In another leak from the Trump Administration, The New York Times obtained a report on climate change last night (August 7).

Titled the Climate Science Special Report, it is based on the work of scientists from 13 federal agencies, and it concludes that it is extremely likely that more than half of the increase in global temperatures over the past 40 years is because of human activity. Though this has been the assertion of many of the worlds expertsand laypeopleon global warming, it is a belief that starkly contradicts those of a number of Trumps cabinet members, who claim it is uncertain how much human behavior is to blame.

The draft is now under review by the White House, which received it several weeks ago. According to New York magazine, 13 government agencies must sign off on the draft, which has already been approved by the National Academy of Sciences, by Sunday.

The Washington Post reports that scientists from these agencies fear suppression from the White House. One of the agencies that must approve it is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is headed by Scott Pruitt, who has said that he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary factor in global warming. The report insists otherwise.

In addition to Pruitt and other cabinet members disbelief about human influence on global warming, The Guardian reported yesterday that aseries of emails shows staff at the Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service is censoring the use of the term climate change. Instead staff has been advised to use the term weather extremes.

The current situation will provide an acid test of whether the Trump Administration is open to hearing the scientific truth about climate change or is so much in the thrall of fossil fuel interests that they are fixated on hiding the reality from the public, Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, told the Times.

The draft report, says The Washington Post, estimates that human impact was responsible for an increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

In addition, scientists studied all areas of the United States. Per the Post:

It also dismisses talk of a so-called hiatus in global warming, noting that the most recent years reinforce longer-term trends. Instead, the report says, the United States faces temperature increases of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next few decades even under significantly reduced future emissions. And the record-setting temperatures of recent years will become relatively common in the near future.

Aside from a rise in temperatures across the nation, the report also posits thatair and ground temperatures in Alaska and the Arctic are rising at twice the rate of the global average. There are already coastal Native communities in Alaska that are wrestling with the realitieseconomic and culturalof relocating inland to avoid rising sea levels.

As Colorlines has previously reported, coastal communities of color bear a disproportunite brunt of climate change in the U.S. Such communities tend to live on lower-lying land more susceptible to flooding, and when it floods, they often lack the proper funds to deal with it and rebuild.

The entire report can be read here on the Times site.

Read the original:
New Federal Report on Climate Change Refutes Beliefs of Trump Cabinet - ColorLines magazine

The American Society of Safety Engineers conference in Denver sponsored a debate of sorts between the proponents of behavior-based safety (BBS) and what has come to be called human and organizational performance (HOP). These were touted as two different philosophies of workplace safety aimed at reducing workplace injuries and fatalities. The latter of these two was presented as a shift in thinking.

There are several problems with both ways of thinking that should be obvious to those in charge of safety at the site or organizational level.

The first problem is that neither of these represent an overall strategy for safety. Each approach focuses on one aspect of what is needed to create a safe workplace and ignores almost everything else. Neither really is a philosophy, but rather a program or process.

A true strategy is a value proposition that defines how to win. In the case of safety, it would define how to win the war against accidental injuries and fatalities. Both these approaches fail to define what true safety excellence looks like or what it takes to achieve it. Rather, both prescribe a series of steps to fail less.

For decades, safety metrics largely have been lagging indicators or failure metrics. Such measurements prompt organizations to work reactively to drive the metrics down or fail less. Success is defined as the lack of failure rather than a strategic achievement.

The second problem lies in the fact that every site (even within the same organization) has a unique culture. While both of these approaches have been successful at reducing accidents, the successes are less a function of methodology and more a function of fit. BBS stresses working on specific behaviors and HOP stresses working on organizational support factors. The approach that will work best for the specific site is the one that best addresses the site-specific safety challenges. The factor that can change this reality is the extent to which the process can be customized for the site.

BBS became so popular at one time that many practices with little to do with mainstream behavioral thinking were labeled as BBS. Academic experts and consultants proposed very specific methods for doing BBS. Because of this, many people have a very limited or specific view of what BBS really is. Based on the most popular approaches, BBS has several main components:

Selecting specific safety-related worker behaviors. Observing workers to see if they are doing these behaviors. Using various methods to encourage (positively reinforce) or discourage the behaviors. Using the observation data as a leading indicator to enhance safety. Some attempted to shape the safety culture through worker interaction, caring and ownership of the process.

Many of these approaches to change worker behaviors failed to realize and address the organizational influences on the behaviors and simply attempted to force a change at the individual worker level. This omission was one factor that led to the formation of HOP.

Human and organizational performance (HOP) proposes that workplace factors of various sorts impact worker behavior and the organization should align these factors to prompt the kind of safety performance it wants.

The spokesman for human and organizational excellence in this debate explained the difference, stating BBS sees the worker as the problem to be solved while HOP views the employee as the problem solver. Neither of these recognize the worker as the customer of safety efforts. The workers definitely are not the safety problem, but neither are they the problem solvers. If workers could solve their own safety problems, they already would have done so.

While HOP requests feedback from workers on what they need to be safe, it ignores the truism that people dont know what they dont know. It is the responsibility of the safety efforts to add value to the worker: increased skills, better risk awareness, strategies for handling risks, personal protective equipment, etc. Even if the worker doesnt know they need these things, the safety department should.

Safety constantly should try to predict and exceed the needs of the worker, not just meet the known demands. Steve Jobs said no one knew they needed a smart phone until he invented one. Henry Ford said if he had given people what they thought they wanted, it would have been a faster horse. It is not enough to just ask workers and rely on their perceived wants and needs.

In all fairness, the statement that BBS views the worker as the problem is inaccurate as well. Most BBS programs focus on behaviors and realize that behavior is influenced by much more than the individual. In this regard, the two philosophies tend to agree. The organization should manage influences on human behavior, not just ask workers to change.

In this sense, these two approaches are part of a greater whole. BBS produces a measurement of targeted behaviors and an excellent opportunity to better understand what influences behavior at the very touchpoint where it is happening. If BBS observers would quit confronting workers to change behavior and start asking why when desired behaviors are not occurring, the organization could better target the specific influences impacting worker behavior.

Without such information, human and organizational performance approaches are simply seeking generic actions to prompt performance. Without the why approach, BBS naively is thinking it can change behaviors without changing the influences on behavior that could be modified in a HOP program. If these two programs quit debating and start cooperating, the result would be a much more holistic approach.

Even so, addressing worker behavior and its organizational influences only impacts one element of safety excellence. The greatest potential value of either of these programs (or a combination of them) would be if they fit into an overarching safety strategy that defined success and the specific role these programs would contribute to that success.

Terry Mathis, founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, has served as a consultant and advisor for top organizations. A respected strategist and thought leader in the industry, Mathis has authored four books and numerous articles and blogs and is known for his dynamic and engaging presentations. EHS Today has named him one of the 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS four consecutive times. Mathis can be reached at [emailprotected] or 800-395-1347.

The rest is here:
Safety and Performance Excellence: Two-Dimensional Safety - EHS Today

MONDAY, Aug. 7 2017 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests -- but doesn't prove -- that certain players of action video games may lose gray matter in a part of the brain that's linked to mental illness.

On the other hand, the Canadian study suggests, other players may actually benefit from the games.

And a psychologist not involved with the study said there's no evidence that video games are harmful to the brain.

The results indicate that the reported benefits of playing shooting-style video games -- such as improved attention and short-term memory -- "might come at a cost" in terms of lost brain matter in some players, said the study's lead author, Gregory West. He is an assistant professor with the department of psychology at the University of Montreal.

The difference may be the style of playing, the researchers noted.

The new study aimed to better understand the brain effects of so-called first-person and third-person shooting games -- such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Killzone, or Medal of Honor -- compared to "3-D platform" games in the Super Mario series.

The researchers used a virtual-reality test, MRIs and 90 hours of game-playing involving 100 people who were either expert or nonexpert players. They also used MRIs to assess the impact on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that helps spatial and episodic memory.

The results showed evidence that gray matter in the hippocampus grew in those players who used so-called spatial strategies to find their way in the action video game. But the gray matter shrunk in those who navigated the same games by learned response.

Spatial players create maps in their heads to understand the geography of the world within the game, the researchers explained. And response players use an approach akin to learning a route that you travel every day -- make a right turn here, then a left, then a right -- so that you can drive on mental auto-pilot without thinking.

Those who played the Super Mario games, meanwhile, showed signs of growth in either the hippocampus or another part of the brain called the entorhinal cortex.

The study authors emphasized that they aren't saying that anyone who plays video games will develop a mental illness.

"But we know that those with less gray matter in the hippocampus are more at risk to get conditions like schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and Alzheimer's disease," said study co-author Veronique Bohbot. She is an associate professor with the department of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal.

A video game expert called brain studies of game players problematic.

"Given that there are so many areas in the brain, it stands to reason that, by chance alone, some of these areas may randomly differ between any two groups of people," said Chris Ferguson, a professor of psychology with Stetson University in DeLand, Fla.

"Researchers can sometimes make a big deal out of these random differences and ascribe them to something like video games," he said.

Ferguson noted that overall brain research into the effects of the games hasn't revealed problems.

"Despite some wild headlines and press releases from time to time, the research suggests that video game playing is entirely safe for the brain," Ferguson said.

"The aggregate of studies have not suggested that playing video games, even 'violent' ones, cause either short- or long-term brain changes that are problematic or could be called 'brain damage,' " he added.

"Most studies also don't connect the brain differences to actual behavior. So brain studies often function like Rorschach cards, telling you more about what the researchers want to believe than anything actually happening with human behavior," Ferguson suggested.

What should video game players do? Study lead author West suggests that adults play shooter games for only two to three hours a week.

Ferguson noted that research is hinting that video games may reduce stress and improve problem-solving abilities.

"Playing video games should be balanced with other activities: offline socialization, exercise, work and school, family and good sleep," he said. "As long as games are part of a balanced lifestyle, there's no evidence that they cause harmful brain changes."

The study was published in the Aug. 7 issue of Molecular Psychiatry.

Excerpt from:
Can Video Game Playing Cost You Gray Matter? - Bloomington Pantagraph

Perhaps perpetuated by folklore, Hollywood, or just human fascination, the idea that the moon effects human behavior continues to persist today.

But how much of it is fact, and how much is fiction?

When there is a full moon, people always say Oh everybody is acting strangely because its a full moon, says Sara Wilson, executive director of the St. Joseph Museums. We said Well, is that really true?

The Moon and Madness exhibit, which looks at the connections between the moon and human behavior, opened Aug. 1 at the Glore Psychiatric Museum. The family-friendly, temporary exhibit will be open through the end of the year.

The exhibit explores this idea, this fundamental belief that we have that the moon effects human behavior, Wilson says. We think about the history between our long understanding of the history of mental illness and what mental illness is and the idea that the moon has some relationship to that.

In preparation for the exhibit, the museum collected research that looked at human activity during a full moon, including psychiatric hospital admissions and crime. They worked on the exhibit for about a year before it was unveiled.

Are there more psychiatric hospital admissions during a full moon? Is there more crime during a full moon? Wilson says. Overwhelmingly, the science seems to indicate, no, theres not. But if you have friends who work for the police force or hospitals, almost all of them will say Yes, yes, there is something that happens when theres a full moon that people start to act strangely.

Although such a connection, which has been called the lunar lunacy effect or Transylvania effect, has persevered in legend, media and other places, the research didnt support a connection, Wilson says. Despite the lack of solid scientific evidence, the connection has been long standing, including in the mental health field, she says.

The state hospital, which was here in St. Joseph, which is largely what the Glore interprets, was originally called the State Lunatic Asylum. If you think about that word, lunatic, that has its roots in lunar, which is another word for moon. The notion of lunatic, the longstanding idea of what happens with lunacy, is there is some connection to the phases of the moon, she says.

One theory about a link between the moon and human behavior stems from the moons influence on the Earths tides, Wilson says, but research suggests that the same influence is not substantial on the human body.

The thing that I find most interesting is our stead-fast belief that people do act strangely during a full moon, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, Wilson says. I think there must be something to it, even though our science maybe hasnt figured out what, yet.

The interactive exhibit also looks at the solar system and the fundamentals of solar and lunar eclipses. A telescope allows visitors to view the moon, and a 3-D interactive exhibit displays the solar system.

A few floors below the exhibit, lunar sample 70035, a piece of moon rock, is on display at the museum. It was collected by astronaut Harrison Schmitt in 1972 and is estimated to be 3.75 billion years old. It will be on display through October and was brought to St. Joseph by the St. Joseph Museums and VekTek LLC.

Thats been a huge deal for St. Joseph to have a piece of the moon when the solar eclipse is coming, Wilson says. We are grateful for that.

The solar eclipse provides a unique opportunity to look at the history of the moon and mental illness, Wilson says. The St. Joseph Museums, 3406 Frederick Ave., are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission ranges from free for children under 6 to $6 for adults.

The Glore is a fantastic resource here in St. Joseph, and its inspiring, she says. Its also an important story that we share with the entire country, the history of treatment of mental illness. Its very unique.

Read the original:
Glore looks at connection between moon, behavior - News-Press Now

Religion has played an important part in countless wars, conflicts, terrorist attacks, murders, and genocides, yet people seem to associate it with morality. In fact, these same peopleeven other atheistsseem to think atheists are the immoral ones.

A new study from an international team of scientists tried to add some data to the moral distrust of atheists, a prejudice that exists in America and around the world. The research surveyed 3,256 people from 13 different countries, and found that, sure enough, anti-atheist prejudices still exist among religious people and other atheists alike, in both religious and secular countries.

Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religions powerful influence on moral judgements persists, the authors write in the article, published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, even among non-believers in secular societies.

The task was simple: Survey participants read about a boy who tortures animals, then murders and mutilates homeless people as an adult. They then answered questions about the mans religious beliefs in a way the experimenters specifically designed so folks werent simply choosing whether the man was a believer or non believer, which could add extra bias. Instead, some participants decided whether the man was a teacher, in general, or specifically a teacher who believed in god, and others decided whether the man was a teacher or specifically an atheist teacher.

Participants came from Australia, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Mauritius, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. While the amount of anti-atheist sentiment varied between countries, folks were always more likely to say the man was an atheist teacher than they were to say he was religious.

Even as secularism reduces overt religiosity in many places religion has apparently still left a deep and abiding mark on human moral intuitions, the authors write.

You might think that people simply associate immorality with disbelief in general, but further studies seem to point out that the sentiment is specifically expressed towards those who dont believe in God.

If youre an atheist, no need to worry (yet). This is just a scientific study and not necessarily a reflection of how peoples thinking actually plays out in the real world, Adam Cohen and Jordan Moon, psychologists at Arizona State University write in a Nature commentary. Atheism is rarely the only piece of information known about interaction partners, they write, and it is possible that, when included with the social information that individuals collect naturally, atheism will be perceived as less indicative of immoral behavior. In other words, survey data doesnt necessarily reflect the world as large, as is often the caveat of many lab studies.

Still, as mentioned, the data does seem to support a well-documented bias against atheists. To that I ask: What is wrong with everyone?

[Nature Human Behaviour]

Read the original post:
People Everywhere Think Atheists Are Bad, Says New Study - Gizmodo

BySaralyn Lyons

For young people in Baltimore who are exposed to violence regularly, violent behavior can become a conditioned response to stressful situations. But for many, it's a response that's not fully intentional.

A husband and wife team of researchers, George and Stephanie Zuo, have proposed a way to address these automatic responses in Baltimore youth through cognitive behavioral therapy, a technique already proven effective in schools and juvenile detention centers in Chicago. Their proposal aims to give young people in city schools and detention centers the tools to develop situational awareness and internalize new, healthier patterns of thinking and responding in stressful situations.

The idea has earned Stephanie, who graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in May, and George, who completed his first year as a doctoral student in economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, the 2017 Abell Award for Urban Policy, which recognizes outstanding papers that analyze a major policy issue facing Baltimore and propose feasible solutions.

The honor is accompanied by a $5,000 award. Students with ties to Johns Hopkins University have won the Abell Award 13 times since 2003.

"We wanted to work together, because we thought it would be an amazing way to use both of our skill sets to do something for Baltimore," says Stephanie, who is currently an OB/GYN resident at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

The pair met as undergrads at Harvard University, married in 2014, and moved to Baltimore to attend graduate school.

"We're both very much invested in urban, under-served neighborhoods and finding ways to improve the lives of those who live there," she says.

The crux of their proposal, says George, is correcting a common misconception about human behaviorthat all people, teenagers included, think ahead and consider consequences when they act, and that they will be deterred from violent behaviors by harsh consequences.

"We know from the wealth of literature and research on the matter this isn't actually the case," he says. "Most of the time, your brain is in this autopilot mode that has evolved over time to efficiently handle everyday life. You actually spend very little of your time actively and consciously making decisions. For kids who come from turbulent backgrounds, this autopilot mode can be useful for navigating through a tough environment at home but can also be problematic in certain contexts, like being called out by a teacher or fellow student. The CBT intervention we propose is an immersive way to help youth shift towards more deliberate thinking, especially in the heat of the moment."

To develop their proposal&titled "Juvenile Crime and the Heat of the Moment: A proposal to pilot cognitive behavioral therapy interventions to reduce youth crime and recidivism in Baltimore City"they examined research from two programs in Chicago that implemented the CBT therapy, which applies mindfulness techniques to help people identify and correct automatic responses, thoughts, and behaviors. Among the teens who received the therapy, total arrests decreased by 28 to 35 percent, and violent crime arrests decreased by 45 to 50 percent. Graduation rates increased as well at the end of the academic year.

They also analyzed violent crime in Baltimore, finding that the city has one of the highest rates of violent crime per capita among cities of comparable size. They looked at programs and trends in the amount of money spent on youth in the juvenile justice system and found that Baltimore already far outspends the daily national average on educational and mental health services for each child in a juvenile detention facility.

"Clearly," they state in their paper, "financial resources alone have not been enough to stem this problem."

They interviewed high school students, educators, and correctional workers to learn about the needs of high-risk youth in Baltimore.

"I found it incredibly moving to be able to talk to the local stakeholders in Baltimore," Stephanie says. "I really commend them for their hard workthe teachers in the Baltimore City Public School system, the staff at the Baltimore City Juvenile Detention Center, and those involved with nonprofits serving Baltimore youth. It was inspirational to listen to their stories and to hear their passion for caring for these young people."

Adds George: "We have research interests that we're passionate about, but seeing the human interest in it gave a different dimension to our work."

The duo is currently working to connect with Baltimore City officials, youth organizations, and corrections facilities to help implement and administer a pilot program.

"A project at this scaleit's ambitious," George says. "But if we get the right people at the table, I think it's definitely possible."

Read the rest here:
Proposal suggests using psychotherapy to help break cycle of violent behavior among Baltimore youth - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

Literary criticAdam Kirschis readinga page of Talmuda day, along with Jews around the world.

The Talmud is a compendium of laws and legal opinions, and it presupposes the existence of a functioning court system. But a Jewish court, a beit din, is different in fundamental ways from the court of a state like the United States or, for that matter, Israel. Instead of being appointed by the government and staffed by salaried professionals, a Jewish court is made up of expert rabbis resident in the area, who serve as volunteers. In most cases, three judges serve to constitute a court; in more serious cases, where capital or corporal punishment is on the agenda, 23 judges are required. This commingling of sacred and secular is fitting, because halakhah, Jewish law, is not simply a code for the regulation of human behavior. It is a set of commandments given by God (though elaborated by human interpreters). To be a judge is to fulfill a religious duty: God stands in the congregation of God; in the midst of the judges he judges, says Psalm 81.

Yet that duty, as Daf Yomi readers saw in chapter one of Tractate Sanhedrin, is an onerous one, for several reasons. It is unpaid labor, which makes it a financial burden: Ajudge does not do what is necessary to provide for the needs of his house, and he enters his house empty-handed, says Rav in Sanhedrin 7b. Worse, however, is the moral responsibility of judging: If only his entry will be as his departure, Rav continues, by which he means that a judge is lucky if he comes home at night as free from sin as when he left in the morning. Judges are only human, which means they will sometimes make mistakes, but these are mistakes with enormous spiritual and worldly consequences. A judge should always view himself as if a sword is placed between his thighs and Gehenna is opened up beneath him, says Rabbi Yonatan. One wrong move means going to hell.

No wonder that when Rav Huna was judging a case, he would gather and bring 10 rabbis from Ravs study hall, in order to share the burden of responsibility. As Yehoshua ben Levi says, If 10 judges are sitting in judgment, a prisoners collar hangs around all of their necks, since they will be punished by God for a false verdict: any judge who takes from this litigant and gives to that litigant unlawfully, the Holy One, Blessed be He, takes his soul from him. When he goes to the courtroom, a judge goes out to death. Indeed, the fate of the entire community rests on the actions of its judges: Every judge who does not judge according to absolute truth causes the Divine Presence to withdraw from Israel, the Gemara holds.

Yet the suspicion arises that perhaps the rabbis put such stress on the dangers of judging because the office also involved a certain temptationnot financial, but in terms of status. In Sanhedrin 7b, we read about how a convoy of scribes would follow Rav around, and crowds would carry Mar Zutra on their shoulders. The power of a judge added to the prestige of a Torah scholar is a heady mixture, and the best judges take care not to be intoxicated by it: For power is not forever, and does the crown endure for all generations? Mar Zutra would remind himself, using a verse from Proverbs.

It is because they recognized the moral responsibility of judging that the rabbis were so hesitant to impose extreme verdicts, especially the death penalty. The law code given in the Torah is full of capital crimes: everything from adultery to idol worship to violating Shabbat to disobeying your parents can be punished by death, often by the particularly horrible method of stoning. But by the Talmudic era, it is clear that judges had lost their taste for such bloody punishments. Indeed, they introduce such high barriers to the imposition of capital sentences that, in practice, the death penalty could almost never be used.

In Sanhedrin 9a, the Gemara lays down the procedural requirements for capital punishment: The court executes them only when the following elements are present: the congregation; and witnesses; and forewarning. The congregation of Israel imposes judgment by proxy, through the panel of judges. There must be two eyewitnesses to the crime, and those witnesses must have warned the suspect explicitly that he was about to commit a capital crime. Moreover, Rabbi Yehuda adds, the warning must include by which form of the death penalty he is to be killed. If the suspect is warned that he is liable to death, but not specifically liable to stoning or strangling, then he cannot be executed.

This rule raises the question of whether Jews can be expected to know Jewish law. Apparently, the rabbis believed that they could not. Even in the case of major crimes, a person would have to be explicitly informed about the potential consequences of his action, presumably because he didnt already know it. Only a minority of Jews could be assumed to be familiar with halakhah; these were the people known as chaverimliterally, friendswho were evidently a religious elite; comparable, perhaps, to the Orthodox today. So the question arises: Does a chaver need a forewarning before he commits a crime, or should it be assumed that he already knows the law? Here the rabbis disagree, with the majority sticking to the rule that forewarning is necessary. Evidently, the purpose of the warning is not only to inform the would-be criminal of the law but to give him an extra chance to desist.

Obviously, these requirements could almost never be met in real life, particularly in the case of sins like adultery, which generally take place without witnesses. But the rabbis go on to add even more barriers to a guilty verdict. According to Rabbi Meir, whose opinions usually form the basis of the Mishna, any inconsistency in the witnesses testimony, even the most trivial, is grounds for dismissing that testimony. Yochanan ben Zakkai once heard a case in which the testimony hinged, in an unexplained manner, on the stems of figsby which the Talmud seems to mean, the color and shape of the figs. When the two witnesses disagreed about this, Yochanan dismissed their testimony, causing the case to collapse.

The primary role played by witnesses in a Jewish court case raises an interesting question. Can the accused be a witness against himself? In Sanhedrin 9b, the Gemara considers of a man who is raped by another man. In this case, the victim can be considered a witness to the crime, so that only one additional witness is required to make the requisite two. These two can take it upon themselves to kill the rapist because they are carrying out Torah law.

To us, of course, the crime in this situation is the rape, not gay sex. But Leviticus holds that sodomy itself is a capital crime, even if the sex between men is consensual. This raises the question of what happens when the victim of sodomy engages in it voluntarily. Such a person, under Torah law, is considered wicked (rashah), and the Torah prohibits accepting the testimony of the wicked: Do not put your hand with a wicked person to be an unrighteous witness. So can a person convict himself of wickedness by confessing to it? There seems to be a logical contradiction involved: Acriminal who confesses is declaring himself a rashah, and the testimony of a rashah is inadmissible, so the testimony of the man that he is a rashah would be inadmissible as well.

According to Rava, this case falls under the category of testimony that is forbidden because it applies to a relative. Ordinarily, a man is not allowed to be a witness in a case involving a family member, whether he is testifying for or against the accused. Rava reasons that a person is his own relative, and so this rule extends to self-accusation: A person cannot render himself wicked by his own testimony. However, his testimony about the same incident would be considered reliable when it is directed against someone other than himself. This leads to the paradoxical result that, if two men have consensual sex, one can procure the execution of the other while remaining innocent himself. However, it can only be the passive partner in sodomy who makes the accusation, since in the eyes of the law he is the victim of the act, while the active partner is the guilty party. The absurdities of this situation are a good sign that it is criminalizing gay sex that is truly rashah.

***

Adam Kirsch embarked on theDaf Yomicycle of daily Talmud study inAugust2012. To catch up on the complete archive,click here.

Adam Kirsch is a poet and literary critic, whose books include The People and the Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature.

Go here to read the rest:
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. - Tablet Magazine

A memo circulated by a Google engineer decrying the tech giants diversity efforts as misguided ricocheted around the Internet over the weekend. The manifesto, which accuses the company of pushing its ideological biases on its employees, drew scorn almost everyplace its landed, and triggered a response from Googles vice president of diversity.

The memo is illuminating, in part because it reveals how a segment of the tech industry still feels about the value and importance of diversity. It also demonstrates how biological determinism, the idea that human behavior is innate and rooted in evolution, remains a potent organizing philosophy.

The author, who remains anonymous, argues that the under-representation of women in Silicon Valley can be attributed to biological differences between men and women; that men are more competitive than women; and this is a truth universal across human cultures.

Except its not.

In a fascinating and ambitious 2009 study (pdf), a team of economists from the universities of Chicago and Maryland set out to determine if competition was a function of nature or nurture, using a simple field experiment in two dramatically different cultures. One experiment took place among the Khasi people of Meghalaya, a region of northeastern India, where property and status is inherited through women, and men are expected to work on behalf of their wives and her family. The other was conducted in the Arusha region of Tanzania among the Maasai people, a strict patriarchal society, where women have few rights.

In both countries, about 80 men and women were asked to toss a tennis ball into basket about 10 ft away 10 times, and told they were matched with another, anonymous participant, also playing the same game. They were given a choice of a simple payment for the taskabout 40 US centsor they could earn three times as much if they beat they the other player. Among the Maasai, half the men chose to compete, while only a quarter of the women chose to. Among the Khasi, not only were the results reversed, but Khasi women were even more competitive than the Maasai men: 54% of the women opted to compete, as did 39% of the Khasi men.

Setting aside all the anecdotal evidence that women can be as aggressive as menor more soin a range of domains from sports to politics to business, the study seems to offer hard proof that competition isnt based in biology, but culture. In a society where women control their communitys wealth, theyre more competitive then men.

Authors Uri Gneezy, Kenneth Leonard, and John List are quick to point out the limitations of study that looks at just two societies, and they note there are lots of factors that could lead to the Khasis matrilineal culture, including genetics that favor competition in women. But they do conclude it is not universally true that the average female in every society avoids competition more often than the average male in that society because we have discovered at least one setting in which this is not true.

Explaining away differences as biological is appealingly simple. Its much easier to shrug off disparities in power and status as the fault of genes, than to confront the much more complicated reasons of customs, institutions, laws, and regulations that created them.

Read this next: 12 things employers can do to improve gender equality at their workplaces

Continue reading here:
This is the study that definitely proves men aren't born more competitive than women - Quartz

A van in Arlington, Va., being used by Virginia Tech as part of a study on driverless technology. (Twitter Photo via @AdamTuss)

As a trusted journalist with years of experience in the profession, I never thought about just saying, Im with the news, dude, as a way to get a subject to talk. But my tactics might change after watching reporter Adam Tuss in action.

Tuss, with NBCs News4 out of Washington, D.C., was on the trail of what appeared to be a driverless vehicle in Arlington, Va., on Monday. Autonomous vehicle technology on public roadways is still a pretty big deal, so Tuss was certainly chasing a worthy story.

Videos by Tuss on Twitter did indeed appear to show a grey 2017 Ford Transit Connect heading down rainy streets in the Virginia suburb with no one behind the wheel. Tuss and a colleague followed the van for 20 minutes, according to a story on NBC Washington.

But when Tuss approached the stopped vehicle, he discovered that a human was doing the driving. And that human was disguised like one of the vans seats, operating the steering wheel through the bottom of the costume.

Brother, who are you? What are you doing? Im with the news, dude, Tuss said. Dude, can you pull over and we can talk for a second?

The drivers seat didnt reply, but Tuss tracked down the answers he was looking for when the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute replied to inquiries and said Monday that the van and driver are part of a study being conducted around driverless cars.

The drivers seating area is configured to make the driver less visible within the vehicle, while still allowing him or her the ability to safely monitor and respond to surroundings, the institute said in a statement to News4.

Virginia Tech provides more information online about what it hopes to achieve with the study, including studying human behavior in the presence of new technology in the real world.

Seems like this TV reporter just provided some valuable data.

Read the original post:
'I'm with the news, dude' watch this TV reporter try to figure out what's up with a 'driverless' car - GeekWire

On July 24, the president addressed the Boy Scouts of America during their quadrennial Jamboree in West Virginia. Would that he had offered these personal reflections to the assembled Scouts and for legions more across the country.

I admire the Boy Scouts of America, he might have begun. I applaud your long history of service to our society and nation and I believe all of America could benefit now if each of us aspired to live out your 12 Scout Laws.

A Scout is Trustworthy. I can see the value in that. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say go a long way in getting others to believe they can rely on your words. When you say one thing, act another, and then deny that you ever said the thing everybody knows you said, it makes people leery of relying on you. That creates problems for you and others.

A Scout is Loyal. I value loyalty. Some people say its a two-way street and you must give loyalty to get loyalty. Maybe so, but thats hard work. Still, anything worth having is worth working for, including earning respect.

A Scout is Helpful. We should all look for opportunities to help others in need. The world is a difficult place and not everyone begins life with advantages we may enjoy. Rather than kicking them aside as failures, it is better, I think, to help them lift themselves up.

A Scout is Friendly. We all need friends, people who like to be around us because we have developed a mutual respect, people who come to our aid when we need them. To have a friend, be a friend. You cannot just command people to like you, no matter how much money and power you have.

A Scout is Courteous. As a young lad, our first president, George Washington, copied for his penmanship lessons and his development of character a series of guidelines titled Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Perhaps we should all read those from time to time.

A Scout is Kind. Psychologists will tell you human behaviors arise from only three emotions: fear, anger, and sadness. Joy and kindness, of course, are our natural states when we remove those other three. When you are not acting out of kindness, stop and ask yourself: Of what am I afraid? At what am I angry? Why am I sad? People will like you more when you are kinder.

A Scout is Obedient. Doing the right thing is always important; its paramount. Being obedient to the rule of law and to the United States Constitution are what keep us free of dictators and authoritarian rulers. And, yes, that could happen here. Be vigilant.

A Scout is Cheerful. People like to be around others who are hopeful and optimistic. Complaining is easy. It is the favorite refuge of the uninformed. It requires no imagination and is soon quite tiresome to others.

A Scout is Thrifty. In this world, you have two ways to be rich: have a lot of money or dont have many needs. Choosing how to manage your wants so they dont become the needs that control your life is all part of maturing into adulthood.

A Scout is Brave. Standing up for justice is not easy. Youll need courage. Standing up to bullies and liars are the times in your life you will recall with the greatest sense of accomplishment and personal pride.

A Scout is Clean. Falling prey to temptation is part of being human, but you are called to rise above those behaviors which will embarrass you and your family and bring shame on your household. Character is who you are in the dark, when no one is looking, when no one can see you.

A Scout is Reverent. We all have a relationship with some concept of the origins of mankind. But know this: there is a God and you are not it. Humility is what makes us human.

No action is more important for any president than to encourage the future of this great nation, the president might have concluded. You Scouts and all those who will come after you are part of the fabric of our future as the United States of America. I may not live out the 12 Scout Laws, he might have acknowledged, but if you love America, you will, every day. And, America thanks you, he could have said to great applause.

Randell Jones is anEagle Scout, earned in 1965. He is the author of several history books, including "From Time to Time in North Carolina" and "Thumped by History." He lives in Winston-Salem.

See more here:
Randell Jones: Scouting for character - Winston-Salem Journal