#faye flam

[gorskon]

Faye Flam takes umbrage at those calling out Marianne Williams for her antivax nonsense

Journalist @fayeflam defends Presidential candidate @marwilliams on @bopinion against accusations of being antiscience because of her antivax statements. She fails because she fundamentally misunderstands what is antivax and what is antiscience.

Last week I wrote about Marianne Williamson, Oprah’s spiritual advisor and New Age self-help guru (and antivaxer) turned quixotic Presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination. Three things interested me about her. First, as I mentioned, she is an antivaxer of the “I’m not antivaccine…BUT…” variety, you know, the kind who says “I’m not antivaccine, but…” and after the “but” a whole lot of…

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[wrdforwrd]

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

A recent Bloomberg piece by Faye Flam, “Inspiring Terms Are Simple. ‘Climate Change’ Isn’t,” makes the point, I guess, that climate change as a term is not very effective.

Flam writes, “As scientific terms go, ‘climate change’ is failing. Good terms are specific, descriptive and help people to understand complex concepts. Climate change is ambiguous, referring perhaps to the most pressing…

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[therecipe]

Stripped down to its essentials, the universal defining quality of males is the creation of sperm. And the universal defining quality of sperm is that they’re smaller than eggs. Because their sperm are relatively small, males usually make more of them than their female counterparts make eggs. That little asymmetry lies at the root of all sex differences, from the male robin’s song, the buck’s antlers, and the elephant seal’s tonnage to the pickup artist’s lines, or at least the desire to learn lines

Faye Flam, The Score: The Science of the Male Sex Drive (2008) It’s amazing how many constructivists deny the basic truths of the world. The right has their own denial of science; in fact, I would argue that their modus operandi is indeed anti-scientific. However, the left regarding gender and sex and behavior and the very real scientific differences between the sex has them jumping the ship. It’s disconcerting and needs to be challenged without one being excoriated by name-calling. Thoughts?