What I Read or Listened to This Week


Here is some non-basketball content I read or listened to this week that I found interesting:

  • Probing the Corporate Manipulation of Science - “When faced with the impeding regulations, companies don’t argue against oversight. Instead, they insist that any regulation must be based on “sound science,” a term invented by the tobacco industry to prevent or confuse scientific consensus. What makes the strategy so effective is that it uses the language of science to undermine inconvenient findings produced by legitimate scientific inquiry. The trick here is that no science is ever sound enough. Science can only reduce uncertainty, not eliminate it, so by fanning unfounded doubts and demanding extreme levels of certainty before taking action, companies and their agents can delay government regulations, sometimes for decades. Truth eventually comes out (“there are no ‘alternative facts’ in science,” Michaels writes), but companies stand to make a whole lot of money in the interim.”

  • Does owning a car hurt your health? - “But the randomized assignment of cars in Anderson’s Beijing cohort finally shows that it’s the car itself, not simply being the type of person who wants a car, that influences behaviour and ultimately health.”

See also