Hot Red Chili Consumption Lowers Mortality

The evidence base for the health effects of spice consumption is insufficient, with only one large population-based study and no reports from Europe or North America. Our objective was to analyze the association between consumption of hot red chili peppers and mortality, using a population-based prospective cohort from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III, a representative sample of US noninstitutionalized adults, in which participants were surveyed from 1988 to...

 Why Correlate IQ and Race?

...the question of the relation, if any, between race and intelligence has very little scientific importance (as it has no social importance, except under the assumptions of a racist society) … As to social importance, a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this catego...

 Reza Aslan's Eloquent Dismissal of Generalizations

REZA ASLAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE: Well, I like Bill Maher. I have been on his show a bunch of times. He's a comedian. But, you know, frankly, when it comes to the topic of religion, he's not very sophisticated in the way that he thinks. I mean, the argument about the female genital mutilation being an Islamic problem is a perfect example of that. It's not an Islamic problem. It's an African problem. (CROSSTALK) CAMEROTA: Well, wait, wait, wait. (CROSSTALK) CAMEROTA: Hol...

 Far-Right Rhetoric is Profitable

Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoman in the House Republican leadership and a former politics professor, said, “There’s a big difference between intellectual conservatism and what exists out there now. It’s much more populist in its orientation and much wider in its reach. This is not an elite opinion, a Bill Buckley sort of thing.” And in a nod to the new media’s greater profitability, Cole added, “While it’s conservative in its orientation, it’s a financially driven enterpr...

 Scientific Reasoning Explains Increases in IQ

The bombshell is that the Flynn Effect is almost certainly environmental. Natural selection has a speed limit measured in generations, but the Flynn Effect is measurable on the scale of decades and years. Flynn was also able to rule out increases in nutrition, overall health, and outbreeding (marrying outside one’s local community) as explanations for his eponymous effect.241 Whatever propels the Flynn Effect, then, is likely to be in people’s cognitive environments, not in their genes, d...

 Kate Mills: Only "Scientists" Can Do Science

What we think we know about ourselves through science could be skewed, since the majority of psychology studies sample individuals who do not represent the population on a whole. These WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples make up the majority of non-clinical neuroimaging studies as well. Increased awareness of this bias has prompted researchers to actively seek out more representative samples. However, there is less discussion or awareness around the potential b...

 Turkey as a Better Symbol for America

Others object to the Bald Eagle, as looking too much like a Dindon, or Turkey. For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk [Osprey]; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Supp...

 Starcraft and Neuroplasticity

Prior experimental investigation of the cognitive consequences of video gaming provides evidence that cognitive and perceptual changes occur in those who transition from non-gamers to gamers. Specifically, training on action games (e.g., first-person, fast paced, kill-or-be-killed situations) has been linked to enhanced core perceptual processing [10], [11]. Action video game novices assigned to action video game training experience a number of benefits, including higher contrast sensitivity ...

 Psychology Studies Sample WEIRD Humans

[This paper is] about another exotic group: people from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD)societies. In particular, it’s about the Western, and more specifically American, undergraduates who form the bulk of the database in the experimental branches of psychology, cognitive science, and economics, as well as allied fields(labeled the “behavioral sciences”). [...] Who are the people studied in behavioral science research? A recent analysis of the top journa...

 Representative Juan Mendez Atheist Prayer

Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask you not to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state. This room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of fr...