Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• The Six Stages of a Failed Psychological Theory

  There's a good reason for this: psychology, as a discipline, is a house made of sand, based on analyzing inherently fickle human behavior, held together with poorly-defined concepts, and explored with often scant methodological rigor. Indeed, there's a strong case to be made that psychology is barely a science.

  • Stage 1: The Flashy Finding.
  • Stage 2: The Fawning Replications.
  • Stage 3: A Consensus Forms.
  • Stage 4: The Rebuttal.
  • Stage 5: Proper Replications Pour In.
  • Stage 6: The Theory Lives On as a Zombie.
  For an example see, LOL Something Matters.

• Richard Rorty's prescient warnings for the American left

  This liberal philosopher predicted Trump's rise in 1998 - and he has another warning for the left.

  He sees the American left as split into two camps: the reformist left and the cultural left. The reformist left dominates from 1900 until it is supplanted by the cultural left in the mid-1960s. The division has more to do with tactics than it does principles, but those tactical differences, for Rorty at least, carried enormous consequences.
  ...
  Rorty admired the reformist left both because they were effective and because they understood that the key dividing line between the left the right in this country was about whether the state has a responsibility to ensure a moral and socially desirable distribution of wealth. The right rejected this proposition, the left embraced it.
  ...
  The focus of leftist politics changed in the 1960s. For Rorty, the left ceased to be political and instead became a cultural movement. The prevailing view was that it was no longer possible to promote equality and social justice within the system.

• Why Did Catherine Deneuve and Other Prominent French Women Denounce #MeToo?

  Despite the impulse to view the statement by the actress Catherine Deneuve and others as some innately French point of view, this isn't a straightforward case of cultural difference.

  There are reasonable criticisms to be made of the reckoning, as it's come to be called, but Deneuve and Millet and their co-signers distort them. Bothering women in an unwanted way isn't an expression of artistic temperament, without which the world would lose its magic. It's often a by-product of a man's (possibly very good) work making him think that he is invincible and owed. The hundred women's admiration for a certain kind of man inhibits their empathy for his victims. Their stance is all the sadder in that it reveals a diminution of the same human quality that kindles the sexual energy they're so keen not to see snuffed out. The failure to grasp that a woman-another woman with a different history, different values, a different set of likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions-could grieve a trespass upon her body is really a failure of the imagination.

• Proof that Americans are lying about their sexual desires

  What Google searches for porn tell us about ourselves.

  Among other things, Stephens-Davidowitz's data suggests that there are more gay men in the closet than we think; that many men prefer overweight women to skinny women but are afraid to act on it; that married women are disproportionately worried their husband is gay; that a lot of straight women watch lesbian porn; and that porn featuring violence against women is more popular among women than men.

• Radio artist Joe Frank dies at 79

  Joe Frank, known for his unique and innovative radio monologues and stories, died Monday (01/15/2018). He was 79. Joe Frank – Tributes List.

Some links related to dietary consumption of sugar and salt.

• Sugar, explained

  Sugar is the dietary villain of our day. But the science is complicated.

  1. We're so hooked on sweetness, it's now in three-quarters of our packaged food
  2. There's no argument about sugar's link to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, tooth decay, and heart disease
  3. But researchers don't agree about whether we can blame sugar alone for the rise in obesity
  4. There are at least 60 euphemisms for added sugar
  5. There's one big reason researchers think cutting sugar from your diet is the best way to lose weight. And it's contentious.
  6. Fructose is metabolized differently than other sugars, but it's not clear whether that matters for obesity
  7. The sugar industry has shaped science
  8. A big backlash against sugar is underway
  9. You'll soon be able to tell how much sugar is hidden in your food
  10. Artificial sweeteners may trigger the body's responses to real sugar
  11. To cut back, make sure your breakfast isn't dessert and stop drinking sugary drinks
• Sugar Industry Long Downplayed Potential Harms

  The sugar industry funded animal research in the 1960s that looked into the effects of sugar consumption on cardiovascular health - and then buried the data when it suggested that sugar could be harmful, according to newly released historical documents.

  Details at, Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents.

• Higher brain glucose levels may mean more severe Alzheimer's

  NIH study shows connections between glucose metabolism, Alzheimer's pathology, symptoms

  For the first time, scientists have found a connection between abnormalities in how the brain breaks down glucose and the severity of the signature amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain, as well as the onset of eventual outward symptoms, of Alzheimer's disease.

• Clearing Up the Confusion About Salt

  So why, you may wonder, is there any controversy? Shabby science, resulting in claims that is it unsafe to reduce sodium intake below 1,500 milligrams a day, is one reason, according to Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.

  "Very few people consume so little sodium, and most of those who do are sick to begin with, so they eat less and consume less sodium," she explained. "It's a phony issue."

  But when a study is published that runs counter to prevailing beliefs, it tends to get undue media coverage. "The media like 'man bites dog' stories, and studies with surprising results make headlines," Ms. Liebman said.