I am currently on sabbatical (and enjoying some hiking in the Appalachian Mountains). Blog posts will resume in September!
Advertising is about persuasion. Companies spend billions of dollars per year trying to convince us to buy their products. But sometimes, rigorous philosophical training can help us avoid that influence. Consider the following ad: Only deep immersion in Immanuel Kant helped me recognize the flaws in this reasoning!
Recovering from surgery can be painful. That’s why lots of surgeons give patients narcotics post-operatively. But that is also the time when people can get hooked on narcs. Here is a picture of how many patients take narcotics for at least 3 months following a surgical procedure: Perhaps orthopedic surgeons should ask for help from…
I recognize that correlation does not prove causation. But here is a picture illustrating the correlation between income inequality and the percent of a country’s population that is obese. The findings are provocative, to say the least. Making the relationship somewhat plausible is all the evidence we have now of the toll that income inequality…
Here’s a picture from a New England Journal of Medicine article showing that in 2015 and 2016, Obamacare premiums grew more slowly than private insurance premiums rose before the law came into effect: The Obamacare markets are new and unsettled. But so far they aren’t leading to runaway inflation. But what will happen to these…
“CASES: When Bad Advice Is the Best Advice” – The New York Times
The right to die has played a critical role in the development of the doctor/patient relationship. It was families clamoring for the right to allow their loved ones to die who forced the world to recognize that physicians’ medical decisions aren’t just medical decisions, but involve enormous value judgments. In 1975, Karen Ann Quinlan’s loving…