On Interstate 71, south of Columbus; Ohio’s most famous sign So it’s election time, which means CNN, etc. will be filled with pundits with only the vaguest credentials – never any PhDs - telling you why the outcome inevitably had to be such-and-such. (Retrodiction is so insufferably smug.) And they’ll explain it as if these tired clichés are real insights and not the same flim-flam they pedal every November. So let me predict the future:...
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Prewritten November 7 Openings
As this election is, by many accounts, "too close to call," I've generated different opening paragraphs for November 7. Each, I hope, confirms the retrospective "conventional wisdom." 1. If Romney wins a decisive victory In a surprisingly decisive victory that will draw inevitable comparisons to Ronald Reagan's 1980 defeat of Jimmy Carter, Mitt Romney defied the pollsters and statisticians to become the 45th President of the United States....
Politics in Everything: Michelle Obama’s Face Makes Kids Choose Healthy Treats
Via reader JW, an exceptional experiment from Yale: In a field experiment conducted during trick-or-treating at Halloween, we find that a visual cue of Michelle Obama prompts almost twice as many children age 9 and over to choose fruit over candy, compared to a visual cue of Ann Romney. This provides evidence that Michelle Obama’s campaign to promote healthy eating has succeeded in influencing behavior. No such evidence was found for children...
Steve Shapin Reviews Michael Gordin’s The Pseudoscience Wars
As readers might have surmised, a number of  the bloggers at the Duck are into the philosophy and history of science. PTJ has written an exceptional book on the philosophy of science in the context of international-relations scholarship. Others of us dabble, with varying degrees of commitment. When PTJ and I were working on "Paradigmatic Faults in International-Relations Theory" I was fortunate to be able to talk Kuhn and Lakatos with Michael...
Wombs and Periods: the real threat to national security
If you ever thought that emotion, mythology, and the uterus didn’t matter in foreign policy, reading debates about women in the military should change your mind. I expected some debate to ensue when Foreign Affairs agreed to publish an essay called Let Women Fight in their November/December issue (cough shamelessselfpromotion cough), but I was blown away by the comments posted on a preview of the article in the Daily Beast last week. Sure, many...
Sandy and Climate Change: Part II
In my last post, I noted that Hurricane Sandy has finally triggered a vigorous discussion about climate change, prompting much speculation about whether climate change had some role in causing the storm. I expressed some doubt whether this is the right question to ask, as it frequently has triggered feuds among climate analysts about the science of climate change and diverted limited attention from mobilizing people to act. But, let us suppose...
Thursday Morning Linkage
In honor of the upcoming election: "James K. Polk" by They Might Be Giants. Hot off the presses: Megan H. MacKenzie's Foreign Affairs article that advocates putting women in combat roles. Jason Fritz unloads in "the rank hypocrisy of veterans on OPSEC." This looks like an interesting short course for the international-relations theory set. Steve Saideman on the "irony" of Fox News as a "true American" foreign import. Brigit Meyer discusses one...
Alastair Reynolds, Blue Remembered Earth
I think Duck of Minerva readers will really enjoy this podcast. Lots on the near-future imaginary, technological change, and other topics of interest. From the write up at New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Blue Remembered Earth (Gollantz, 2012) takes place roughly 150 years in the future. Climate change, as well as the political and economic rise of Africa, have transformed the planet. Humanity is colonizing the solar system. Geoffrey...
Guest Post: What’s Wrong with the Human Security Report and the “Global Decline Claim”
This is a guest post by Amelia Hoover Green (Drexel University), Dara Kay Cohen (Harvard Kennedy School) and Elisabeth Jean Wood (Yale University). See also Megan H. MacKenzie's post and Andrew Mack's reply. tl;dr notice: 3,608 words The Human Security Report (HSR) released last week has attracted considerable attention in both the news media and the blogosphere (the debate is collected here), mostly related to its assertion that wartime sexual...
Halloween 2012, Nexon Style
We prepare to pillage for candy! No one got my costume's reference. So sad. Happy Halloween!
Are Sandy and Climate Change Related? Part I
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there is much discussion about whether climate change was responsible for the storm. I'm not sure this is the right question we need to be asking, unless we think that whether we respond to climate change hinges on an affirmative answer. Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and say that it does. We need to believe events like Sandy were caused or made more likely by climate change in some way for us to feel...
All Hallows’ Eve Linkage
The impact (so far) of the Syrian civil war on Hizballah (via Andrew Exum). UK conservatives want to export (further) austerity to the EU budget. Steve Saideman's take on the "future of Star Wars." John Scalzi thinks Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm is a good thing for the franchise. PTJ agrees. Indeed, it seems as if everyone is invoking the Marvel precedent. That's really all I have time for this morning. All the best to our readers and...