Almost every day I stumble across a news item/article/blog post that causes me to say, “I did not know that.” Here are ten of them that you (probably) didn’t know either.
1. Moammar Gadhafi might have been the richest man in the world. [source]
2. Hope uniquely predicts objective academic achievement above intelligence, personality, and previous academic achievement [source]
3. Works of art can give as much joy as being head over heels in love. [source]
4. Only 15 percent of scientists at major research universities see religion and science always in conflict. [source]
5. The average American employee works with 100 coworkers; the average Indian employee works with 4 coworkers. The difference in wealth and income between nations is closely related to the ability of firms to take on complex tasks. [source]
6. A secret Clinton-era government report outlined what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt. [source]
7. Genealogies are just social constructs. [source]
8. Between 1996 and 2010 the number of teenagers aged 13-19 having elective cosmetic surgery has increased by 548%. [source]
9. Kabul, Afghanistan is the fifth fastest growing city in the world. [source]
10. Eating too much licorice can cause arrhythmia, a rise in blood pressure, swelling, and even congestive heart failure. [source]
1 comment:
"Almost every day I stumble across a news item/article/blog post that causes me to say, “I did not know that.”
Yeah, well, they don't know it either. They just claim to.
"7. Genealogies are just social constructs."
Talk about ant-science psychobabble.
And they say religionists are anti-science.
That guy wants to transcend reality not find truth about the physical world via the scientific method. Just because animals don't have language and can't explain who their relatives are certainly doesn't mean they aren't related to them.
Pr. Peters, the reason you didn't know this stuff is that it isn't so, and no amount of writing is gonna make it so. Please don't believe everything you read.
Also,
"2. Hope uniquely predicts objective academic achievement above intelligence, personality, and previous academic achievement "
Please, think for a second. If someone knows he will likely do well, then his "hope" score will be higher because he knows he will do well. So, both the "hope" and the achievement are based on the same thing, the person's actual ability. Two effects with the same cause written up all fancy to sound like one of the effects causes the other. Did you read that paper?
The thing is after you go through academia and see all the tom foolery there, and are no longer impressed by the verbal facility of these guys, you see them for who they really are. Some are honest researchers looking for truth, but plenty are just agenda driven folks making the lesser arguments seem the greater with the approval of their co believer peers.
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