As a daughter of World War II Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust by the skin of their teeth, I have a visceral understanding of where marginalizing a specific group leads. Continue reading Perilous Polarization: The Us vs Them Trap →

The idea of what constitutes science is can change dramatically from one time period to another. I love antiquarian books and came across a heading in an old medical volume I have from 1918, The People’s Common Sense Medical Advisor by R. V. Pierce, MD, that read, “The Science of Eugenics.” This so-called academic discipline to improve the genetic quality of human populations was founded in 1883 by the renowned British heredity scientist, Sir Francis Galton. He headed the first University department of Eugenics at University College, London Continue reading Is Science Objective or a Belief System? →

“One wonders how so many falsehoods could be crammed into a single article.” tweeted Brit Hume of Fox News. Added President Trump, “This is a very big deal in Europe. Fake News is the Enemy of the People!” The offending article was “The Mystery of Melania” that appeared in the January 19, 2019 issue of The Telegraph in Britain. Yet the story for which Mrs. Trump’s lawyers in Britain extracted an apology and substantial damages was excerpted from a book that has been available in the United States since October 2018. Continue reading Was Melania Telegraph Story Fair and Balanced? →

I’ve always been skeptical of systems that claim to deduce a person’s character from questionnaires or physical attributes. At the worst extreme were the bogus sciences of phrenology, where the shape and size of your skull was believed to reveal your mental abilities, and physiognomy, which claimed that your personality could be determined by your outer appearance, specifically your face. Continue reading Personality Assessments: Accurate or Absurd? →

So there I was at my boyfriend’s house in London several months ago. My PC laptop sat on the kitchen table, with Facebook open in Chrome, while we were having a few conversations about a good friend of his who had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was feeling pretty devastated. The man was a keen supporter of West Ham United football team, based in the East End of London. I don’t give a damn about soccer, but my boyfriend and I talked about how great it was that the team was winning matches because it would cheer his friend up. I have never done any online searches about West Ham United and have no Facebook community with whom I would have discussed the team. My boyfriend doesn’t even have a Facebook account. When I opened Facebook again, I was shocked to see that the top trending news story on the top right of the screen was about West Ham. Continue reading Facebook: Uninvited Guest at the Dinner Table →