The problem of junk science used as evidence in courts

Because science and its associated technology have been so successful, there is a danger that anything that can be dressed up in the language of science can carry more weight that it merits.

One example is with the use of forensic science in court cases. The ability of modern scientific techniques that can analyze microscopic traces of items at crime scenes and link them to victims and perpetrators (DNA being a good example) has led to the ability to both convict the guilty and exonerate those falsely accused. TV police procedurals also lead to the impression that forensic science is very accurate and even judges can tend to give it greater credibility than it sometimes deserves.

This can result in new techniques being accepted as evidence even when the ‘science’ behind it has not been properly evaluated and is possibly useless, sometimes referred to as ‘junk science’. One example is the so-called science of bite marks.
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Desi Lydic on why she still supports Herschel Walker

After denying that he paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 and saying that he did not even know the woman, that same woman says that she again became pregnant by him two years later. He asked her to get an abortion again and when she did not, he terminated the relationship. That child is now ten years old.

However, all this has not shaken Desi Lydic’s faith in Walker, as she explains.

Vaccine side effects and predicting surges in flu and covid

Family members who got the latest covid booster vaccine that targets the omicron strain all reported side effects of fever, chills, and feeling vaguely lousy for a period that lasted 24 to 48 hours. I had scheduled to get mine last Sunday and the day before I met a neighbor on my walk who said that that was the first day she had been outside because she had had a terrible reaction to the vaccine that had knocked her out for three days. As a result, I cleared my calendar for the three days after the shot was to be given, and made all the preparations to be house-bound and possibly bed-bound for that period.

And then … nothing happened. I had no side effects at all. The pharmacist who gave me both the covid booster and the flu shot at the same time said that since I chose to have them on the same arm, that it might be sore. But even that did not happen. The only thing I did out of my normal behavior was drink plenty of fluids, which is what the CDC recommends to alleviate side effects..
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Reducing incarceration rates in the US

In a welcome move, President Biden has ordered the release of thousands of prisoners who were being held just for marijuana possession or consumption.

Biden on Thursday pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that senior administration officials said would affect thousands of Americans charged with that crime.

As part of the announcement, Biden also encouraged governors to take similar steps to pardon state simple marijuana possession charges, a move that would potentially affect many thousands more Americans.

And the President will task the Department of Health and Human Services and Attorney General Merrick Garland to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law, the first step toward potentially easing a federal classification that currently places marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD.

“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in a video announcing his executive actions. “It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”

“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs,” the President said.

The moves Biden announced Thursday stop short of full decriminalization, which has enjoyed growing support among both political parties. But they are the first significant steps taken by a US president toward removing criminal penalties for possessing marijuana.

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Rugby players have higher risk of brain damage

I long ago stopped watching American football games for two main reasons. One is how the greedy and wealthy owners pressure local communities, that often need the money for essential services, to build them luxury stadiums by threatening to move their teams elsewhere if they do not. The latest such gouging is in Buffalo, NY.

The Buffalo Bills reached an agreement Monday with New York State and Erie County to build a new $1.4 billion state-of-the-art, open-air stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Under the 30-year lease, the public will provide $850 million to fund construction costs while the state of New York is expected to contribute $600 million and Erie County $250 million toward the project (per The Buffalo News). 

Groundbreaking for the stadium is set for Spring 2023 with it set to open in time for the 2026 season. The Bills will pay $350 million toward the stadium and will get a $200 million loan from the NFL through the league’s G-4 loan program. The stadium is estimated to hold around 62,000 fans.

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Herschel Walker’s lie-strewn candidacy for the US senate

For those who thought that in Donald trump, the Republican party had hit rock bottom with its support for a liar who speaks utter nonsense, let me introduce you to Herschel Walker, former professional football player and the current Republican candidate for the Georgia senate seat. Walker has also made bizarre lies about the 2020 election, saying that Joe Biden did not get even 50 million votes, when he actually got over 80 million. Trump has endorsed Walker for the Georgia senate race, no doubt seeing in him a kindred soul.

The senate race has been rocked by revelations about Walker. The most recent is a report in the Daily Beast alleging that, despite being an advocate of banning abortion with no exceptions at all, even for rape, incest or if the life of the mother was in danger, and wanting federal laws to be passed to ban it nationwide, he had paid for an abortion for a woman in 2009. His son Christian Walker, who is an ‘influencer’ on social media has put out a Tik-Tok blasting him for his lies and his pretensions to being a moral Christian who condemns absentee fathers, when in reality Walker has confirmed that he had three children out of wedlock and that he had pointed a gun at his wife’s head and threatened to kill her. Incidentally Christian Walker is a conservative Trump supporter who rails against ‘woke’ liberals on his social media accounts where he has a huge following.

It is also reported that Walker’s advisors were aware of this abortion story well in advance but hoped that it would not surface before the election
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How museums connive in the looting of the world

In yet another outstanding episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looks at the ugly history of how western countries looted the heritage of people around the world by robbing them of their historical artifacts in order to stock their museums and enrich themselves. He takes apart the excuses that are given by these museums to retain their stolen goods.

What I found particularly depressing was that only a tiny fraction of the looted items get displayed even in the museums of the western countries. Almost all of them are buried in their vaults so that no one gets to see them.

When people talk about historical wrongs, they often complain that it is hard to know how to rectify it. In most of these cases of looted items, it is not that hard. We know what the looted items are, we know where they came from, and who the rightful owners are. They must be returned.

2022 Nobel prize in physics goes to work on quantum entanglement

It was announced yesterday that Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have been jointly awarded the Nobel prize in physics for their experiments to test the effects of quantum entanglement. These experiments are both extremely important and extraordinarily difficult.

The story can be said to begin with the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper of 1935 where they seemed to suggest that the theory of quantum mechanics, by then already hailed as a massive success, had to be incomplete because there were elements of reality that were not represented in the theory. In their paper, they argued that in the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics that was embraced by most physicists, one could have situations where a measurement made on one particle could instantaneously influence the outcomes of a measurement on another particle however far away it was. Einstein felt that was ‘spooky’.
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Crackdown on ‘pig-butchering’ cyberscam

I wrote recently about being the target of the ugly cyberscam with the ugly name of ‘pig butchering’ that involves human trafficking, that operates largely out of Cambodia and neighboring countries. ProPublica had written a detailed expose of the scam and this may have possibly led Cambodian authorities to crack down on the practice.

A new type of online fraud emanating from scam sweatshops in Southeast Asia is facing its first major crackdown. Cambodian authorities have stepped up raids on compounds alleged to house workers engaging in online fraud, seizing computers, phones and electric shock batons and freeing thousands of involuntary workers. And Apple has removed from its app store two popular trading apps that cybercriminal groups in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have used to defraud people.

As ProPublica reported in a Sept. 13 investigation, pig butchering scams have been fueled by human trafficking. Workers from around Asia are tricked into going to Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar for seemingly well-paid jobs that instead trap them inside scam sweatshops run by Chinese criminal syndicates. Those who resist directives to engage in online fraud face beatings, food deprivation or worse.
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Dramatic reversal of UK’s tax cut for the wealthy

In an embarrassing turn of events for the Liz Truss government, while insisting late into Sunday night that they were going to stick with the plan to massively cut the tax rate for the wealthy that they had announced with pride but had sent the country reeling in all manner of ways, the government announced very early Monday morning, on the first day of the Conservative party conference, that they were scrapping it. They were clearly rattled by the rumblings of a rebellion by the party faithful at the conference that suggested that the measure might be defeated in parliament.

This article describes what happened on Sunday evening.
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