Author: Thomas

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer-winning journalist and developer of the 1619 Project, was appointed to a tenured professorship at UNC Chapel Hill. This is a position that is funded by the Knight foundation. However, a board of old white lawyers who happen to be the Trustees of the University, denied Hannah-Jones tenure, against the recommendations of, well… everyone who should matter in the decision making process. Many people have made bad faith arguments and whataboutisms, but Dr. Lindsey Osterman (tenured professor) is here to give us real perspective on it.

NYT: Nikole Hannah-Jones Denied Tenure, The 1619 Project, UNC Chapel Hill Faculty Handbook, Hussman School of Journalism Tenure Procedures, Open letter from the Hussman faculty, “We Are Critics of Nikole Hannah-Jones. Her Tenure Denial Is A Travesty.”, Criticisms of her appointment, NYT note explaining revision of Hannah-Jones’s essay, NC Policy Watch’s Special Report on NHJ’s tenure denial

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The CDC recently made a surprise announcement that vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks, with only a few exceptions. This was greeted with some excitement, but also with vigorous pushback by people on the left. So what’s the science behind this decision, and what are the practical concerns? We break it down!
Then, we talk about a very premature victory lap taken by Bret Weinstein over the lab-leak hypothesis being confir… I mean not quite technically disproven.
***FACTUAL CORRECTION*** I said that 27 states never had mask mandates. I misread that. 27 didn’t have them in place at the time of the CDC’s announcement. 11 states never had mandates.
Links: CDC Updates To Recommendations, CDC Science Brief, KFF Report on Vaccine Hesitancy/Enthusiasm, Science Letter, “Investigate the origins of COVID-19”, NYT Article on Science Letter

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It’s part 2 of our debunk of the disgraceful anti-vaccine garbage being spewed from the Dark Horse Podcast. It’s a YouTube show featuring two biologists who ABSOLUTELY should know better, but don’t.
Since I forgot links on part 1, here are ALL the links:
Two articles who interview experts about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines: 1, 2; Edited Fauci clip; Longer Fauci clip; Summary of WHO report on origins of COVID-19 pandemic; WaPo article about Joe Rogan; The Atlantic, The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man; Worst Year Ever, “Vaccines are Dope;” Absolute vs. relative risk reduction; Salk Institute news release about spike proteins study; That elusive full text article about spike proteins; CDC Chart of Risk By Age:; FDA, on Ivermectin; NIH, on Ivermectin; “Ivermectin and Covid-19: How a cheap antiparasitic became political”

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Joe Rogan said healthy, young people shouldn’t get the COVID vaccine. This is dangerous and anti-science and incorrect. Though Rogan apologized, Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein took to their YouTube channel to double down on Rogan’s claims and do further damage to the cause of science and the effort to vaccinate and protect the public against this deadly disease. It’s shameful, and Lindsey is here to explain why they are wrong.

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We got some great questions from patrons, and we ended up answering almost all of them! They include: How did Sam Harris end up being so wrong? Should we ignore the Supreme Court? Evopsych, non-lethal weapons, parasocial relationships, and more!

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This is the second part of our racial bias in criminal justice episodes. This one focuses on sentencing, and explores studies showing just how desperate the death penalty is, and how racial bias drives that.

Baldus et al (1998) -Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era Eberhardt et al (2006) – Looking deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black defendants predicts capital-sentencing outcomes
Eberhardt et al (2004) – Seeing Black: Race, crime, and visual processing 

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This episode is the sequel to the last one, so make sure to check that out. I go into the “whataboutism” around the AHA Dawkins award thing, and talk about a really terrible thing another atheist said that I think people should know about.

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Sorry, we interrupt the scheduled programming to bring you a yelly rant episode about how terrible all the arguments around the Richard Dawkins humanist award revocation are. It’s a bunch of the “smartest people on the internet” saying really stupid things and I’ve had enough. 

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Official co-host Dr. Lindsey Osterman is here to give us a breakdown of some studies measuring racial bias in Criminal Justice. Part 1 talks about split decision shooting studies, part 2 will focus on sentencing discrepancies.

Links: Meta-analysis on racial bias in first-person shooter tasks,  Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot, When Fatigue Turns Deadly: The Effects of Cognitive Depletion and Sleep Deprivation on the Decision To Shoot, When Practice Fails to Reduce Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot: The Case of Cognitive Load

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Here is Part 2 of our debunking of a book by Dr. Debra Soh called “The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.” Soh is someone with a relevant credential, which perhaps makes her anti-trans schtick even more dangerous. Within the text are kernels of truth about the science of sex and gender, but she abuses that science beyond recognition to defend cultural conservative norms. Lindsey has the breakdown for us!

Links: (for both parts)

Proposal about the definition of “sex,” Nature editorial responding to the definition, Teen vogue video on gender diversity, Myth of persistence, Response to Soh re: rapid onset gender dysphoria, Original study on ROGD, Transgender suicide, Review on current best practices in care of transgender youth

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