Confronting Mediocrity

There is a credible case to be made that most published research is false. This notion was popularized in a 2005 essay by Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis titled “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” [1] As of this writing, the article has been viewed 2,833,883 times and cited 3,271 times. Several reasons have been … More Most published research is false – what does that mean for you?

Yes, again… Admittedly, I was behind the curve realizing that we may be in the throes of the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history. It wasn’t until 2014, after reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” [1] that I posted my first article referencing it, “Humans are a minor perturbation in the … More Oh no! Not that mass extinction thing again!

Strength comes in many different forms. What I’ve come to realize is that the person with the greatest strength is the one that remains positive when facing the greatest of adversities. I don’t know what the difference is between two people who face similar, overwhelming challenges and one responds with doom and withdrawal and the … More The strong among us.

A medical reversal is when an existing treatment is shown to be ineffective due to better quality research. Some estimates are than half of all medical treatments are ineffective or useless. And yet, despite the evidence that a treatment doesn’t work, many health-care providers continue to use them. This is a call to action for … More How medical reversals impact your health care.

Kelly Clarkson notwithstanding [1], it’s widely recognized that German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I would suggest a slight modification to reflect current times, and maybe the human psyche, by saying “that which does not kill us, gets more attention than that which does.” One of the … More That which does not kill us, dominates the news.

You hear that expression as a kid all the time. Run through the finish line at the end of a race no matter how tired you are. Finish strong. Hold your head up. Never stop. Never surrender. Run through the finish line. That’s great advice for a youngster, but how many of us live our … More Running through the finish line.

“Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.” – Carl Sagan “All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.” – Vernon Howard It’s such a human thing to do, isn’t it? Repeatedly doing something that’s harmful to ourselves simply because it feels good. Or choosing … More Will logic and reason ever empower us to stop eating meat?

A recurring theme of this blog is that humans are peculiar creatures. One of our peculiarities is that each person has personal preferences for just about everything and anything. Name anything and you’re likely to find that people will have large and subtle variations in how they prefer it. Food, cars, clothes, weather, games, and … More The societal implications of indulging preferences.

Have you noticed humans are always competing against each other? Have you ever paused to think why that’s true – and if it needs to be true? Competition is the foundation of what has allows us to succeed and by us, I mean our species. Without a competitive spirit, a species is ill-equipped to survive … More Competition as a hindrance to our existance.

Florida algae – out of sight, out of mind? Out of sight, but probably not fully out of mind. The google trend chart below shows the relative number of searches for the word “algae” in the United States. It’s clear the peak searching was last summer at the height of the algae disaster. That’s quite … More Climate change is relentless. Just ask the Aussies about their algae blooms.