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A 38-centimetre-tall deer, found in an arid region in the central Andes, is the first new deer species found in South America for over 60 years

In the Political Accuracy and Divisions Study (PADS), we conducted an extensive survey of over 3,000 American adults to assess their accuracy about a variety of controversial topics including, abortion, immigration, gender, race, crime, and the economy. So much of our political discourse revolves around these topics—but how much do we really know about these issues and the views of our fellow Americans? How informed are the loudest, most politically confident voices? We will examine the prevalence of misconceptions across the political continuum, and in doing so, we hope to offer a means by which to improve the quality of our national discourse.

For additional information, please feel free to contact the Skeptic Research Center by email: research@skeptic.com.

DATA BRIEFS

Additional data briefs that were shared on Twitter (X)

1. Do Hispanic Americans Identify with “Latinx”?
2. Are Voter ID Laws Racist?

REPORT (PADS-011)
Younger Generations are Least Accurate About Police Shootings and Least Trusting of Police

Eleventh report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Amidst the George Floyd anti-police riots, the Skeptic Research Center showed that Americans’ anti-police attitudes were influenced to a significant degree by their ignorance about the number of unarmed Black men shot by police (McCaffree & Saide, 2021; Saide, McCaffree & McCready, 2021). Probably due in part to mainstream media’s constant portrayals of police as bloodthirsty racist killers (e.g., Balko, 2022; Thompson, 2021), we found that Americans identifying as “very liberal” were extremely misinformed, with nearly 54% believing 1,000 or more unarmed black men were shot by police in 2019, and with over 22% of “very liberals” believing the number was 10,000 or more (the actual number is around 10). Given Americans’ continued fledgling trust in police–64% of Americans reported high levels of trust in police in 2004 compared to 43% in 2023 (Gallup Polling, 2023)—in this report we ask: how does Americans’ accuracy about policing vary by generation, and how does being inaccurate about policing relate to trust of police?

Download Report (PADS-011)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2024). Younger Generations are Least Accurate About Police Shootings and Least Trusting of Police. Skeptic Research Center, PADS-011.

REPORT (PADS-010)
Are Americans Losing Their Trust?

Tenth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Public opinion polling has revealed unprecedented drops in Americans’ institutional trust for several years now, and institutional trust reached a new low in 2023 (Jones, 2022; Saad, 2023). Americans’ trust in government, for example, is hovering at its lowest point since Pew polling began measuring it in 1958 (Pew Research Center, 2023). In 1973, 58% of Americans had “a great deal”/“quite a lot” of confidence in public schools—by 2023, this had fallen to 26%. Also in 1973, 42% of Americans had “a great deal”/“quite a lot” of confidence in Congress—by 2023, this had fallen to 8%. In 1975, 80% of people had “a great deal”/ “quite a lot” of confidence in the medical system, but by 2023, this number had fallen to 33% (the decline began long before COVID). And also across many other American institutions (see Gallup Polling, 2023). Some polling also suggests Americans have been losing trust in each other (not just in abstract institutional “systems”). For example, Pew polling found that 64% of Americans felt that trust in one another has “been shrinking,” (Rainie et al., 2019). In light of these concerning trends, we looked back through two of our own polls (one conducted in 2021, the other in 2022) and asked: how have Americans’ trust in institutions and each other changed?

Download Report (PADS-010)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2024). Americans Are Losing Their Trust. Skeptic Research Center, PADS-010.

REPORT (PADS-009)
Being “Liberal” in America

Ninth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Analysts have recognized for decades now that the world is becoming more liberal. It seems that the more removed people are from basic survival concerns, the more liberal their worldviews become, in the sense of being more accepting of cultural differences and more protective of civil rights. Some analysts have noted how paradoxically intolerant and dogmatic this trend has become in Western societies (i.e., the societies most removed from basic survival concerns): amongst many Western progressives, for example, all group disadvantages are assumed to always be a result of oppression, with oppression always being driven by white people (and usually men). Thus, it would seem that at the extremes, liberalism and the human tendency towards tribalism interact to produce both a demand for equality and justice as well as an insistence that one demographic group (white/European people) is accountable for most or all of the oppression and corruption in the world. In light of the controversies and nuances inherent in identifying as a modern liberal, in this report we ask: how do rates of identifying as “liberal” vary in the United States according to peoples’ generation, sex and race?

Download Report (PADS-009)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2024). Being “Liberal” in America. Skeptic Research Center. Political Accuracy and Divisions Study, PADS-009.

REPORT (PADS-008) The Essence of Americans

Eighth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Part of human reasoning involves reducing people, animals, and things to their core essence, a tendency beginning in childhood (Ahn et al., 2001; Gelman, 2003). We define dogs and cats by different essences, for example, and we do the same for people when we define them by their sex, race, age, and the like. Though helpful as a crude way of categorizing things in the world, essentialism makes us prone to error. Believing, for example, that water is defined by the essential element of “wetness” will fail to recognize ice as water; or, believing that those with recent European ancestry are defined by the essential element of “whiteness” will fail to recognize variations in cultural background or individual experience (Roth et al., 2023). While essentialism feels useful in its simplifying of an otherwise complex reality, it can lead to negative stereotyping. Given that essentialist reasoning typically produces rigid categorizations of people, and that rigid categorizations of people might be conducive to political misinformation, conspiracism, or extremism (e.g., Buhagiar et al., 2018; Kurzwelly et al., 2020), in this report we ask: how common is the tendency to essentialize amongst the American public?

Download Report (PADS-008)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). How Commonly Do Americans Essentialize Each Other?. Skeptic Research Center, PADS-008.

REPORT (PADS-007) How Accurate Are Americans About Economic Mobility?

Seventh report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

According to economists at Stanford University, economic mobility is a “fading American dream.” Richard Delgado, a founder of critical race theory, calls upward mobility a “myth” and suggests that, “the myth of upward mobility enables the wealthy to justify favorable treatment for themselves and cutbacks for the rest,” while reminding us that, “study after study shows that class membership in our society is relatively fixed.” In agreement, the Huffington Post regards economic class in America as “suffocating,” Mother Jones insists that America is a “thriving aristocracy” maintained by “powerful-yet-obscure entities,” and the New York Times informs us that class in America is a “caste system,” and that “the hierarchy of caste is… about power — which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources — which groups are seen as worthy of them, and which are not.” These claims are not new. As far back as 1897, Carrol D. Wright, the first commissioner of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, noted that, “the assertion that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer has…taken more complete possession of the popular mind than any other.” Yet, Wright went on to say that this assertion “is a false one, false in its premises and misleading in its influence.” Is poverty ubiquitous in America? Do people have any chance of improving their economic circumstances? To assess these claims and what Americans think about them, in this report we ask: how accurate are Americans about economic mobility?

Download Report (PADS-007)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). How Accurate Are Americans About Economic Mobility?. Skeptic Research Center, PADS-007.

REPORT (PADS-006) Depression and Political Ideology

Sixth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Is life in America hopeless? In a peer-reviewed article entitled “Fuck the patriarchy: Towards an intersectional politics of irreverent rage,” sociologist Helen Wood suggests that, “with climate change [and] widening inequality… we are truly fucked” (Wood, 2019). In 2020, Chad Wolf, acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary, declared white supremacy to be the most persistent and lethal domestic threat to the United States (Behrmann, 2020). A recent New York Times feature article described one professor’s struggle to remove “whiteness” from universities given that the study of classic literature, “has been instrumental to the invention of ‘whiteness’ and its continued domination” (Poser, 2021). Some popular academic theories even doubt the possibility of moral progress (Seamster & Ray, 2018). But in 2021, a Manhattan Institute report found, among other things, that reading social justice scholarship significantly reduced Black Americans’ hopefulness and motivation (Kaufmann, 2021). The author of the report speculated that, though intended to empower women and racial minorities, misleading characterizations of America as a white supremacist patriarchy may do the exact opposite. In light of this possibility, in this report we asked: “How is mental health related to believing this popular political rhetoric?”

Download Report (PADS-006)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). Depression and Political Ideology Skeptic Research Center, PADS-006.

Follow-up to PADS-006

Posted on Twitter on August 3, 2023

Download “Depression and Political Ideology” (PADS-006F)

REPORT (PADS-005) How Informed Are Americans About Women’s Opportunities?

Fifth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

Feminist academics argue that “patriarchy,” or the oppression of women in society by men, affects both public and private life. They argue, for example, that male managers exploit their female colleagues in the workplace, male script writers perpetuate demeaning views of women and girls on television, husbands force their wives into near-constant subservience in the home, and that patriarchy not only prevents women from succeeding in society but also causes numerous other problems (Bates, 2021). One activist wrote, “We need…to deconstruct and exorcise patriarchy – which is the root of so many other forms of oppression, from imperialism to racism, from transphobia to the denigration of the Earth” (Ensler, 2021). In apparent agreement, the American Psychological Association now regards masculinity as “harmful” (APA, 2018). Additionally, according to leading sociologist Barbara Risman and others, “challenging men’s dominance is [also] a necessary condition of ending the subordination of lesbians and gay men,” and that, “If as feminists, we believe that gender is socially constructed and used to create inequality, our political goal must be to move to a post-gender society” (Risman, 2004; 2009). Due to the alarming nature of these claims, in this report we ask: “How informed are Americans about women’s achievements and opportunities?”
Download Report (PADS-005)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). How Informed Are Americans About Women’s Opportunities? Skeptic Research Center, PADS-005.

REPORT (PADS-004) Are “White People” Morally Deviant?

Fourth report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

For decades in the U.S., and particularly in the last few years, journalists and intellectuals have suggested that “white people” are socially or morally deviant. Time magazine, for example, published the claim that white supremacy is the “foundational principle” of culture in the U.S., preventing non-whites from having “perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect grades…[or regarded as a] perfect employee and colleague.” In 2020, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture claimed “rational thinking” and “hard work” are white supremacist ideals that oppress non-whites. In a recent opinion editorial, Savala Nolan, the Executive Director of the Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law, said “white people…disappoint me. They frustrate me. They make me sad.” Meanwhile, books describing the immorality of white people, such as Caste, How to be an Anti-Racist, and White Fragility have all soared to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. Given these strong opinions, in this report we ask: what does the public really think about the (apparent) immorality of white people?
Download Report (PADS-004)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). Are “White People” Morally Deviant? Skeptic Research Center, PADS-004.

Follow-up to PADS-004

Posted on Twitter on June 13, 2023

Download “Noble Savage Myth and Education” (PADS-004F)

REPORT (PADS-003) Update: How Informed are Americans about Race and Policing?

Third report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

“Defund the police” was the rallying cry of liberals in the Summer of 2020, motivating “mostly peaceful” protests that led to property damage in excess of two billion dollars across at least 20 US states (Johansmeyer, 2021). To better understand the motivation behind these protests, in 2020, we surveyed people about their estimates of the number of unarmed black men shot by police in 2019 and found a shocking degree of inaccuracy, particularly amongst progressives. In this report, we present an update on these data and ask: have people become more knowledgeable when it comes to the available data on fatal police shootings of unarmed black Americans?
Download Report (PADS-003)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). Update: How Informed are Americans about Race and Policing? Skeptic Research Center, PADS-003.

REPORT (PADS-002) Trans, Identity and Institutional Controversies

Second report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

A particularly salient culture-war issue in contemporary American society concerns the relationship between gender identity and biological sex. While some insist that peoples’ subjective interpretation of their sex is paramount, others insist objective markers (like chromosomes) are practically more relevant. Most recently, this issue has been enflamed by two central institutional controversies: biological males identifying as women competing in women’s sports leagues and sex/gender-oriented material being taught to young children in schools. Disagreement abounds, with liberals sometimes downplaying the severity of these controversies, and conservatives doing the opposite. In this report, we ask: what do Americans really think about these issues?

Download Report (PADS-002)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K., & Saide, A. (2023). Trans, Identity and Institutional Controversies. Skeptic Research Center, PADS-002.

REPORT (PADS-001) What Do Americans Believe About Abortion and How Accurate Are They?

First report in the Political Accuracy & Divisions Study (PADS)

In this report, one of a series of reports on controversial topics in American culture, we investigated the degree to which partisans in the United States hold accurate beliefs about abortion and about each other. Herein, we covered three central questions in the American abortion debate:

1. What abortion policies do Americans really prefer?
2. How accurate are Americans’ beliefs about the prevalence of abortion and the recent Supreme Court ruling, and what variables influence their accuracy?
3. How accurate are Americans regarding the abortion beliefs of other people?

The over-arching goal of this report was thus to contribute to our collective understanding of what Americans really believe, as well as how accurate they are about the topic of abortion and about one another.

Download Report (PADS-001)

Suggested Citation: McCaffree, K. & Saide, A. (2023). What Do Americans Believe About Abortion and How Accurate Are We? Skeptic Research Center, PADS-001.

The term "allopathic medicine" was invented by homeopaths in the 19th century as a disparaging term for medicine. So to see a quack like Mark Sircus try to coopt it as "natural allopathic medicine" is quite something.

The post Mark Sircus and “natural allopathic medicine”? Now I’ve heard everything from quacks first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

[Note Added: 9:30pm Eastern] Unfortunately this storm has consisted of a very bright spike of high activity and a very quick turnoff. It might restart, but it might not. Data below shows recorded activity in three-hour intervals — and the red or very high orange is where you’d want things to be for mid-latitude auroras.

The current solar storm has so far only had a high but brief spike, and might be over already.

Quick note: a powerful double solar flare from two groups of sunspots occurred on Friday. This in turn produced a significant blast of subatomic particles and magnetic field, called a Coronal Mass Ejection [CME], which headed in the direction of Earth. This CME arrived at Earth earlier than expected — a few hours ago — which also means it was probably stronger than expected, too. For those currently in darkness and close enough to the poles, it is probably generating strong auroras, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights.

No one knows how long this storm will continue, but check your skies tonight if you are in Europe especially, and possibly North America as well. The higher your latitude and the earlier your nightfall compared to now, the better your chances.

The ACE satellite, located between the Earth and Sun at a distance from Earth approximately 1% of the Sun-Earth distance, recorded the arrival of the CME a few hours ago as a jump in a number of its readings.

Here’s the latest comedy interlude from HBO’s “Real Time” show with Bill Maher. It’s a ten-minute critique of our obsession with identity, including race.  As he says, “We need to stop talking about the things that make Americans different from each other and start honoring the things that make us the same.”

Another quote: “Today’s Democrats should move away from identity politics. It’s not working.” Clearly Maher is not only addressing Democrats, but trying to get them to adopt a strategy that wins elections. 

Those who object to colorblindness, like Nikole Hannah-Jones, won’t like this.

And I love the bit at 5:19.

h/t: Mary

In November I reported on an Unherd article by the estimable Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a piece called “Why I am Now a Christian,” that announced her “conversion” from atheism to Christianity. This took many people aback, as it seemed so counterintuitive.  Ali, as an opponent of Islamism, seemed like the least likely person to turn Christian. Her explanation was that Christianity and its values were the only way to stave off the tide of encroaching terror, corruption, Islamism, and despotism. As she said:

So, what changed? Why do I call myself a Christian now?

Part of the answer is global. Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.

We endeavour to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or surveil. And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground. We are either running out of money, with our national debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, or we are losing our lead in the technological race with China.

But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I disagreed, as I think secular humanism can fight off those “formidable forces, too”, and the world is turning less religious as it is.

Richard is going to interview Ayaan soon on his Substack site, but he has just written about Hirsi Ali’s religiosity, concluding that she’s not really a Christian.

Click below to read:

Richard makes a distinction between three types of Christians, which also holds, I think, for Jews, and perhaps for other faiths as well.

I want to make a three-way distinction. You can be a Cultural Christian, a Political Christian,  a Believing Christian, or any combination of the three. People may disagree about which of these constitutes being “A Christian”. For me it has to be Believing Chistian.

I am a Cultural Christian, specifically a Cultural Anglican. I was educated in Christian schools. The history of my people is heavily influenced by Christian tradition. I like singing Christmas Carols, and am deeply moved by the sacred music of Bach and Handel. My head is full of Biblical phrases and quotations. And hymn tunes, which I regularly play by ear on my electronic clarinet.

I think Ayaan Hirsi-Ali (who is one of my favourite people in the world) is a Political Christian. She was brought up in the culture of Islam and is well aware of the horrors that that religion is still visiting on Muslims around the world, especially women. She sees Christianity as a relatively benign competitor, worth supporting as a bulwark against Islam. Just as most of us support a political party without agreeing with all its policies, because we prefer it to the alternative, a Political Christian may support Christianity without being a Believing Christian, because it’s better than the main alternative. Ayaan is a Cultural Muslim, and it is this that has driven her to be a Political Christian.

Believing Christians believe that there is a supernatural creator at the base of the universe called God. They believe a First Century Jew called Jesus is the son of God. They believe Jesus’s mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him. They believe that Jesus came alive again three days after he died. They believe that we ourselves have an immortal soul which survives our bodily death. They believe that God listens to our prayers.  I strongly suspect hat Ayaan doesn’t believe any of these things. She is not a Believing Christian.

Richard made a similar pronouncement in an earlier “open letter” to Hirsi Ali.

Well, we don’t know if Hirsi Ali’s really a believing Christian, as she doesn’t explicitly describe her beliefs in the UnHerd piece (true Christian ones are instantiated in the Nicene Creed). But we’ll know when she and Richard have their talk.  Apparently, she at least has what Dennett called “belief in belief”: a feeling that belief is good for society even if its tenets aren’t really true. Cultural Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter), doesn’t come with “belief in that belief”), as cultural forms of religion are merely forms of belonging to a community and don’t make assertions that others have to believe.

As I said I think Dawkins’s tripartite classification holds for Judaism as well.  I am a cultural (secular) Jew, but I don’t think we need to embrace the tenets of Judaism to make society better or more resistant to corruption. We simply need secular humanism.  And, of course, I don’t worship or adhere to what’s in the Old Testament, which I think was a purely human document reporting on a fictional world. (There is, of course, some historical truths in the Bible, but that’s about it.)

After considering whether he is a cultural Christian (Anglican) or political Christian, Dawkins decides he’s a Political Christian because he despises the actions and of believers like pious Muslims, and so concludes this:

If I were American I would vote Democrat because, in spite of their idiotic stance on the male/female distinction, they are hugely preferable to the Republican alternative. Similarly, if I were forced to vote for either Christianity or Islam as alternative influences on the world, I would unhesitatingly vote Christian. If that make me a Political Christian, so be it. I am perhaps as much of a Political Christian as Ayaan is. But does that make either of us a Christian?

And so he tells Hirsi Ali that they don’t really differ in substance.

The only disagreement is a semantic one. I am a Cultural Christian but not a Believing Christian, which, in my language means I am not a Christian. You, Ayaan, are a Political Christian, which in your language, but not mine, makes you a Christian. But we are neither of us Believing Christian. And this, in my language but not yours, makes neither of us Christians. So, dear Ayaan, let’s not agree to differ. Let’s agree that we don’t really differ.

Stay tuned for the discussion!

Why are men better than women at chess?

This is the question that Carole Hooven, author of the excellent book Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, takes up in a new article in Quillette. What I like about the article is that it appears to consider every available hypothesis, and uses a scientific approach to finding evidence that either supports or weakens many of them. She tentatively settles on one that may be evolutionary in its origin, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Click below to read:

I believe Hooven got interested in the question when FIDE, the international chess federation, recently decided that transwomen would not be permitted to compete in their official chess events that were limited to natal women. Since transwomen are natal men, this implies that there is some advantage in being a natal man when it comes to winning at chess. Of course this move by FIDE could be considered transphobic, as it already has been, but in fact the evidence is that, regardless of cause, men are much better than women at chess.

How do we know this? Because, although some chess tournaments are limited to people of one sex, there are also mixed-sex tournaments in which women play against men. And those show a result similar to that in tennis: rankings based on those tournaments show that the top women chess player would probably rank below the top 200 or 300 men.

But why is this? After all, in tennis and other sports, men outdo women because there is an inherent athletic advantage associated with the male body: more muscles, higher bone density, greater grip strength, and so on. These advantages become prominent at puberty because they’re associated with the higher testosterone of males. (This does not mean, of course, that no woman can ever beat a man in mixed-sex sports; it is a difference, and a big one, in averge performance.) Likewise, transwomen, biological men who assume the identity of a woman, also retain these athletic advantages over natal women, especially when they transition after puberty. That’s why several sports associations have banned transwomen from women’s athletics.

But chess?  None of the athletic advantages I mentioned should obtain for chess, which involves only moving light pieces of wood or plastic around a board. So why are men so much better at playing chess?

Hooven lists a number of hypotheses, which I’ve divided into the following categories in bold (my words). Carole’s text is indented.

a.) More males take up chess in the first place. If this is the case, then regardless of average performance, the top players will be weighted with more men, simply because even if the average performance is the same, a bigger curve for men (frequency versus score) means that the upper tails of high performance will contain more men.  This will be the case regardless of the variation in performance itself, and simply reflects the fact that at every performance level, there will be more men than women.

This is a reasonable hypothesis, but one Hooven thinks is weak because of Scrabble and bridge, which more women than men take up but ultimately the championships are heavily dominated by men:

In a game of Scrabble, as most readers will know, two competing players earn points for creating words using one or more of the seven lettered tiles in their inventory, which they place on a grid-spaced board. Like chess, Scrabble uses a version of the Elo rating system. But unlike in the chess world, women dominate the recreational ranks of Scrabble, accounting for about 85 percent of all recreational players. Even at the competitive level, women generally outnumber men (which isn’t that surprising given that Scrabble is all about words, and verbal ability is one area in which women tend to outperform men). So if the participation-rate hypothesis were correct in this context, then women should be dominating the elite Scrabble ranks.

But they’re not. Instead, men dominate Scrabble’s upper tiers, as they do in chess. And the same goes for Bridge, another game that’s dominated at the recreational level by women.

Scrabble tournaments usually feature separate divisions, which are classified according to Elo ratings. Players with the highest ratings compete in the first division, in which there are few women. As the skill level goes down, the proportion of women increases, until you get to the lowest level, where women vastly outnumber men. No woman has ever won a national or World Scrabble Championship. (However, just last year, Ruth Li from Toronto did win the North American Championship in the High School division, becoming the first female to ever win any such regional championship.)

Of course, Scrabble and chess are different games that require different skills, and lessons from the former may not cleanly translate to the latter. But even if one confines one’s focus to chess, the participation-rate thesis doesn’t present a convincing explanation for the observed sex differences in performance.

In addition, over the last few years women’s participation in chess has increased substantially, but the average gap between men and women hasn’t narrowed much, though it has a bit in some places. Overall, though, this hypothesis seems weak.

Second, over the last 50 years or so, female participation in chess has increased measurably around the world—a fact that should, according to the participation-rate hypothesis, lead to a narrowing of the sex gap at the highest levels of play. And in a few cases, that has happened. In France, for example, the female participation rate increased from 6 percent to 15 percent from 1985 to 2015, and the sex gap in ratings also significantly narrowed. But overall, the evidence is mixed. In the mid-1940s, the Elo difference between the world’s highest-rated male and female chess players hovered around 150 points. Eighty years later, that figure hasn’t really changed. (Note that such comparisons are based in part on retrospectively calculated Elo ratings, as FIDE didn’t start using them until the late 1960s.)

b.) Sexism: women are driven out of chess or don’t take it up because of misogyny in the game. Sexism can manifest itself in many ways: simple harassment of women (which is reported), not taking women seriously, which can lead to a lack of self-confidence, lowered expectations, and a higher dropout rate.  This should be mitigated to some degree by the existence of all-women’s leagues and tournaments.  But Hooven doesn’t think that this is an important hypothesis because reduced sexism over time hasn’t narrowed the performance gap:

Such reports [of sexism] should, of course, be taken seriously. But I’m far from convinced that sexism and harassment are the main reasons why men outperform women at chess. We’ve already come a long way in battling sexism during my lifetime. And yet, even as women have made great strides in such areas as medicine, law, engineering, and academia, the sex gap in chess has barely budged since second-wave feminism took off in the 1960s. This all suggests there’s something else going on.

c.)  Men and women have the same average performance, but men have greater variance, manifested as relatively more players in both the highest and lowest tails of the performance distribution. Hooven calls this the “greater male variability”, or GMV, hypothesis. The variability can involve many traits possibly involved in chess success: spatial ability, drive to win, willingness to practice, and so on. The key here is that there need be no average difference between men and women, but still the greater variation of men ensures that in the upper tails, where the champions reside, will be mostly populated by men. (The hypothesis can still hold even if there are some differences in means.) GMV may be the case for intelligence, as the average performance of men and women on IQ-related tests are about the same, but men are more variable. But again, this doesn’t seem to be telling for chess, though it could be important in STEM fields:

The GMV hypothesis is the explanation often given for sex differences in STEM fields, particularly the “hard” sciences such as physics. The idea is that even if there’s no male-female difference in average math or physics ability, there would still be more men at the very high (and low) end of the ability spectrum. These are the extreme outliers who are most likely to earn prestigious faculty positions, file many patent applications, and win career achievement awards. And there is, in fact, strong evidence supporting the hypothesis; many traits do tend to be more variable in men than in women.

But if the greater male variability hypothesis explained the male advantage in chess, then we should observe that Elo ratings [these are measures of chess proficiency involving games won as well as the quality of the opponent] for males would be more variable than those for females. That is, we would expect more male grandmasters not because males are better at chess, but simply because there would be fewer females at both the high and low end of performance.

But in most populations of chess players, that statistical pattern isn’t reflected in the distributions of Elo ratings. Those for males are not more variable than for females. In many cases, in fact, the variability among female ratings is actually higher.

d.) Males are innately better in traits that lead to success in chess.  These involve average differences in traits and not just variances, and could include spatial ability, degree of aggression, drive to win, other aspects of cognitive ability, dedication to the sport so that one practices a lot more, and so on. Note that “innately” implies the differences don’t result from socialization or sexism, but are the same kind of differences that gives men advantages in “regular” sports. Of course these innate differences could interact with other factors, as the phenotype here (chess performance) always involves an interaction between genes and one’s environment.

Ultimately, Hooven considers this the best explanation because there is independent evidence that men excel in the kind of motivation, competitiveness, and “obsessive passion” that leads to monomaniacal focus not just on winning, but on practicing:

 A more promising explanation for male dominance in elite chess involves motivation. A large body of research strongly suggests that the sexes differ in their preferences for competition. As both Kasparov and Repková have intuited, men are simply more competitive—that is, they have a stronger motivation not just to compete, but to win, in formal physical and non-physical competitions of all kinds.

Men are more likely to choose games that involve direct, one-on-one competition, in which the result is a clear winner and loser—such as chess. Women are less competitive even when interacting anonymously—for example, in online arenas such as massive multiplayer role-playing games. This applies even when players interact using avatars of the sex opposite to their own; situations in which social expectations and stereotypes should have a reduced influence on in-game behavior. Women’s performance and enjoyment tends to suffer when the competition intensifies; that is, when the stakes are highest or time pressure is applied. For example, the average male-female sex difference in “blitz” chess games, which allocate ten minutes or less for each player to make all of their moves, is greater than that observed in standard chess, in which each player has at least an hour and a half. Moreover, relative to men, in experimental and real-life conditions, women tend to opt out of tournament conditions.

So it’s not surprising that females, being less focused (on average, as usual) on crushing an opponent in some future tournament, might be less motivated to go in for the kind of hardcore practice that’s necessary to develop elite skills (“deliberate practice,” as it’s called, as distinct from simply practising by playing).

. . . . If your instinct tells you that males will be disproportionately drawn toward this kind of intense practice style than females, you’re correct. Studies show that boys and men are more likely to exhibit a “rigid persistence in an activity,” by which “the passion controls the individual” (“obsessive passion” in the literature). In anecdotal terms, we are talking here about the man who drops everything to become, say, a 16-hour-per-day videogamer, or a day-trader, or chess addict. Yes, some women take on these kinds of fixations. But men do it more often, and with greater intensity.

It’s long been known that measures of risk-taking, competitiveness, persistence, and aggression are higher in men than women, so this may be a key factor in the explanation.  But are these differences due to evolution or socialization? After all, men are expected to be aggressive and behaviorally conform to a “male stereotype”.  On the other hand, that stereotype itself could reflect behavior instilled by natural selection more in one sex than another, so it’s seen as the norm.

Hooven comes down on the evolution side, and I pretty much agree with her given these arguments as well as others (e.g., socialization should differ among human societies but the average behaviors don’t; our closest primate relatives, who aren’t socialized, show similar difference in aggression and competition, there are biological reasons to expect higher competition in males, and these traits begin to manifest themselves at a young age, presumably before much socialization can take place).  Luana Maroja and I discuss similar sex differences in behavior (and their possible evolutionary roots) in our Skeptical Inquirer paper on ideology and biology.

Hooven:

That said, I don’t see evidence for the idea that socialization alone explains the stronger male tendency to focus obsessively on doing whatever is necessary to win, even at board games. And there are good reasons to think that this tendency has an evolutionary basis: In the animal kingdom, males tend to devote more time, energy, and risk to status competition, since this tends to pay more reproductive benefits for males than females. So it’s not unreasonable to suspect that boys and men have some kind of biological advantage—possibly underpinned by higher lifetime exposure to testosterone—that helps explain their over-representation in tournament-level competition in general. (While this particular brand of competitiveness may have a strong evolutionary explanation, it is unlikely to be the wisest reproductive strategy in today’s world.)

If this is the case, what about FIDE’s decision to ban transwomen from their women’s chess tournaments? (Some countries, including England, Germany, France, and the United States, don’t uphold this ban in their national tournaments.)  In the end, since Hooven concludes that biological factors play a key role in men’s dominance in chess, for the time being FIDE’s ban makes sense:

Ultimately, sex differences in complex behaviors and skills are always a product of interactions between biology on the one hand (that is, our genes and their relatively fixed effects, such as hormone levels and body size) and our environment on the other (that is, factors such as our family circumstances, social dynamics, and cultural norms). Interactions between the two shape not only our skills and abilities, but also any emerging group differences. But none such complicating factors change the fact that the sex gap in chess is real and persistent. Given the circumstances that led to the creation of the female category, and the fact that many girls and women appreciate what this category offers, FIDE is correct to take the steps necessary to protect its integrity.

Of course the data we really need are the chess performance of transwomen playing against biological women, and as far as I know we don’t have that kind of data.

****************

A coda:  Perhaps the thinnest book I own is called “Jewish Sports Heroes”, given to me by a Jewish relative. It’s thin because Jews are not usually among the best baseball, soccer, football, or basketball champions we can think of (Sandy Koufax is a notable exception). I’m not going to hypothesize about this religious lacuna, but what amuses me is that the last chapter in the book, and the longest one, is on chess, as Jews have always excelled in chess. If the writers wanted to produce a book of reasonable length then, they simply had to add chess as a “sport” coequal with sports like football and basketball.

Today’s contribution is, of course, a Sunday selection of birds from John Avise. John’s IDs and notes are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Australian Birds, Part 3 

This week’s post continues a 5-part mini-series on birds that I photographed on a short business trip to Queensland, Australia in 2006.  It shows just a few of the many avian species that inhabit the Land Down Under.

Great Bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis):

Grey Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa):

Grey-headed Robin (Heteromyias cinereifrons):

Helmeted Friarbird (Philemon buceroides):

Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae):

Lewin’s Honeyeater (Meliphaga lewinii):

Little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos)

Arafura Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla megarhyncha):

Macleay’s Honeyeater (Xanthotis macleayanus):

Magpie Goose (Anseranas semipalmata):

Magpie Goose flying:

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In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth?

In Bad Therapy, bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s the mental health experts. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with child psychologists, parents, teachers, and young people, Shrier explores the ways the mental health industry has transformed the way we teach, treat, discipline, and even talk to our kids. She reveals that most of the therapeutic approaches have serious side effects and few proven benefits. Among her unsettling findings:

• talk therapy can induce rumination, trapping children in cycles of anxiety and depression
• social Emotional Learning handicaps our most vulnerable children, in both public schools and private
• “gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge.

Mental health care can be lifesaving when properly applied to children with severe needs, but for the typical child, the cure can be worse than the disease. Bad Therapy is a must – read for anyone questioning why our efforts to bolster America’s kids have backfired – and what it will take for parents to lead a turnaround.

Abigail Shrier received the Barbara Olson Award for Excellence and Independence in Journalism in 2021. Her bestselling book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), was named a “Best Book” by the Economist and the Times. It has been translated into ten languages. Her new book is Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.

Shermer and Shrier discuss:

• Irreversible Damage redux: WPATH Files
• Darwin’s Dictim: “all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.” What view is this book for or against?
• What’s the problem to be solved? Anecdotes vs. Statistics
• Theories: coddling, social media, screen time, generations/life history theory
• Good and bad therapists and therapies
• Does it work?
• Bad therapists or bad parents or bad schools?
• Parenting styles
• As with trans, social contagion vs. real phenomena now acceptable?
• Iatrogenesis: “originating with the healer” (a healer harming a patient)
• Anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, autism
• ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience): Physical abuse, Sexual abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical neglect, Emotional neglect, Mental illness, Divorce or parental breakup, Substance abuse in the home, Violence against the mother, Incarcerated household member
• Trauma, stress, PTSD, The Body Knows the Score
• Punishment and spanking (corporeal punishment) vs. time outs etc.
• Anti-fragility and resilience
• Diagnosis self-fulfillment: placebo / nocebo effect
• “Doing the work” of therapy
• Goodwill Hunting view of therapy
• Previous quack therapies and psychological pseudoscience:
• The Subliminal Messages scare, the Satanic Panic, the Recovered Memory mania, the Self-Esteem movement, the Multiple Personality craze, the Left-Brain/Right-Brain fad, the Mozart Effect mania, the Vaccine-Autism furor, the Super-predators fear, Attachment Therapy, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program that increased teen drug use, the Scared Straight program that made adolescents more likely to offend, the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) program that worsened anxiety and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and many more that have plagued psychology and psychiatry.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

Roughly two years and six months from now, as part of NASA’s Artemis III mission, astronauts will set foot on the lunar surface for the first time in over fifty years. Beyond this mission, NASA will deploy the elements of the Lunar Gateway, the Artemis Base Camp, and other infrastructure that will allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” They will be joined by the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), and Roscosmos, the latter two collaborating to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

Anticipating this process of lunar development (and looking to facilitate it), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the 10-year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study in August last year. In recent news, the agency announced that it selected Northrop Grumman to develop a moon-based railroad network. This envisioned network could transport humans, supplies, and resources for space agencies and commercial ventures, facilitating exploration, scientific research, and the creation of a lunar economy.

According to DARPA, the seven-month LunA-10 study aims to establish “an analytical framework that defines new opportunities for rapid scientific and commercial activity on and around the Moon.” It also aims to foster the development of foundational technology to optimize lunar infrastructure, allowing space agencies to move away from individual efforts within isolated, self-sufficient systems and towards shareable, scalable, resource-driven systems that can operate together. In keeping with NASA’s long-term objectives, this work will complement the administration’s “Moon to Mars” objectives.

Artist rendition of construction of the Moon. Credit: NASA.

In layman’s terms, the plan is to develop the technologies that will allow space agencies and companies to access each others’ resources, facilities, and information to promote further growth opportunities. Several key sectors are identified in the solicitation that must be developed into services to sustain a long-term presence on the Moon based on an independent market analysis of the future lunar economy. They include construction, mining, transit, energy, agriculture, and research (e.g., medicine, robotics, and life sustainment) that will have applications for space exploration and life on Earth.

Other aspects include lunar and planetary science, communications, digital infrastructure, and Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology. Dr. Michael “Orbit” Nayak, a program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, extolled DARPA’s long history of working with NASA during last year’s announcement:

“For 65 years, DARPA has pioneered and de-risked technologies vital to civil space advancement — from the rocket technology in the Saturn V that took humans to the Moon for the first time, to the recent DARPA-NASA partnership to enable faster space travel to the Moon and beyond with a nuclear thermal rocket engine.

“LunA-10 continues this rich legacy by identifying and accelerating key technologies that may be used by government and the commercial space industry, and ultimately to catalyze economic vibrancy on the Moon. Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the Moon.”

As part of this 10-year plan, Northrop Grumman will be tasked with creating the infrastructure that will physically connect lunar facilities and allow for the movement of people and resources back and forth. Their responsibilities, as spelled out in their contract of opportunity, include defining the interfaces and resources required to build a lunar rail network; identifying cost, technological, and logistical risks; creating prototypes, demonstrations, and analyses of a concept design and architecture, and exploring robotics concepts for constructing and operating the system.

These robotics concepts must be able to operate on the lunar surface and carry out specific tasks, such as grading and foundation preparation, track placement and alignment, joining and finishing, inspection, maintenance, and repairs. Said Chris Adams, the vice president and general manager of strategic space systems at Northrop Grumman:

“This investment in key developmental research keeps our technology at the forefront of next-generation solutions. With our proven experience in the integration of complex systems and commercialized autonomous services, we will continue to create lasting change for a sustainable space ecosystem.”

Northrop Grumman and other selectees will receive an Other Transaction award of up to $1 million. They will present their work at the Spring meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) in April 2024 and provide a final report in June 2024.

Further Reading: Northrop Grumman

The post Northrup Grumman is Studying How to Build a Railway on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

I did not bother going back to the office but decided to wander over the sisters to see if they had anything new from their research. I took a trolley to Southeast and hopped off early. It was a beautiful summer day, and it would do me good to walk. It was a pretty neighborhood with many trees and well-kept gardens. I […]

The post Skeptics in the Pub. Cholera. Chapter 12b first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Comedian Andrew Doyle is of course the creator of Titania McGrath, an über-woke and privileged cis white female who expounds Social Justice on Twitter. She’s spoofing it, of course, but has fooled many people into thinking she’s serious. And, as a full time faux wokester, Titania has made many satirical posts that later came true. Here Doyle gives some of them.

It goes to show that in Woke World, the line between satire and reality is paper-thin:

I’ve described in these pages what I consider to be the finest prose written in English; it includes the beginning of The Raj Quartet, by Paul Scott; the ending of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (but there’s also great stuff in Tender is the Night); much of Thomas Wolfe (especially “The Child by Tiger“, an excerpt from one of his novels); and James Joyce’s long story The Dead, which, especially in its ending, stands above them all.

But there’s one more, and I’ll put down a specimen here. I know I’ve put up a video of this scene from Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa (1937) before, but I just reread much of the book and marveled at how wonderful it is—and sad, too.  It is of course an autobiography of Blixen’s stint in Kenya, where she owned a coffee farm, and includes a hedged description of her life with her lover Denys Finch Hatton, a guide and big-game hunter who died in a plane crash while she still lived in Kenya.

She and Denys had picked out their graves, up in the Ngong Hills with a fantastic view of the plains as well as Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilamanjaro.  But she had to leave Africa when she lost her farm, and so buried Finch Hatton up in the hills before she left.  This description of what happened to his grave always brings me to tears, no matter how often I read it. I just realized I put this up in a longer extract seven years ago, and you might want to read that part, too.

After I had left Africa, Gustav Mohr wrote to me of a strange thing that had happened by Denys’ grave, the like of which I have never heard. “The Masai,” he wrote, “have reported to the District Commissioner at Ngong, that many times, at sunrise and sunset, they have seen lions on Finch-Hatton’s grave in the Hills. A lion and a lioness have come there, and stood, or lain, on the grave for a long time. Some of the Indians who have passed the place in their lorries on the way to Kajado have also seen them. After you went away, the ground round the grave was levelled out, into a sort of big terrace, I suppose that the level place makes a good site for the lions, from there they can have a view over the plain, and the cattle and game on it.”

It was fit and decorous that the lions should come to Denys’s grave and make him an African monument. “And renowned be thy grave.” Lord Nelson himself, I have reflected, in Trafalgar Square, has his lions made only out of stone.

The last paragraph is one of the best I know in English, and the whole scenario is ineffably moving. It’s even more amazing when you realize that Blixen’s native language wasn’t English but Danish, and she wrote the book in English. (In this way she’s like Joseph Conrad.)

I know I’ve forgotten some of my favorite prose, but I’ll note more here if I remember. In the meantime, weigh in with your favorites below. Remember, this is not a selection of “best books” or “best stories” but simply “the best prose written in English”.

The lion clip is no longer on the Internet, but below a clip from the movie showing Blixen (played by Meryl Streep) giving a few words at Finch Hatton’s burial (he was played by Robert Redford).  Just these few moments show what a great actor Meryl Streep is.

The film was shot on location in Kenya, and I do recommend it, even if the critics give it only a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It did win the Best Picture Oscar.

Interview with Dante Lauretta of the Osiris Rex mission; Quickie With Steve: Treating HIV with CRISPR; News Items: Starship's Third Launch, Extinct Flu Virus, Keeping Voyager 1 Going, Death by Exorcism, Energy Demand Increasing; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Fighting Lions; Science or Fiction

For nearly three decades now, it’s been clear that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up. Some unknown quantity, dramatically dubbed ‘dark energy’, is pushing the Universe apart. But the rate at which the Universe’s expansion is increasing – called the Hubble Constant – hasn’t yet been nailed down to a single number.

Not for lack of trying.

In fact, there are multiple ways of measuring it. The problem is that these methods don’t agree with each other. They each give different numbers, which is a confounding – and exciting – puzzle. It means there may be new physics to uncover, if we look carefully.

This mystery is known as the Hubble tension, and it’s only becoming more intractable as measurement techniques become more precise. So astronomers are on the hunt for new and better ways to measure the expansion of the Universe.

In a new paper this week, three Swiss scientists describe a method for significantly improving one measurement technique.

The method uses a specific subset of red giant stars: old stars that have burned away most of the hydrogen in their cores. As they age, red giants get larger, less dense, and dimmer. But at a certain point in their evolution, they switch from burning hydrogen to burning helium, a change that causes a dramatic uptick in brightness. Stars in this phase of their life are considered to have reached the ‘Tip-of-the-Red-Giant-Branch’, or TRGB.

When stars in the TRGB ignite helium, they achieve a known, reliably measured level of brightness: they become ‘standard candles’, making distance measurements between them more accurate.

But that brightness isn’t perfectly constant: there are oscillations – sound waves rippling through the layers of the star. Scientists knew about these acoustic oscillations from previous studies of stellar evolution, but they hadn’t yet been accounted for in attempts at resolving the Hubble tension.

That’s what this new paper sets out to do.

“Younger red giant stars near the TRGB are a little less bright than their older cousins,” says lead author Richard Anderson. “The acoustic oscillations that we observe as brightness fluctuations allow us to understand which type of star we’re dealing with: the older stars oscillate at lower frequency – just like a baritone sings with a deeper voice than a tenor!”

“Now that we can distinguish the ages of the red giants that make up the TRGB, we will be able to further improve the Hubble constant measurement based thereon,” says Anderson.

That’s good news, securing new confidence in our understanding of how the Universe expands. However, by itself, it isn’t likely to resolve the Hubble tension. The widest gap amongst different Hubble constant measurements is between recent Universe observations: type 1A supernovae, cepheid variables, kilonovae, and red giants; and early Universe observations: especially the cosmic microwave background.

That tension remains. Still, the more confident we can be about the accuracy of our measurements, the more sure we can be that there is something new about how the Universe works waiting to be discovered. Accounting for the TRGB oscillations is a concrete step in that direction.

Learn more:

“The baritone of Red Giants refines cosmic distance measurements.” EPFL.

Richard Anderson, Nolan Koblischke, and Laurent Eyer, “Small-amplitude Red Giants Elucidate the Nature of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch as a Standard Candle.” ApJL, March 7, 2024.

The post Red Giants Offer a New Way to Measure Distance in the Universe appeared first on Universe Today.

The NYT’s “Trilobites” column analyzes what a cat’s meow really means. Click on the headline below, or read the article archived here.

The article describes a study in which people tried to interpret the meaning of a cat’s meow by watching videos of said moggy. Some excerpts:

It turns out these misunderstood moments with your cat may be more common than not. A new study by French researchers, published last month in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, found that people were significantly worse at reading the cues of an unhappy cat (nearly one third got it wrong) than those of a contented cat (closer to 10 percent).

The study also suggested that a cat’s meows and other vocalizations are greatly misinterpreted and that people should consider both vocal and visual cues to try to determine what’s going on with their pets.

The researchers drew these findings from the answers of 630 online participants; respondents were volunteers recruited through advertisements on social media. Each watched 24 videos of differing cat behaviors. One third depicted only vocal communication, another third just visual cues, and the remainder involved both.

. . .Their vocals can range from seductive to threatening: meowing, purring, growling, hissing and caterwauling. At last count, kittens were known to use nine different forms of vocalization, while adult cats uttered 16.

That we could better understand what a cat wants by using visual and vocal cues may seem obvious. But we know far less than we think we do.

. . . And the fact that we’re not very good at picking up on signs of animal discontentment should not come as a surprise, Dr. Udell suggested. “We’re more likely to perceive our animals as experiencing positive emotions because we want them to,” she said. “When we see the animals, it makes us feel good, and our positive emotional state in response to the animals gives us these rose-colored glasses.”

Even some of the most common cues may be misunderstood.

Purring, for example, is not always a sign of comfort. “Purring can be exhibited in uncomfortable or stressful conditions,” Dr. de Mouzon said. “When a cat is stressed, or even hurt, they will sometimes purr.”

Such instances are a form of “self-soothing,” said Kristyn Vitale, an assistant professor of animal health and behavior at Unity Environmental University in Maine, who was not involved in the new study.

. . .As an example, Dr. de Mouzon pointed to a cat’s habit of suddenly biting. “Over time, with cats communicating and humans not understanding, the cat will just bite,” she said, “because they have learned over time that this is the only way to make something stop.”

Animal rescue shelters use such findings to educate prospective owners. Dr. Udell and Dr. Vitale are assessing whether cats can be suitable as therapy animals, or in aiding children with developmental differences.

I wonder if humans could develop a form of “purr therapy” in which we could do something similar to purring as “self-soothing”.  As you know, self care is a big deal these days, often involving expensive items like hot-rocks-on-the-back therapy and expensive oils.  If we could do something like purring it would be a lot cheaper!

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From Country Life we have a big list of great quotations about cats. I’ll give just a few; click on the headline to see ’em all:

Ernest Hemingway:

“One cat just leads to another.”
Source: Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”

Mark Twain

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

Leonardo da Vinci

“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.”

Jane Pauley

“Never trust a man who hate cats.”

Albert Schweitzer

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”

Lilian Jackson Brown

“Dogs have their day but cats have 365.”
Source: Three Complete Novels by Lilian Jackson Braun: The Cat Who Saw Red / The Cat Who Played Brahms / The Cat Who Played Post Office

P. C. Cast

“I’ve found that the way a person feels about cats—and the way they feel about him or her in return—is usually an excellent gauge by which to measure a person’s character.”
Source:Marked

Charles Dickens

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”

Eckhart Tolle

“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.”
Source: The Power of Now

Beverley Nichols

“Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.”
Source: Beverley Nichols’ Cats’ X. Y. Z.

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This NYT piece (click on headline or find it archived here) made big news, and is still doing so: I saw it on the NBC Evening News two nights ago. It’s one of the cleverest ideas I’ve heard of!

An excerpt (warning: lots of puns):

Finally, there is something cats can do for humans.

The Worcester Public Library in Worcester, Mass., announced that through the end of March, people who have lost or damaged a book or other borrowed items can bring a photograph, drawing, or magazine clipping of a cat, and get their library cards reactivated.

The library calls the program March Meowness, a way for the system of seven branches to forgive (or is that fur-give?) members of the community who misplaced a book or damaged a borrowed item, and then never went back to avoid paying for it.

In just a few days, the program has already generated hundreds of returns, multiple postings of random cat photographs on the library’s Facebook page, and photographs and drawings pinned on a growing “cat wall” in the main building.

The local NPR affiliate, WBUR, described it as a “never be-fur tried initiative,” and urged patrons to hurry and “act meow.” So far the response, WBUR said, has Jason Homer, the executive director of the library, “feline good.”

. . . If you don’t have a cat? No problem. One cat-less 7-year-old boy, who never returned a “Captain Underpants” book, had his library card reactivated after the staff gave him paper and crayons to sketch one.

. . .The library had previously tried to boost attendance and fee-forgiveness programs with canned food drives. But the cats found their way into the spotlight, as they do. The Meowness program took shape after several months of brainstorming by a library task force that met to come up with a creative way to get people back through the doors.

“It spiraled in a good way from there,” Mr. Homer said. “We were just trying to figure out the lowest barrier possible.”

. . .Mr. Homer said that using cats as the vehicle to forgive patrons for losing or damaging books or other borrowed items could help to soften the stereotype of the stern librarian.

“We don’t really have the high buns and ‘shush’ people anymore,” he said. “We are still book lovers, cardigan lovers and cat lovers.”

This would not, of course, have worked nearly as well as d*gs, for cats rule the Internet.

On the news report I heard that the library had received over 10,000 cat photos, many sent in by distant folks who wanted to help a local waive their fees or get back their library card.  In response, the library has now waived fees for everyone! That’s what a cat lover would do.

And here’s a video:

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Lagniappe: A version of the well known song “The Cat Came Back“, sung by Garrison Keillor and Frederica Von Stade. This song was written in 1893 by Harry S. Miller, and has been recorded many times.

The original sheet music:

In public domain.

h/t: Merilee

Again I importune readers to keep those wildlife photos coming in. And many thanks to those who have contributed.

Today we have some black-and-white photos by reader Christopher Moss. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. This was sent on March 15:

Inspired by today’s B&W film, I thought I’d throw some more your way.

Rain on trumpet lilies (Lilium spp). Leica MP, Summilux 75mm, Delta 3200 in Diafine.

Nuttby Dream Home. Supposedly the second most photographed site in Nova Scotia (how does one ascertain that?), and now demolished. Leica M7, Summicron 50mm, Tri-X in TMax developer.

It’s nice having a brewery at the end of the driveway! Hasselblad 500c, Planar 80mm, XP2, Rodinal developer:

Their product. Pentax 645n, 80mm lens, Tri-X, Diafine:

Lap Cat. Pentax 645n, 120mm lens, Ilford HP5+, Diafine:

Russet apples. Nikon F6, 85mm lens, Tri-X, TMax developer:

Bridge over the Waugh River, now part of the Great Trail. Rolleiflex 2.8GX, XP2, Rodinal:

Fog at Barrachois. Leica MP, Summilux 35, XP2, Kodak HC-110:

I took this photo of a tranquil lake in 2016. Six years later we bought this house and now live there! Leica M2, Summilux 35, Acros 100, Kodak HC-110:

Icicles over the front door, Leica M2, Summilux 35, Ilford PanF, Kodak HC-110:

Wallace. Nikon F6, 28mm lens, XP2, Kodak HC-110:

And finally, the culprit:

Fortunately, the real-world search for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations doesn’t have to deal with an alien armada like the one that’s on its way to Earth in “3 Body Problem,” the Netflix streaming series based on Chinese sci-fi author Cixin Liu’s award-winning novels. But the trajectory of the search can have almost as many twists and turns as a curvature-drive trip from the fictional San-Ti star system.

Take the Breakthrough Initiatives, for example: Back in 2016, the effort’s billionaire founder, Yuri Milner, teamed up with physicist Stephen Hawking to announce a $100 million project to send a swarm of nanoprobes through the Alpha Centauri star system, powered by light sails. The concept, dubbed Breakthrough Starshot, was similar to the space-sail swarm envisioned in Liu’s books — but with the propulsion provided by powerful lasers rather than nuclear bombs.

Today, the Breakthrough Initiatives is focusing on projects closer to home. In addition to the millions of dollars it’s spending to support the search for radio or optical signals from distant planetary systems, it’s working with partners on a miniaturized space telescope to identify planets around Alpha Centauri, a radio telescope that could someday be built on the far side of the moon, and a low-cost mission to look for traces of life within the clouds of Venus.

Pete Worden is the executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. (Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives)

Breakthrough Starshot, however, is on hold. “This looks to be quite feasible. However, it seems to be something that is still pretty, pretty expensive, and probably wouldn’t be feasible until later in the century,” says Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. “So, we’ve put that on hold for a period of time to try to look at, are there near-term applications of this technology, which there may be.”

Worden provides a status report on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — and sorts out science fact from science fiction — on the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

“3 Body Problem” takes its name from a longstanding challenge in orbital mechanics: It’s devilishly difficult to predict the gravitational interactions of three massive bodies in a system, except in some special cases. In the Netflix series, and in the books on which the series is based, a Chinese radio astronomer makes contact with an alien civilization that suffers repeated crises because its home world is in an unstable triple-star system.

When the aliens learn of our existence, they set out on a 400-year mass migration to Earth — an onslaught that puts our own planet on edge. One of the key concepts in the book is the Dark Forest Theory. That’s the idea that civilizations shouldn’t broadcast their existence to the rest of the galaxy, for fear that other denizens of the “Dark Forest” will eventually come after them.

Worden admits that the Dark Forest Theory has had an effect on the Breakthrough Initiatives’ agenda.

“We initially had a program called Breakthrough Message. … Not that we were going to send anything, but we were going to think about it,” he recalls. “We got a lot of resistance to even thinking about sending messages. Interestingly enough, one of the key skeptics of this was Professor Stephen Hawking. He thought it was a bad idea for exactly the Dark Forest reason. Conversely, the chairman of our advisory committee — Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of the U.K. — has the opposite view. He doesn’t think that’s a big issue.”

Worden’s personal view is that we’ve been sending out signs of our presence — ranging from radio transmissions to telltale pollutants in the atmosphere — for so long that “it’s probably too late to hide in the forest and be quiet.”

The Breakthrough Initiatives is counting on civilizations in other planetary systems to speak up, one way or the other. Starting in 2015, Breakthrough Listen has provided support for programs looking for radio signals or optical flashes that might have been transmitted by aliens. One signal in particular, known as BLC1, got hearts beating faster in 2019 — but astronomers eventually traced its origin to earthly radio interference rather than Proxima Centauri.

Another initiative, known as Breakthrough Watch, is working with Australian astronomers on a space telescope that would monitor the motions of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, looking for ever-so-slight gravitational wobbles that could point to the presence of Earthlike planets a little more than 4 light-years from Earth. The telescope is called TOLIMAN, which is the Arabic name for Alpha Centauri as well as an acronym for “Telescope for Orbit Locus Interferometric Monitoring of our Astronomical Neighborhood.”

Worden says launch is currently scheduled for the first half of 2025. “We’re still negotiating on the launch vehicles, but it’s most likely to be a piggyback mission, possibly on a SpaceX mission.” he says.

For what it’s worth, astronomers have already detected a super-Earth that’s orbiting Proxima Centauri — and in 2021, a team supported by Breakthrough Watch reported seeing tentative signs of a giant planet around Alpha Centauri A.

Meanwhile, Worden is working with CSIRO, the Australian government’s science agency, on a different sort of telescope.

“We think we can put a radio telescope for on the order of $100 million on the far side of the moon that looks for transients across the broad spectrum, mostly at higher frequencies,” he says. “That’s a good place, because right now it’s blocked from interference from the Earth. Just virtually everything you see is going to be something interesting.”

The Breakthrough team is also interested in extraterrestrial life in our own solar system: Years ago, Yuri Milner looked into the prospects for sending a probe to Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn that may harbor hidden seas and perhaps even marine organisms. Today, Worden and his colleagues are collaborating with other interested parties — including Schmidt Sciences, researchers at MIT and engineers at Rocket Lab — to send a probe through Venus’ atmosphere to search for organic materials. Liftoff is set for as early as next January.

Getting to other stars

Even though Starshot is on hold, Worden is still thinking about interstellar travel, and he’s not the only one. Last weekend, SpaceX founder Elon Musk referred to the prospects of sending his company’s Starship super-rocket on trips beyond the moon and Mars.

“This Starship is designed to traverse our entire solar system and beyond to the cloud of objects surrounding us,” Musk said in a posting to X / Twitter, his social media platform. “A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems.”

Musk may not be thinking about using light sails, but NASA is. One of the proposals that won funding in the latest round of NASA Advance Innovative Concepts grants envisions developing swarms of sail-equipped, laser-propelled micro-probes that would take advantage of the same principle laid out by Breakthrough Starshot to get to the Alpha Centauri system.

Light sails are likely to start out being used for trips to far-out destinations in the solar system. Japan’s space agency tested a solar sail during an experiment in 2010 that sent the spacecraft on a flyby past Venus — and looked into a follow-up mission to a group of asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit. That idea was put on hold, but Japanese scientists are considering other missions that would use solar power sails.

An artist’s conception shows an early design for Breakthrough Starshot’s light sail. (Breakthrough Initiatives Illustration)

Worden thinks the best long-term approach to interstellar travel would be a combination of light sails to get the probes where they’re going, plus fusion power to slow them down once they get there. “I think that ultimately, something along that line is probably feasible in a century or so, maybe sooner,” he says.

A century may sound like a long time, but when you’re talking about sending probes to other stars, you have to adjust your time scales. After all, even the super-advanced aliens in “3 Body Problem” need 400 years to get to Earth. You can add interstellar travel to the other multi-generational challenges that are facing humanity, such as climate change. In fact, The New Yorker’s review of “3 Body Problem” notes that the approach of the aliens serves as “an unexpectedly potent metaphor for the looming perils of climate change.”

So, how long could it be before we connect with extraterrestrial civilizations? That’s the kind of question that can get alien-hunters in trouble. Two decades ago, the SETI Institute’s Seth Shostak speculated that we were likely to pick up signals from intelligent alien life by the year 2025 — a scenario that now seems extremely unlikely.

Worden prefers to think in terms of percentages.

“Within a decade, we’ll almost assuredly find life elsewhere,” he says. “We’ll probably find a life-bearing planet nearby. We’ll find life either on Mars, or Venus, or maybe the outer solar system moons. But an alien techno-civilization? I’d say, for any given decade, it’s probably a few percent. But if you don’t look, you don’t find it.”

It doesn’t bother him that he may not be around to answer one of life’s ultimate questions. “One of the cool things about science is that the journey is the fun part, and you never know what you’re going to find,” Worden says. “So, as a scientist, to me, you’re pursuing something that is unlikely, but really fundamental to our future. It’s the most fun thing I can imagine working on.”

If the aliens ever do arrive, let’s hope they find that oh-so-human trait endearing.

Take a look at the original version of this posting on Cosmic Log to get Worden’s recommendations for science-fiction stories about alien contact. Check out the Breakthrough Initiatives website to learn more about what Worden and his colleagues are up to, and tune into “3 Body Problem” on Netflix. There’s also a Chinese adaptation of Liu’s books, titled “Three-Body,” that’s available in the U.S. via PBS, Peacock, Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

My co-host for the Fiction Science podcast is Dominica Phetteplace, an award-winning writer who is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and lives in San Francisco. To learn more about Phetteplace, visit her website, DominicaPhetteplace.com, and read “The Ghosts of Mars,” her novella in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.

Stay tuned for future episodes of the Fiction Science podcast via Apple, Google, Overcast, Spotify, Player.fm, Pocket Casts and Radio Public. If you like Fiction Science, please rate the podcast and subscribe to get alerts for future episodes.

The post Starshot … Not? Get a Reality Check on the Search for Alien Civilizations appeared first on Universe Today.

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