Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

Why raising the minimum wage in Seattle did little to help workers, according to a new study

July 29, 2016

This is an interesting article on the effect of raising the minimum wage. What’s interesting about it is that it raises a lot of issues that speak to the challenge of proving things in the human sciences, particularly in Economics. Because we can’t create two perfectly identical situations in real life with which to test out variables, we are left with having to determine the effects of variables like changing the minimum wage in imperfect, real life, experiments. If you pay close attention to the language, the writer communicates the experimental conclusions which often times sounds equivocal, weakly worded, or uncertain and that is because those people who conduct the experiments or undertake the research understand that it is very difficult to come up with solid, definitive conclusions like you can in the natural sciences. For example, you can say definitively in the natural sciences that if you heat up a gas and keep volume constant, that you will increase pressure. This is a consistent finding, backed up by experiments. Can you come to the same type up of definitive conclusion in the human sciences? Can you definitively answer the question, “what is the effect of raising the minimum wage?” The answer to that question is probably no. You will get answers that have a lot of qualifiers and adjectives like “probably” and “sometimes” and “maybe.”

“Overall, there was almost no effect on workers’ average total earnings, but Vigdor pointed out that the average could be misleading. The consequences for many individual workers — both positive and negative — could have been more significant.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/study-raising-the-minimum-wage-did-little-for-workers-earnings-in-seattle/

Are GMOs safe? Yes. The case against them is full of fraud, lies, and errors.

July 17, 2016

“GMO labels won’t clear this up. They won’t tell you whether there’s Bt in your food. They’ll only give you the illusion that you’ve escaped it. That’s one lesson of the Non-GMO Project, whose voluntary labels purport to give you an “informed choice” about what’s in your food.”

“That’s the fundamental flaw in the anti-GMO movement. It only pretends to inform you. When you push past its dogmas and examine the evidence, you realize that the movement’s fixation on genetic engineering has been an enormous mistake. The principles it claims to stand for—environmental protection, public health, community agriculture—are better served by considering the facts of each case than by treating GMOs, categorically, as a proxy for all that’s wrong with the world. That’s the truth, in all its messy complexity. Too bad it won’t fit on a label.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_top

The Quest to Resurrect Extinct Species

July 17, 2016

“A father-son duo of biologists has set the stage for so-called de-extinction. But should we be doing this at all?”

“In the past, scientists played their cards close to the vest as they developed, then commercialized, powerful new technologies. Often, they were sure that what was best for the science was best for society. And time after time, their secrecy and paternalism fed fears that sparked a public backlash — over technologies as diverse as test-tube babies, cloned animals like Dolly the sheep and genetically modified organisms. “The reason we’re in this situation with [the backlash against] genetically modified organisms is because we didn’t talk about it clearly enough, early enough,” Church says.”

http://discovermagazine.com/2015/march/14-jurassic-arke

A professional interpreter’s job isn’t as simple as you think

July 17, 2016

“For example, in 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was translated as telling Western ambassadors, “We will bury you.” But what Khrushchev actually meant was, “We will live to see you buried,” meaning that communism will outlast capitalism. That’s still not a very nice thing to say, but not quite the death threat it was initially understood as.”

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/12/11902592/interpreter-how-to-become?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it)

July 17, 2016

“Have you ever talked with a friend about a problem, only to realize that he just doesn’t seem to grasp why the issue is so important to you? Have you ever presented an idea to a group, and it’s met with utter confusion? What’s going on here? Katherine Hampsten describes why miscommunication occurs so frequently, and how we can minimize frustration while expressing ourselves better.”

The Maestro of Memory Manipulation

July 2, 2016

“The neuroscientist Sheena Josselyn can evoke and erase memories in mice using new tools that precisely control the brain.”

“The power to control memory is both exciting and frightening. It evokes the dark images of science fiction movies such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which a couple erases painful memories of each other. But the research also has the potential to unlock the mystery of memory disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), perhaps leading to new treatments.”

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160623-the-maestro-of-memory-manipulation/

The Vietnam War: How they saw it from both sides of the divide

June 25, 2016

“The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon — now Ho Chi Minh City — to the Communist north, two years after the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops.

“We have two very different accounts of that same extraordinary day. The first, from a U.S. veteran who helped execute a mass evacuation on April 29. The Air America pilot was a part of the largest helicopter airlift in history.
“The second, from a retired Sergeant Major who was among the ranks of the North Vietnamese forces. He raised the flag on Davis Camp at Tan Son Nhut Airfield at 9:30 a.m. on April 30.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/23/asia/america-vietnam-view-vietnam-war/index.html?mc_cid=5ee4c52ade&mc_eid=34e2887073

This is how it feels to learn your memories are fiction

June 25, 2016

“Confabulators don’t mean to lie or mislead, but some fundamental problems with the way they process memories mean they often struggle to tell fact from a fiction concocted by their unconscious mind.

“His dilemma, although extreme, can help us all to understand the frailties of our memories, and the ways our minds construct their own versions of reality.”

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160428-this-is-how-it-feels-to-learn-your-memories-are-fiction?mc_cid=233f0ded88&mc_eid=34e2887073