It’s science! #Gamergaters are bad gamers

This is amusing. A simple study watched people playing the game Halo, and correlated skill at the game with how they treated other men and women players. It turns out that losers tend to be more disparaging of women.

As they watched the games play out and tracked the comments that players made to each other, the researchers observed that — no matter their skill level, or how the game went — men tended to be pretty cordial to each other. Male players who were good at the game also tended to pay compliments to other male and female players.

Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers. In other words, sexist dudes are literally losers.

A chart from the Halo study that shows how nice male gamers were to other males (dotted line) and females (solid line) during gameplay. Men always treat each other about the same. But the better a player gets, the more likely he is to be nice to ladies. (Kasumovic et al)

A chart from the Halo study that shows how nice male gamers were to other males (dotted line) and females (solid line) during gameplay. Men always treat each other about the same. But the better a player gets, the more likely he is to be nice to ladies. (Kasumovic et al)

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Death of a quack

I’ve been accused, occasionally, of being a pharma shill. Pharmaceutical companies make obscene profits! They’re paying off people to hide the dangers of their drugs! And there is a tiny grain of truth: those companies do reap great profits. Be the first to patent a Viagra or Zoloft, and the money will come rolling in.

But there’s so much investment required! You need to test thousands of drugs to find one that does anything; then there’s all the animal testing, the clinical trials, the regulatory oversight, the lawsuits that follow from side-effects (and if the drug is actually potent, there will be side-effects). No, that’s not for me. If I wanted to be really rich, and had no conscience at all, I’d go straight to Big Alt Med.

No testing! Cheap products! In the case of homeopathy, you can market tiny bottles of water! Supplements are almost entirely unregulated, nobody cares if you’re selling pills stuffed with sawdust. It’s miraculous sums of money for entirely non-miraculous garbage, plus a lot of promises.

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How stupid are liberals?

moneybags

I got two items in my inbox telling me how stupid liberals are. I read the articles in question and find myself wondering instead how stupid conservatives are.

The first is from the NY Post: Sorry, liberals, Scandinavian countries aren’t utopias. Did anyone say they were? By comparison, maybe, but already we have a straw man right in the title. They complain that obviously Denmark is a failed state because they have much higher taxes than America. Why, yes, no one claims that we can magically get better services for free. But then the rest gets downright embarrassing: Danes are less sexy and macho, they have high suicide rates, they aren’t a wonderful tourist destination (What? They’ve never heard of Copenhagen?), there aren’t as many really rich and really poor people, and everyone is middle class — no tall poppies allowed. And they are all about equality and sharing.

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I’m feeling so 17th century now

Below is a greatly simplified chart of the history of mathematics. The interesting bit is the black bar on the time line, which indicates where (optimistically) high school math stops. With calculus? I got pre-calc/trigonometry in high school, most of our incoming students haven’t had calculus yet, so it’s a little bit off.

Wait. I’ve had a fair bit of statistics…that’s early 20th century! What a relief, I won’t have to worry the ridiculous over-the-knee boots and pelisse when my classes drift into a little mathematics.

Pointless poll on a medical absurdity

Unbelievable. The BMJ hosted a written debate on homeopathy. The side for homeopathy blathers on about various studies and meta-analyses and mostly just vaguely suggests positive results; when they get specific, the best they can say is that homeopaths use fewer antimicrobials. And their summary is truly ignorant.

Doctors should put aside bias based on the alleged implausibility of homeopathy. When integrated with standard care homeopathy is safe, popular with patients, improves clinical outcomes without increasing costs, and reduces the use of potentially hazardous drugs, including antimicrobials.

We should set aside the fact that there is no mechanism to allow water to magically retain the power of non-existent molecules? I cannot do that, sir. I also cannot set aside the ludicrous rationales provided for the medical utility of plain old water, which suggest that homeopathic practitioners are gullible fools.

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