Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anyone else has to listen.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
Making a very hard turn…
If the top of our trash and recycle bins were any indication, then we received about two inches of snow. Of course, except for the mountains all of the snow had melted by yesterday afternoon. The bottom photo was taken then.
******************
I’m afraid I don’t have too much to write about this morning. My wonderful wife and I have so many tasks that need to be completed. We did finally find our cereal bowls and dinner plates; finding the former was very significant for me as I am still eating a lot of cold cereal.
Despite the fact that we moved about 9 miles, it is only 5 more miles driving distance to one of our favorite eating places, a delicatessen. We had breakfast there this morning and I had lox (smoked salmon), cream cheese, tomato and onion on a sesame bagel for the first time in months. I had been avoiding “full-fat” dairy as much as possible, per orders of the ER physician, but have found that I can tolerate cold dairy, for some reason. Maybe David Banner (not his real name, but a real doctor) can offer an explanation.
******************
Two links to posts from Why Evolution Is True. By the way, Jerry Coyne is far more prolific that I am, usually posting multiple times a day. I only share a small fraction of those posts here. Feel free to click on the hyperlink above to read the blog in its entirety.
Richard Dawkins touts science above indigenous “ways of knowing” in New Zealand
The Atlantic unpacks (and criticizes) woke language
By now you should know that is my mark through the true curse word, woke.
******************
This article from FactCheck.org reports that contrary to the crap on social media, no surge in deaths among athletes, particularly young athletes, has occurred. Here is a large excerpt from the piece:
“More than 2,000 children and adolescents in the U.S. die from sudden cardiac arrest every year, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and two-thirds of the deaths “occur during exercise or activity.” Among young athletes, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death, according to CHOP.
Drezner said his center [UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology] monitors “all cases and all causes” of sudden cardiac arrest or death in athletes by working with the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “[T]here is no change,” he said.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research catalogs injuries for high school and college athletes, and its most recent report covers the 2020-21 school year. It shows that 21 athletes died while playing their sport that year.
COVID-19 vaccines were available to everyone 16 and over in the U.S. by April 2021, so the overlap between the period covered by the report and the period in which vaccines were widely available to young people was relatively small. We reached out to the center to find out if the data collected for the 2021-2022 school year has indicated any increase in deaths.
The center’s director, Dr. Kristen Kucera, told us that so far, “the numbers are the same and it’s actually fewer than we captured in 2018-19.”
For context, the center reported 19 deaths in 2019-20, 25 deaths in 2018-19 and 21 deaths in 2017-18.”
Americans’ mass ignorance of mathematics and statistics has significant negative ramifications. Too many people are not willing or able to avoid the “I don’t let facts get in the way of my opinions” axiom.
#FreeformFriday
#WhyEvolutionIsTrue
#IgnoranceIsNotBliss
#somanyCARSjustonelife
#disaffectedmusings
If you like this blog please tell your friends and share the blog URL (https://disaffectedmusings.com). Thanks.
Disaffected Musings 
Re your ability to tolerate cold dairy, it may be the fats in the cold state are more tolerable/less absorbable. Don’t look a gift cow in the mouth…
Re science, yesterday at work we were reviewing an article about a trial that postulated that drug A had a beneficial effect on mortality. My colleagues were espousing how excited they were about the study and couldn’t wait to use it until I pointed out an inconvenient fact. In clinical trials where death is a metric, there is the possibility of not being able to determine the cause of death. The FDA has determined that 16% is the gold standard. In this study, the percentage of deaths whose cause was deemed of an undetermined nature was at best 24%, meaning at best the data was unreliable as to the benefit of the drug BY FDA’s STANDARDS. As the saying goes “You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts…”
LikeLike
Many thanks, Doc. Yes, we are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.
LikeLike
Freedom of speech also means that if my speech offends you, then you are not allowed to make me not say it. If thou art offended, that is your problem and not mine. Suck it up, offendee, and learn to be tolerant.
Our schools are abject failures at teaching real arithmetic, mathematics and statistics. To teach arithmetic, they need to go back to rote memorization to make the understanding of the relationship of numbers automatic and understandable. It has worked for me for more than 70 years.
LikeLike
Very well expressed, Philip. No provision in the US Constitution guarantees the right never to be offended.
Our schools have been ruined by putting politics above children. I wonder how some of the successor nations after the inevitable breakup of the US will handle public education.
LikeLike