It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened? “Citing evidence, ignoring appeals to authority, reserving judgment, demanding more research—these are potentially exhausting traits in a conversational partner, but they’re also marks of a scientific mind. Rather than being “anti-science,” [Robert F] Kennedy [Junior] seems enchanted by it. His accusatory book “The Real Anthony Fauci” (2021) is packed with discussions of clinical studies, and it bears a blurb from a Nobel-winning virologist. (Anyone worried about the lack of public appetite for complex writing should contemplate the fact that this nearly five-hundred-page, data-drenched work of nonfiction has sold more … Read More
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A new book reveals how Big Pharma’s brazen behavior fueled medical mistrust. “Five years before Purdue Pharma received FDA approval to begin selling OxyContin, an oxycodone pill that Purdue claimed was less prone to abuse, J&J [Johnson & Johnson] received the agency’s sign-off on its own opioid-based painkiller. Duragesic was a fentanyl patch that was initially given primarily to cancer patients who struggled with swallowing—a relatively limited market. As [investigative journalist and author of “No More Tears” Gardiner] Harris writes, doctors already knew that opioids were highly addictive; few of them “were willing to prescribe them in anything but the … Read More
“What exactly does it mean to know yourself? For neuroscientists, the answer is straightforward enough: Self-knowledge is the combination of two forms of information, direct appraisals (your own self-beliefs) and reflected appraisals (your perception of how others view you). The first generally employs the parts of the brain associated with a first-person perspective, such as the posterior cingulate; the second with regions associated with emotion and memory, such as the insula, orbitofrontal, and temporal cortex. [..] they [oracles at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi] no doubt meant “Know thyself accurately.” That is a much taller order, requiring a huge … Read More
“The tobacco and ultra-processed food industries exemplify the detrimental effects of corporate influence on public health. For decades, tobacco companies lobbied aggressively against health regulations, contributing to millions of preventable deaths worldwide. Despite still causing more than 8 million tobacco-related deaths annually, the tobacco industry now claims through its public-relations campaigns and selective science that it focuses on “harm reduction”, particularly by selling new products such as e-cigarettes. These tactics allow the industry to argue that it deserves a seat at the policy table, all while shifting to new types of addictive and harmful products, targeting youth, and continuing to oppose tobacco … Read More
“In more than two decades of research into how leaders’ decision-making has an impact on organizational success, I’ve uncovered a surprising insight: The most effective leaders aren’t the ones who seem to have all the answers. The most-effective leaders are those who question themselves. [..] Such ambivalence helps in several ways. Internal conflict helps us adapt to complex situations by forcing us to seek out more information and consider alternatives. Managers who don’t see everything as either positive or negative seek out expertise from others, incorporating that knowledge more than less-ambivalent leaders. It makes them more receptive to competing or … Read More