tool to search for payments.

• 9 Simple Statements That Will Make You Think Differently About the World
  1. how deceiving common sense can be
  2. the importance of personality
  3. wages in rich countries are determined more by immigration control than anything else
  4. the faster things change, the less reliable forecasts are
  5. [the] worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time
  6. having control of your time is the only reasonable financial goal
  7. skills grow just like compound interest, with one generation leveraging the talents of the last

  8. the brain is designed with blind spots, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting delusion that we, personally, do not have any

  9. two Australian surgeons found that half of the facts in that field also become false every forty-five years

• Over the Hill? Cognitive Speeds Peak at Age 24

  The study is limited by the fact that it only focused on video game players.

• Brain Injury Turns Man Into Math Genius

  The injury, while devastating, seems to have unlocked part of his brain that makes everything in his world appear to have a mathematical structure.

• Peculiar Traits of Rich People
  • They are (mostly pleasant) sociopaths
  • They care about time periods most can't comprehend
  • They don't give a damn what you think of them

• Medicare Payments to Providers in 2012

  Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shows the dollar amounts that doctors and other medical providers received in Medicare reimbursements in 2012, along with other data including their specialties.

• The '77 Cents on the Dollar' Myth About Women's Pay

  Once education, marital status and occupations are considered, the 'gender wage gap' all but disappears.