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What shapes are made by a spinning needle? This seemingly innocent problem has puzzled mathematicians for decades, but now a new proof is being called the biggest result of the current century as it could help solve many other tricky problems

As a sociologist interested in the scientific study of social life, I’ve long been concerned about the ideological bent of much of sociology. Many sociologists reject outright the idea of sociology as a science and instead prefer to engage in political activism. Others subordinate scientific to activist goals, and are unclear as to what they believe sociology’s purpose should be. Still others say different things depending on the audience.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) does the latter. In December 2023, the Board of Governors of Florida’s state university system removed an introductory sociology course from the list of college courses that could be taken to fulfil part of the general education requirement. It seemed clear that sociology’s reputation for progressive politics played a role in the decision. Florida’s Commissioner of Education, for example, wrote that sociology had been hijacked by political activists.1 The ASA denied the charge and went on to declare that sociology is “the scientific study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.”

While that definition certainly aligns with my vision of what sociology should be, it contrasts with another recent statement made by the ASA itself when announcing last year’s annual conference theme. The theme is “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of Hope, Justice, and Joy,” which, as the ASA website explains, “emphasizes sociology as a form of liberatory praxis: an effort to not only understand structural inequities, but to intervene in socio-political struggles.”2 It’s easy to see how Florida’s Commissioner of Education somehow got the idea that sociology has become infused with ideology.

The ASA’s statement in defense of sociology as the science of social life seems insincere. That’s unfortunate—we really do need a science of social life if we’re going to understand the social world better. And we need to understand the world better if we’re going to effectively pursue social justice. The ASA’s brand of sociology as liberatory praxis leads not only to bad sociology, but also to misguided efforts to change the world. As I’ve argued in my book How to Think Better About Social Justice, if we’re going to change the world for the better, we need to make use of the insights of sociology. But bad sociology only makes things worse.

Contemporary social justice activism tends to draw from a sociological perspective known as critical theory. Critical theory is a kind of conflict theory, wherein social life is understood as a struggle for domination. It is rooted in Marxist theory, which viewed class conflict as the driver of historical change and interpreted capitalist societies in terms of the oppression of wage laborers by the owners of the means of production. Critical theory understands social life similarly, except that domination and oppression are no longer simply about economic class but also race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, gender identity, and much more.

There are two problems with social justice efforts informed by critical theory. First, this form of social justice—often called “critical social justice” by supporters and “wokeism” by detractors—deliberately ignores the insights that might come from other sociological perspectives. Critical theory, like conflict theory more broadly, is just one of many theoretical approaches in a field that includes a number of competing paradigms. It’s possible to view social life as domination and oppression, but it’s also possible to view it as a network of relationships, or as an arena of rational transactions similar to a marketplace, or as a stage where actors play their parts, or as a system where the different parts contribute to the functioning of the whole. If you’re going to change the social world, it’s important to have some understanding of how social life works, but there’s no justification for relying exclusively on critical theory.

The second problem is that, unlike most other sociological perspectives, critical theory assumes an oppositional stance toward science. This is partly because critical theory is intended not just to describe and explain the world, but rather to change it—an approach the ASA took in speaking of sociology as “liberatory praxis.” However, the problem isn’t just that critical theory prioritizes political goals over scientific ones, it’s that it also sees science as oppressive and itself in need of critique and dismantling. The claim is that scientific norms and scientific knowledge—just like other norms and other forms of knowledge in liberal democratic societies—have been constructed merely to serve the interests of the powerful and enable the oppression of the powerless.

Critical theory makes declarations about observable aspects of social reality, but because of its political commitments and its hostile stance toward scientific norms, it tends to act more like a political ideology than a scientific theory. As one example, consider Ibram X. Kendi’s assertions about racial disparities. Kendi, a scholar and activist probably best known for his book How to Be an Antiracist, has said, “As an anti-racist, when I see racial disparities, I see racism.”3 The problem with this approach is that while racism is one possible cause of racial disparities (and often the main cause!), in science, our theories need to be testable, and they need to be tested. Kendi doesn’t put his idea forward as a proposition to be tested but instead as a fundamental truth not to be questioned. In any true science, claims about social reality must be formulated into testable hypotheses. And then we need to actually gather the evidence. Usually what we find is variation, and this case is likely to be no different. That is, we’re likely to find that in some contexts racism has more of a causal role than in others.

We often want easy answers to social problems. Social justice activists might be inclined to turn to would-be prophets who proclaim what seems to be the truth, rather than to scientists who know we have to do the legwork required to understand and address things. Yes, science gives us imperfect knowledge, and it points to the difficulties we encounter when changing the world… but since we live in a world of tradeoffs, there are seldom easy answers to social problems. We can’t create a perfect world—utopia isn’t possible—so any kind of social justice rooted in reality must try to increase human flourishing while recognizing that not all problems can be eliminated, certainly not easily or quickly.

What does it all mean? For one, we should be much more skeptical about one of critical theory’s central claims—that the norms and institutions of liberal democratic societies are simply disguised tools of oppression. Do liberal ideals such as equality before the law, due process, free speech, free markets, and individual rights simply mask social inequalities so as to advance the interests of the powerful? Critical theorists don’t really subject this claim to scientific scrutiny. Instead, they take the presence of inequalities in liberal societies as selfsufficient evidence that liberalism is responsible for these failures. Yet any serious attempt to pursue social justice informed by scientific understanding of the world would involve comparing liberal democratic societies with other societies, both present and past.

Scientific sociology can’t tell us the best way to organize a society and social justice involves making tradeoffs among competing values. We may never reach a consensus on what kind of society is best, but we should consider the possibility that liberal democracies seem to provide the best framework we yet know of for pursuing social justice effectively. At the very least, they provide mechanisms for peacefully managing disputes in an imperfect world.

Researchers have criticised Microsoft's new Majorana 1 quantum computer, saying it has made claims about the way it works that aren't fully backed up by scientific evidence

Ask almost any physicist what the most frustrating problem is in modern-day physics, and they will likely say the discrepancy between general relativity and quantum mechanics. That discrepancy has been a thorn in the side of the physics community for decades. While there has been some progress on potential theories that could rectify the two, there has been scant experimental evidence to support those theories. That is where a new NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts grantee comes in - Selim Shahriar from Northwestern University, Evanston, was recently funded to work on a concept called the Space-borne Ultra-Precise Measurement of the Equivalent Principle Signature of Quantum Gravity (SUPREME-GQ), which he hopes will help collect some accurate experimental data on the subject once and for all.

For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various kinds of stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Now a Phase I clinical trial is under way studying the latest stem cell technology, autologous induced pluripotent stem cells, for this purpose. This history of cell therapy for PD tells us a lot about the potential and challenges of stem cell therapy.

PD has always been an early target for stem cell therapy because of the nature of the disease. It is caused by degeneration in a specific population of neurons in the brain – dopamine neurons in the substantial nigra pars compacta (SNpc). These neurons are part of the basal ganglia circuitry, which make up the extrapyramidal system. What this part of the brain does, essentially, is to modulate voluntary movement. One way to think about it is that is modulates the gain of the connection between the desire the move and the resulting movement – it facilitates movement. This circuitry is also involved in reward behaviors.

When neurons in the SNpc are lost the basal ganglia is less able to facilitate movement; the gain is turned down. Patients with PD become hypokinetic – they move less. It becomes harder to move. They need more of a will to move in order to initiate movement. In the end stage, patients with PD can become “frozen”.

The primary treatment for PD is dopamine or a dopamine agonist. Sinemet, which contains L-dopa, a precursor to dopamine, is one mainstay treatment. The L-dopa gets transported into the brain where it is made into dopamine.  These treatments work as long as there are some SNpc neurons left to convert the L-dopa and secrete the dopamine. There are also drugs that enhance dopamine function or are direct dopamine agonists. Other drugs are cholinergic inhibitors, as acetylcholine tends to oppose the action of dopamine in the basal ganglia circuits. These drugs all have side effects because dopamine and acetylcholine are used elsewhere in the brain. Also, without the SNpc neurons to buffer the dopamine, end-stage patients with PD go through highly variable symptoms based upon the moment-to-moment drug levels in their blood. They become hyperkinetic, then have a brief sweet-spot, and then hypokinetic, and then repeat that cycle with the next dose.

The fact that PD is the result of a specific population of neurons making a specific neurotransmitter makes it an attractive target for cell therapy. All we need to do is increase the number of dopamine neurons in the SNpc and that can treat, and even potentially cure, PD. The first cell transplant for PD was in 1987, in Sweden. These were fetal-derived dopamine producing neurons. There treatments were successful, but they are not a cure for PD. The cells release dopamine but they are not connected to the basal ganglia circuitry, so they are not regulating the release of dopamine in a feedback circuit. In essence, therefore, these were just a drug-delivery system. At best they produced the same effect as best pre-operative medication management. In fact, the treatment only works in patients who respond to L-dopa given orally. The transplants just replace the need for medication, and make it easier to maintain a high level of control.

They also have a lot of challenges. How long do the transplanted cells survive in the brain? What are the risks of the surgery. Is immunosuppressive treatment needed. And where do we get the cells from. The only source that worked was human ventral mesencephalic dopamine neurons from recent voluntary abortions. This limited the supply, and also created regulatory issues, being banned at various times. Attempts at using animal derived cells failed, as did using adrenal cells from the patient.

Therefore, when the technology developed to produce stem cells from the patient’s own cells, it was inevitable that this would be tried in PD. These are typically fibroblasts that are altered to turn them into pluripotent stem cells, which are then induced to form into dopamine producing neurons. This eliminates the need for immunosuppression, and avoid any ethical or legal issues with harvesting. PD would seem like the low hanging fruit for autologous stem cell therapy.

But – it has run up against the issues that we have generally encountered with this technology, which is why you may have first heard of this idea in the early 2000s and here in 2025 we are just seeing a phase I clinical trial. One problem is getting the cells to survive for long enough to make the whole procedure worthwhile. The cells not only need to survive, they need to thrive, and to produce dopamine. This part we can do, and while this remains an issue for any new therapy, this is generally not the limiting factor.

Of greater concern is how to keep the cells from thriving too much – from forming a tumor. There is a reason our bodies are not already flush with stem cells, ready to repair any damage, rejuvenate any effects of aging, and replace any exhausted cells. It’s because they tend to form tumors and cancer. So we have just as many stem cells as we need, and no more. What we “need” is an evolutionary calculation, and not what we might desire. Our experience with stem cell therapy has taught us the wisdom of evolution – stem cells are a double-edged sword.

Finally, it is especially difficult to get stem cells in the brain to make meaningful connections and participate in brain circuitry. I just attended a grand round on stem cells for stroke, and there they are having the same issue. However, stem cells can still be helpful, because they can improve the local environment, allowing native neurons to survive and function better. With PD we are again back to – the stem cells are a great dopamine delivery system, but they don’t fix the broken circuitry.

There is still the hope (but it is mainly a hope at this point) that we will be able to get these stem cells to actually replace lost brain cells, but we have not achieved that goal yet. Some researchers I have spoken to have given up on that approach. They are focusing on using stem cells as a therapy, not a cure – as a way to deliver treatments and improve the environment, to support neurons and brain function, but without the plan to replace neurons in functional circuits.

But the allure of curing neurological disease by transplanting new neurons into the brain to actually fix brain circuits is simply too great to give up entirely. Research will continue to push in this direction (and you can be sure that every mainstream news report about this research will focus on this potential of the treatment). We may just need some basic science breakthrough to figure out how to get stem cells to make meaningful connections, and breakthroughs are hard to predict. We had hoped they would just do it automatically, but apparently they don’t. In the meantime, stem cells are still a very useful treatment modality, just more for support than replacement.

The post Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to change CDC messaging about vaccines to emphasize "informed consent." What he really means is misinformed refusal.

The post Misinformed refusal: What antivaxxers really mean when they invoke “informed consent” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Meet Aaryan Shukla, a 14-year-old boy from India, and one of those kids who has this mysterious ability to do mathematics in his head–very rapidly. Here he tries to set a number of Guinness records in one day. He set six!

The records (he tried for ten): all involve the speed with wich Aaryan got a successful answer.

Adding  100 4-digit numbers
Adding 200 4-digit numbers
Adding 50 5-digit numbers
Dividing a 20-digit number by a 10-digit number
Multiplying two five digit numbers (a set of 10)
Mutiplying two eight-digit numbers (a set of 10)

Of course you could produce an infinite number of categories to test, but it’s clear this young man has amazing abilities. Does anyone know how he does it? I have no idea! And I wonder if this skill could help him get a job, or whether his abilities translate into other abilities that could secure lucrative employment.

ADDENDUM:  See added comments and clarifications under “addendum” at bottom.

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I’ve written many times about the battle of the indigenous people in New Zealand (the Māori) to get their “way of knowing”—which includes a lot of superstition and unreliable word-of-mouth “knowledge,” as well as legends and morality—adopted as official policy or as a “way of knowing” that is equivalent to science.  This push demands an extreme and unjustifiable form of affirmative action, supported, say the activists, by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi made between the locals and European “colonists.” (In the Māori language it’s called “Te Tiriti”.)

The culture war—and there really is one—is fomented not by the “colonists” (descendants of Europeans) as the WaPo implies,  but by the Māori themselves, who argue that the Treaty essentially entitles them to half of everything in the country. This is not even equity, for Māori comprise about 18% of the population.  But the issue is with the Treaty, which, say indigenous people, is in effect the official Constitution of New Zealand. It isn’t, because it really specifies only three things (from Wikipedia):

• Article one of the Māori text grants governance rights to the Crown while the English text cedes “all rights and powers of sovereignty” to the Crown.
• Article two of the Māori text establishes that Māori will retain full chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures while the English text establishes the continued ownership of the Māori over their lands and establishes the exclusive right of pre-emption of the Crown.
• Article three gives Māori people full rights and protections as British subjects.

Note that this says nothing about more modern problems, like who gets hired for jobs or accepted in college, what projects get funded, or what gets taught in classes. Yet that’s the way the Māori have interpreted it.

To create a more modern law, a libertarian “colonist” in parliament, David Seymour, introduced a “Treaty Principles Bill” that, he says, will remedy the Māori interpretation of Te Tiriti by banning discrimination but also providing equal opportunities for everyone. Seymour is the leader of the ACT New Zealand party, which Wikipedia describes, confusingly, as “a right-wing, classical liberal, right-libertarian, and conservative political party in New Zealand”. (I believe it would be seen as “centrist” in the U.S.)

My non-Māori friends in NZ, while opposing the extreme privileges given to indigenous people, nevertheless say that the Treaty Principles Bill is confusing, but still think that the 1840 Treaty is outdated and needs some legislative tweaking, especially to eliminate the whole passel of special privileges the courts and government have conferred on the Māori.  And even the Prime Minister of the country, Christopher Luxon, elected partly to eliminate wokeness, has says the bill is dead. The Luxon government has failed to stop the Woke Train set in motion by the Ardern government.

Needless to say, the Māori hate the new bill and want to keep adhering to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Here’s the reaction (described in the WaPo article below), of the youngest member of New Zealand’s Parliament, Hana-Rawhitie Maipiu-Ckarke, only 22. Below you can see her tearing up the new bill and performing a haka (a traditional war dance to intimidate the enemy) in Parliament. She is joined by other like-minded lawmakers,  but the video went viral and inspired thousands of people to write in or give oral testimony opposing the Treaty Principles Bill. Note, however, that given the atmosphere of intimidation in NZ, public support of the bill would seriously endanger people’s jobs or well being.

Read the WaPo article by clicking below (it’s also archived here):

The article is sympathetic to the Māori, who were indeed once treated very badly by Europeans. But it distorts not only the advantages that the law has now given them over Europeans, and the dangers of opposing their increasing drive for not only equity, but more than equity. This demand for Even More Than Equity is what has ignited the culture war, most prominently in the schools, and, on this site, in the science classroom. (Remember the money allocated to rub whale oil on kauri trees and play whale songs to them, all catering to a Māori legend that the whale and trees were brothers, creating the notion that whale oil and songs could kill the microorganism blight that’s killing the trees? (It won’t, and the money came from taxpayers.)

The WaPo distorts the treaty grossly, saying stuff like this:

The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today.

As you can see from Article 2 of Te Tiriti above, this is either a lie or a distortion that could have been easily corrected had the author looked at the treaty. The Māori retained their lands.

In the end, this is a fight about extreme affirmative action, and I can’t help but sympathize a bit with Seymour, who, noting the great legal advantages Māori have over all other New Zealanders (there are also about 18% Asians in the country),

. . . has insisted his Treaty Principles Bill merely “gives every New Zealander the same rights and dignity” and would ensure “the Treaty can no longer be used to justify separate public services, race-based health waitlists, and creeping co-governance.”

This equal rights and opportunities notion is anathema to indigenous people.  And so the Treaty Principles Bill is, in effect, dead, an ex-bill, singing with the Choir Invisible.  Even Luxon admits this. There is no sign that equal opportunities rather than group preferences will come to pass in New Zealand.

The article goes on to valorize the indigenous people, implying that even now they are experiencing a form of Jim-Crow-like segregation and bias similar to that of the American South in the late 18th and early 19th century. That is simply not true.

But I’ll hand my commentary over to a Kiwi friend who know about America, and tried to explain everything to me when I asked the anonymous friend “what the hell is going on over there?”

His/her answer is below the line, with the words indented, and quotes doubly indented. The last full paragraph sums up the situation, but if you read what’s below, you’ll get a good understanding of what is going on in New Zealand.  As I said, WaPo and Wikipedia quotes are doubly indented, but I’ve also put them in quotes.

========================

Here are a few comments that may be helpful – I find that Americans can be flummoxed by NZ treaty discussions.  *Every* *single* *element* of the discussion seems be in active dispute, with high emotions and no obvious way of resolving the issue.

Here are a few tips for American brains trying to understand the NZ Treaty debates: NZ’s political system is UK-derived, so there is no single written constitution. There are a variety of documents and laws that make up “the constitution”. Wikipedia seems to have it:

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“The constitution of New Zealand is the sum of laws and principles that determine the political governance of New Zealand. Unlike many other nations, New Zealand has no single constitutional document.[1][2] It is an uncodified constitution, sometimes referred to as an “unwritten constitution”, although the New Zealand constitution is in fact an amalgamation of written and unwritten sources.[3][4] The Constitution Act 1986 has a central role,[5] alongside a collection of other statutes, orders in Council, letters patent, decisions of the courts, principles of the Treaty of Waitangi,[1][6] and unwritten traditions and conventions. There is no technical difference between ordinary statutes and law considered “constitutional law”; no law is accorded higher status.[7][8] In most cases the New Zealand Parliament can perform “constitutional reform” simply by passing acts of Parliament, and thus has the power to change or abolish elements of the constitution. There are some exceptions to this though – the Electoral Act 1993 requires certain provisions can only be amended following a referendum.[9]”

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So, this passage in the WashPo article is confused in several ways:

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“The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today. Maori experience worse health, greater poverty and higher incarceration rates than the non-Maori population.

But the treaty has become New Zealand’s de facto constitution. In recent decades, Parliament and the courts have come to see it as promising Maori, who make up almost 20 percent of the population, significant decision-making powers and special protections.”

=============

It would be accurate to say this: “But the treaty has become *part of* New Zealand’s de facto constitution”, but no one would say it’s the whole constitution. Very obviously, it says nothing about elections, parliaments, etc etc.  But it’s not “the constitution”.  The actual Constitution Acts started some years after the Treaty:

===============

“The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. 72) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that granted self-government to the Colony of New Zealand. It was the second such Act, the previous 1846 Act not having been fully implemented.[1] The purpose of the Act was to have constitutional independence from Britain.[2] The definition of franchise or the ability to vote excluded all women, most Māori, all non-British people and those with convictions for serious offences.[3]

The Act remained in force as part of New Zealand’s constitution until it was rendered redundant by the Constitution Act 1986.”

===============

It’s also weird to say, “The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today.”  The 1840 Treaty explicitly said that (a) Maori should have the rights and privileges of British subjects, and (b) only the Crown could buy land from them. These were some of the provisions to protect Maori.  So, the sentence should have said “(some) of NZ’s indigenous population were violently dispossessed of their lands, despite the Treaty”.  Without the Treaty, the previous situation would have applied, which was random whalers and pirates and settlers making and breaking land deals outside of any governmental regulation.

Regarding the modern debate & the WashPo article:

– I think it would be true to say that David Seymour & supporters are motivated by (a) the idea that the meaning of the Treaty/”treaty priniciples” have become pretty much an exercise in free association, used to justify whatever the left wants at the moment; (b) in particular, two that were highly controversial were the last government’s attempt to split up important things by race — e.g., the national health service, the attempted “Three Waters” reform of water districts etc.; (c) Seymour’s also got an eye for building his own brand/notoriety and that of his ACT Party.  ACT is often called “far right” but as far as I can tell they are socially liberal libertarians.

ACT is also starting to pay attention to the education and university mess. The dominant National Party seems to mostly avoid these topics, although there have been some improvements, and the National-ACT-NZFirst coalition plans to introduce academic freedom legislation sometime soon.

– As for the response, the National Party views ACT’s treaty principles bill as a headache; but they were forced into it to put the coalition together.  They presumably will vote it down.  However, it’s created a massive opportunity for both ACT and Te Pati Maori (the Maori Party – by no means do all Maori vote for this party) to rile up their base and get attention. Te Pati Maori is beset by other scandals, though, and even the haka-in-parliament stunt had mixed reactions locally and abroad (I recall seeing it mocked on the Jimmy Kimmel show) – if I had to bet, I’d say the coalition will win the next election, but who knows?

– While politically, ACT’s treaty principles bill might work for them, I don’t see it as the best approach myself. I think what we desperately need in New Zealand is some textual originalism, interpreting the treaty on its own terms in the context of its time, and not trying to turn it into either:

(a) a mandate for anti-democratic moves like making every institution, governmental or not, having a 50-50 power share between Maori and non-Maori representatives (the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union (TEU) rammed this through in early 2023 in the waning months of the Labour government. Very few people spoke out about it (many left long before this, the majority of faculty are not in the TEU), some left the TEU afterwards, for spending $850/year to make a mockery of democratic values is not everyone’s cup of tea.)  or

(b) trying to turn the Treaty into a full mandate for the modern system, which is what Seymour is trying to do, also seems non-textual.  One thing the National Party gets right is their basic claim that democracy is self-justifying, and that sovereignty resides with the people in a democratic system; and it’s been that way for 100+ years.  The Treaty wasn’t a full constitution, and we shouldn’t try to pretend it was; and we don’t need it to be.

I think everyone on both sides should study the example of the Australian referendum on an “Indigenous Voice” for the Australian Parliament in late 2023. This initially had some support of both left and right, but when the actual proposal came out, everything fell apart, and it was voted down strongly—and probably fatally wounded the current Labour government. Part of the problem was that the proposal was supposed to be a major Constitutional change, but no exact statutory language was being voted on, and what was proposed was quite vague, with uncertain implications on how it would function and how much power it would have.

It is possible that New Zealand’s recent experience with “mission creep” and “language creep” was influential for some — e.g., many have the perception that in NZ, the modern Treaty discussion started with recognising its historical importance and creating the Waitangi Tribunal to address specific historical grievances between an iwi (tribe) and the Crown (the government), but in recent years many have tried to take it all the way to the requirement of mandatory co-governance of all government and nongovernment institutions and activities, including secondary schools, universities and including all subjects — with any opposition to any of this declared to be far-rightist racism. What activists mean by co-governance varies, but it’s pretty clear that what the activists really want is institutional power assigned by race, often 50/50 Maori vs. non-Maori, and they don’t merely mean “everyone gets to participate in governance, because this is a democracy and we can all vote and run for office, regardless of race”, which of course New Zealand has had for a long time.)

[News story from Australia: Why the Voice failed, October 16, Australian Broadcasting Corporation]

ADDENDUM FROM CORRESPONDENT:

If I could make a few clarifications on the material before the anonymous post:

1. I would be careful about referring to “the Māori”, especially about “their” political views. Like everyone else, there is considerable political (and religious etc) diversity among Māori. While you can say they are broadly supportive of the Treaty of Waitangi (there is a annual national holiday about it, after all), for any specific debate about what it means for particular questions like co-governance, science education, etc, there would be lots of diversity. Te Pati Māori (the Māori Party) currently represents the Maori activist position, but it doesn’t get a majority of even Maori votes, and there are ongoing scandals about misuse of census data to bring TPM voters to the polls during the last election, so it may be yet another episode where TPM gets a few seats one election, and loses them the next.

(Notably there is diversity between iwi/tribes as well as between individuals. After awhile in NZ you detect that some iwi had good relationships with the Crown at various historical points, others had wars with each other and with the Crown, some have longstanding grievances, others don’t, or did but have had their grievances resolved with Treaty Resolution agreements put together by the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal, endorsed by an iwi, and approved by Parliament.)

2. One way of showing the political diversity among Maori is to note that the current Centre-Right government is made of 3 parties: the National Party (headed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon), the ACT Party (headed by David Seymour), and New Zealand First Party (headed by Winston Peters). Both David Seymour and Winston Peters are…Maori! Winston Peters, I believe, even once headed Te Pati Maori back in the 1970s and won a number of seats that way for some years.

3. The phrases about “changing the Treaty” are incorrect. There is no attempt to literally re-write the Treaty, and no mechanism for doing so. The Treaty is a historical document. It is rather like the US Declaration of Independence, or the Magna Carta. These documents provide inspiration and context, but they are not themselves law, except insofar as codified by laws passed by the legislature.

This is confusing because Americans think of “treaties” as detailed legal agreements with other countries, which are passed by 2/3 of the Senate and then become binding statutory domestic law. This sort of framework did not exist in New Zealand in 1840. It is nevertheless important of course, and the things specifically agreed in 1840 would probably be considered binding by modern courts, e.g. if, in modern times, the government tried to confiscate Maori land, a court would presumably rule it illegal and cite the Treaty (that this was often not the case for much of New Zealand’s history is a legitimate grievance, which the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal is supposed to help eventually resolve). However, detailed modern policy proposals, like splitting the National Health Service along racial lines (or even trying to effect some similar carving-up of intellectual space, e.g. in science education) goes far beyond anything one could call a legal mandate of the Treaty.

So the debate is really about the interpretation of the Treaty, in which language (English or te rep Maori) and what that says about what government laws and policies should be. The 2017-2023 Labour government accepted and pushed hard a postmodern, activist interpretation of all of these questions. Despite this, in 2023, Labour lost a number of crucial seats to Te Pati Maori anyway, and are in the minority. The new government is doing some retrenchment.

It’s Sunday, ergo we have a new selection of North American butterfly photos from John Avise. John’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. It’s his 250th contribution!

Butterflies in North America, Part 13 

This week is a landmark of sorts: It marks the 250th Sunday that PCC(E) has posted my photos (of birds and butterflies) on WEIT!  Today we continue my 18-part series on butterflies that I’ve photographed in North America.  I’m still drawing from my list of species in alphabetical order by common name.

Pacific Orangetip (Anthocharis sara) male upperwing:

Pacific Orangetip, male underwing:

Pacific Orangetip, female:

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), upperwing:

Painted Lady, underwing:

Pale Swallowtail (Papilio eurymedon), upperwing:

Pale Swallowtail, underwing:

Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos),upperwing:

Pearl Crescent, underwing:

Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon), upperwing:

Phaon Crescent, underwing:

Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor), upperwing:

Pipevine Swallowtail, chrysalis:

Will new studies cause large numbers of anti-vaxxers to say "Wow. It turns our vaccines don't cause autism after all. I've been wrong the whole time."?

The post Dr. Edward Livingston On Vaccines & Autism: “Because of Public Skepticism, it is Not Settled Science” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

For some reason Bill Maher’s latest comedy/news video, “New Rules: Guilt by Civilization”, is age-restricted (it must be the photo of Bianca Censori in her see-through outfit) , but you can see it by clicking either here or on the “Watch on YouTube” line below.

The beginning is great, as Maher claims that the Democrats won’t win elections unless they stop doing land acknowledgments, which. as he shows, was made by , by Julianne Hough in a cringeworthy announcement that kicked off the Oscars this year (I had no idea!) He says, and I agree, “Either give the land back, or shut the fuck up.” He adds, with tongue in cheek, “If you want to thank a tribe for Hollywood, start with the Jews.”

Maher then moves on to New Zealand’s wokeness, noting the recent recognition of a mountain sacred to the Māori as a person having all the rights of a human.  He takes down “the authority of the sacred victim” by simply asking, “Can we please get over this idea that ancient people weren’t just as full of shit—in fact, more full of shit—than humans today? It’s so simplistic—this idea of ‘guilt by civilization’—that the ancient and indigenous and not us was always better than us. It wasn’t.” He highlights some of the problems with ancient Māori civilization in a way that’s not going to go down well in New Zealand.

Maher points out all the advantages of modern, “civilized” life, like anesthetics, refrigeration, medicine, etc. and disses the “but-they-lived-in-harmony-with nature” trope.  He admits that what the European invaders did to the Indians was “not good”, but also “not unusual” since Native American tribes were not only constantly warring with each other, but often enslaving each other.

His final touting of fairly steady progress since ancient times—progress both technological and moral—could have been taken from the pages of Steve Pinker’s books The Better Angels of our Nature or Enlightenment Now.  Those books have received a lot of criticism, but it’s hard to deny the data they adduce. And if you want to reject their thesis of centuries long improvement in moral and bodily well-being—the same as Maher’s thesis here—ask yourself this: “Would you rather have lived your life in the 14th century–or now?” If you answer “now,” then you’d probably have already been dead years ago.

Here’s a question that cat owners probably ask themselves. Certainly some cats go nuts when they see themselves in the mirror, but they could be thinking it’s just another cat and not their own reflection?  Here, according to petMD, is how SCIENCE addresses the question. click to read:

The test scientists use for self-recognition is the famous “mirror test“, which has been criticized because it depends on a critical use of animal vision, and not all species are very visual. They have, for example, used odor in animals like dogs (e.g., do they recognize their own odor?) From the article:

Understanding that you are the person staring back at you in the mirror may seem obvious, but it’s a feat of mental gymnastics that you probably didn’t develop until you were 18 to 24 months old. Scientists have used the mirror-self recognition test (also called the MSR or mark test) to assess self-awareness in humans and animals for decades.

How the test is run varies slightly from study to study, but MSR tests work by exposing animals to mirrors. Once the animal is used to the mirrors’ presence, the researcher places a marker, like a sticker or a patch of dye, on a part of the animal’s body they can’t readily see (their face or neck, for example).

If the animal investigates the visible mark on their body while looking at themselves in the mirror, they are said to pass the MSR test. In other words, they saw something unusual on their body when they looked in the mirror and reacted in a way that showed understanding that their reflection was their own image.

Some animals, such as great apes, elephants, dolphins, and magpies, have passed the MSR test, but many others haven’t. While there haven’t been any rigorous mark tests involving cats, one recent study made use of YouTube videos and concluded that cats can’t recognize themselves in the mirror.

But what about moggies?

Understanding that you are the person staring back at you in the mirror may seem obvious, but it’s a feat of mental gymnastics that you probably didn’t develop until you were 18 to 24 months old. Scientists have used the mirror-self recognition test (also called the MSR or mark test) to assess self-awareness in humans and animals for decades.

How the test is run varies slightly from study to study, but MSR tests work by exposing animals to mirrors. Once the animal is used to the mirrors’ presence, the researcher places a marker, like a sticker or a patch of dye, on a part of the animal’s body they can’t readily see (their face or neck, for example).

If the animal investigates the visible mark on their body while looking at themselves in the mirror, they are said to pass the MSR test. In other words, they saw something unusual on their body when they looked in the mirror and reacted in a way that showed understanding that their reflection was their own image.

Some animals, such as great apes, elephants, dolphins, and magpies, have passed the MSR test, but many others haven’t. While there haven’t been any rigorous mark tests involving cats, one recent study made use of YouTube videos and concluded that cats can’t recognize themselves in the mirror.

If you look at the paper, the answer is clearly “we have no idea,” for they don’t even used the “mark test” on cats. Clearly there is an important question here begging for an answer, and that answer is not that hard to get, even if the test produces false negatives (e.g. when animal does recognize itself but the mark test fails). Cats are visual animals, though, so someone should slap some red sticky dots on cats’ heads and see what happens. The article even tells you how to do it at home!

The best thing about the MSR test is you can easily try it at home with your own cat. Here’s how:

• Place a large mirror on the floor where your cat likes to spend a lot of time.

• Let your cat get used to the mirror for at least a few days.

• Cut out two small squares of clear tape. Leave one clear and color the other so it will clearly stand out when placed on your cat’s fur.

• When you’re ready to perform the test, place the colored piece of tape on the bottom of your cat’s neck and the clear one nearby.

• Put your cat in front of the mirror and watch how they react.

• Cats who look at themselves in the mirror and quickly try to remove the colored piece of tape might be demonstrating self-awareness!

I’m not sure what the clear tape is for, though.

There are videos of cats seeing themselves in the mirror, but they say little about self-recognition:

When you watch videos of cats seeing themselves in the mirror, it’s obvious they know that something important is going on. The cats’ body language falls into two categories:

• Aggressive: The arched back, erect hair, and puffy tail flicking back and forth are all signs of agitation and aggression in cats. Often, cats show signs of aggression because they are scared and feel like they need to defend themselves.

• Curious: Some cats don’t appear agitated but are simply curious. Their eyes are open wide, and their ears are pricked forward.

You can see both aggression and curiosity in the linked video, which I’ve put below:

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From that ever-informative magazine Newsweek, we learn that people are starting to dunk their faces into bowls of ice water or ice cubes, convinced that this will improve their skin. (I have no idea if there’s any data to support this, though the magazine found one doctor who said, “By constricting blood vessels, cold exposure reduces inflammation and redness, alleviating puffiness and restoring a refreshed look. Cold exposure is particularly helpful for those who have irritable skin through the constriction of blood vessels, alleviating swelling and flushes.”)

At any rate, a helpful cat helped its staff get through this painful procedure. Click on headline to read.

An excerpt:

For many, achieving flawless skin doesn’t happen overnight and often requires effort—whether through skincare products, facials, or even dunking your face in a bowl of ice-cold water, as this woman demonstrates.

Ice-cold therapy for facial skin can reduce puffiness and inflammation, and tighten pores; however, putting your face in the freezing water is the hard part. So, it’s no wonder Makayla Raezz (@makayla.raezz) is reluctant during her TikTok video, which has an astounding 17.7 million views.

Fortunately, she has a supportive kitten called Calypso who seems determined to help Raezz reap the benefits. She stands on her hind legs, places her front paws on her owner’s head, and simply pushes her face into the water.

The feline is referred to as her owner’s “personal cheerleader,” but not all TikTok users agree. Many were left wondering if the cat’s actions were playful or something more sinister. The debate in the comments continues to grow, with some users calling it “supportive” while others remain suspicious of the cat’s motives.

So far, the video has 2.8 million likes and over 7,000 comments, with many viewers assuming the worst.

“I think your cat want[s] you dead,” said one user, while others have written in the first person what they believe the cat would say if she could talk.

“Shhh shhh don’t fight it,” said one comment with over half a million likes, and another wrote: “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”

“Shhhhh just go into the light, girl!” said a third commenter and a fourth wrote: “Nah she was tryna take you out right there sis,” gathering over 20,000 likes.

Nonetheless, whatever the cat’s intentions were, her owner seemed happy that she helped her brace the cold. She even smirks at her kitten’s efforts, amused by the unexpected push. After all, it is beneficial.

Here’s the video under debate:

@makayla.raezz

#iceyface

♬ original sound – ;༊

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The movie “Flow,” an animated film featuring a cat and some other creatures, like a capybara and a lemur, encountering a worldwide flood apocalypse, is superb, and I’ve been touting it for a while. Well, it just won the Oscar for the Best Animated Feature Film, and you should see it. Below is a video of the award, and notice the black cat to the left during the award and in the picture below. Note also that one awardee says that “we’re all in the same boat,” indicating one theme of the movie, which features no words or humans—only animal noises. The movie was made by a group that included Latvians, French, and Belgians.

Oh, here’s the trailer again:

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Lagniappe: A statue memorializing a famous cat lady who lived on the Canary Islands of Spain:

h/t: Ginger K.

Today we have some front- and backyard photos of flowers taken by Rik Gern of Austin Texas. Rik’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are two more examples of plants from the front and back yard. They are both species of  ground cover, and are common in Central Texas.

I sent you some pictures of Lawnflower, aka Straggler Daisy (Calyptocarpus vialis)  a few years ago, but a new camera inspired new pictures. Lawnflower has antibacterial properties, grows just about anywhere, is comfortable underfoot, and mows easily. What’s not to like?

The next small plant is Common Chickweed (Stellaria media).The flower is so small that it’s easy to miss. Unlike Lawnflower, Common Chickweed is an introduced species. It is allegedly edible and has been used to treat conditions such as itchy skin.

Neither species is unusual, exotic, or eye catching, but both are examples of the common beauty that surrounds us if we open our eyes to it.

Let’s face it: Space is a hostile environment for humans. Even on Mars, settlers might have a hard time coping with potentially lethal levels of radiation, scarce resources and reduced gravity. In “Mickey 17” — a new sci-fi movie from Bong Joon Ho, the South Korean filmmaker who made his mark with “Parasite” — an expendable space traveler named Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is exposed over and over again to deadly risks. And every time he’s killed, the lab’s 3D printer just churns out another copy of Mickey.

Researchers and other advocates for science gathered at Stand Up for Science rallies around the US and the world to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific research

Widespread firings at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could affect everything from tornado alerts to weather forecasts on your phone

When they weave their webs, spiders pull their silk threads. New simulations show stretching during spinning causes the protein chains within the fibers to align and the number of hydrogen bonds between those chains to increase. Both factors increase the silk fibers' overall strength and toughness. Insights could be applied to designing stronger, tougher synthetic materials.

Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy could raise the risk of a rare form of vision loss, but we are still trying to unpick why

A researcher succeeded developing highly accurate biometric authentication based on images of the palms of hands taken with a hyperspectral camera.

Soaking up pollutants like a sponge, porous organic polymers (POPs) may be the key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to researchers.