Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 12.27

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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8 Comments

  1. So if 78% of the American public thinks the temparture is rising, what then? A smaller number of them think the rising temperatures have anything to do with human effects on the environment, and a miniscule number of those are willing and trying to change their lifestyles to remedy the problem.
    I guess it’s interesting to laugh at or depair at the number of denialists that are around, but it seems otherwise a meaningless statistic.
    I need some hope, goddammit! Give me a stat that says fewer people are driving cars, please!

    1. Kaloikagathoi,

      Its a start at least, isn’t it? People will have to first accept that global warming is a reality, before we can convince them that man is the cause and something needs to be done about it.

        1. Agreed.

          People seems too afraid or uncertain as to what to do about this issue.

          I’d say education is the key (on alternative energy, what the individual can do), but that might not even be enough.

  2. I have seen the story about microbes surviving on Mars elsewhere, but none of the version explained what these microbes were finding to eat. Are they autotrophs?

    1. I think they forgot to test for that. Don’t know.

      Aren’t there microbes that eat iron or sulfur or some other substances that we find on Mars?

  3. Hey, ivy league, I’m neither diligent or hard-working! Pick me! Pick me! I’m an Asian “standout”!

    1. A number I didn’t see in that article was the percentage that Asian-Americans make up of the 18-21 age cohort in the USA. I believe this may have been deliberate–it seemed odd and kludgey that the graph had enrollment percentage as the first y-axis, and absolute number of Asian-Americans in thousands as the second y-axis. I believe the author was tiptoeing around the fact that Asian-Americans continue to be better represented in college admissions than almost any other ethnic subgroup, if not as much so as in the past, for fear it would seem to weaken the argument.

      That said, the “tightening” of the ivy league schools around 17% does indeed look suspicious as hell. I wish he had included a couple other elite non-ivy schools in addition to Caltech. (Are there any?)

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