The problem of changing scientific conclusions

People tend to like certainty. One of the things that people get wrong about science is that they think it should provide them with that certainty. But scientific conclusions, while they tend to be the most reliable that we have at any given time, can change in the light of new evidence which is why results are usually phrased conditionally. Unfortunately that nuance is often missing when the media reports science results and this can be disconcerting for some people when new results seem to contradict the old. I deal with this question quite extensively in my book The Great Paradox of Science.
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Aftermath of the George Floyd verdict

Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all three counts for the murder of George Floyd. After a trial that lasted several weeks, the jury took less than 24 hours to arrive at its verdict, suggesting that it was not a hard call for them. The video showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes must have convinced the jury, as it convinced many people who had seen it, that there was no way that this killing could be excused or explained away.

I could not bear to watch the whole 9 minutes 29 second video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck and have not yet done so and likely never will. There is something so horrific of seeing someone’s life being slowly squeezed out before one’s very eyes that is too much for me to take. I cannot bear to see it even in films with actors playing roles. It was apparently shown multiple times during the trial and one can only wonder at how traumatic it must have been for the people in the courtroom to see it over and over again.
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Bankruptcy

For many ordinary people, declaring bankruptcy is a way to escape from crushing debt often caused by circumstances beyond their control, like health care bills, and start a new life, though it is never an easy out. In addition, they are made to feel ashamed for doing so. In 2005, the credit card companies lobbied for a new law that made made it much harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy. As a then senator, Joe Biden fought in favor of the new law, no doubt because his home state of Delaware is home to many credit card companies.

In yesterday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver describes how the current bankruptcy laws are confusing and hard to maneuver and of a new proposal to simplify it. Of course Republicans will filibuster it.

The proposed new European soccer league

UPDATE: Facing a massive backlash, all six UK clubs that had been part of the new ESL have withdrawn, pretty much torpedoing the whole project.. I am amazed that they did not anticipate the fierce reaction.

The world of soccer was thrown into turmoil by the announcement of the creation of a new European Super League of the richest twelve teams in Europe. Three other teams are expected to join them. The new league insists that they will continue to be part of the existing national leagues as well.

According to the ESL, the new format will involve midweek fixtures, with all participating clubs continuing to compete in their respective national leagues, “preserving the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game”.

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Trump’s political future

I have been wondering about Trump’s political future. These are the possibilities:

  1. He decides not to run again for the presidency.
  2. He runs for the presidency again in 2024 but loses the nomination to another Republican.
  3. He runs and wins the nomination but loses the election.
  4. He runs and wins the nomination and the presidential election.

What are the pros and cons and likelihoods of each?
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Creating a more accurate flat map of the Earth

Projecting the surface of a globe on to a flat surface always introduces distortions. Richard Gott, Dave Goldberg, and Bob Vanderbei claim to have created created a projection that minimizes the errors more than any projection before.

Previously, Goldberg and I identified six critical error types a flat map can have: local shapes, areas, distances, flexion (bending), skewness (lopsidedness) and boundary cuts. These are illustrated by the famous Mercator projection, the base template for Google maps. It has perfect local shapes but is bad at depicting areas. Greenland appears as large as South America even though it covers only one seventh the area on the globe.
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Time to close Guantanamo Bay prison and end all occupation of Cuba

The prison camp at Guantanamo bay in Cuba that houses so-called ‘enemy combatants’ has been an atrocity, with those taken into custody in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ being housed there and subject to torture and the denial of basic human rights such as being held indefinitely under appalling conditions and without prospect of a trial, or force-feeding hunger strikers. Calling them ‘enemy combatants’ instead of ‘prisoners of war’ is the fig-leaf used by the US government to violate the Geneva Conventions .The US likes the fact that the ambiguous status of the prison territory enables it to skirt US law in the way it treats detainees. enabling substantial abuses.
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The Sackler family epitomizes greed and sleaziness

I have written many times before about the Sackler family that made billions of dollars by pushing their company Purdue Pharmaceuticals to get doctors to overprescribe the opioid painkiller OxyContin and making the dosage stronger, resulting in the massive drug addiction problem we have now that have caused so many deaths.

Investigative reporter Patrick Radden Keefe has written a new book Empire of Pain about the Sackler family and he was interviewed on the radio program Fresh Air about how the family went to great efforts to push the drug while at the same time keeping their name separate from the company so that they could build up their reputations as philanthropists and have their name attached to many public and university buildings. He explained how they are trying to shield their personal fortunes from the many lawsuits against them by shifting company money into their private accounts and then putting the company into bankruptcy.
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