Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Day Today - 13th March 2008

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:



Ben Goldacre on the inanities of ethics committees. He also puts the call out for horror stories from researchers trying to get their research approved. As someone who has been acquainted with folk on both Human Subject Ethics and Discipline committees I can vouch for them being a rich vein of anecdotes.

Some research from M.I.T. on one of those little irrational foibles that still plague us - "keeping too many options open".

Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century BC who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops' cooking pots and burned their ships.

As "Chase Me Ladies! I'm In the Cavalry" would say - Killer Fact!

Among Hungarian Gypsies, equally strict rules apply to brandy: brandy may only be consumed first thing in the morning, during the middle of the night at a wake, or by women prior to a rubbish-scavenging trip.

Rescuing Victorian Britain from the Tories (a bit).

There are many difficulties present in a trip to Mars, the crew's social dynamics and getting back again...so...let's just make it a one-way trip for one!

A diversion into fiction. On Evelyn Waugh...on Nabokov...

And, Theodore Dalrymple on how the "intelligentsia" manages to shut out any real engagement with social issues...

Complacency and denial dominate public as well as private discourse, and when a little of the unpleasant side of contemporary English reality is allowed an airing, a damage-control exercise swiftly ensues.

..I well remember John Campbell's damage control exercise, instead being a journalist like those on "Hard Talk" and grilling him one-on-one, John decided to have Theodore and 37 other commentators on as well. More heat, less light, as the saying goes.

1 comment:

Gorilla Bananas said...

He crushed his troops' cooking pots and burned their ships.

Did he have a fetish for needlessly antagonising people then?