If Rumors Were Horses

Flogging tired horses: Who wants whipping and who would walk away if whipping horses were withheld?

Recent studies have cast doubt on the effectiveness of whipping horses during races and this has led to questions concerning its continuing justification. Furthermore, it has been argued that whipping tired horses in racing is the most televised form of violence to animals. The present study used de-identified data from a recent independent Australian poll (n = 1,533) to characterise the 26% of...

What if Chomsky were right?

The outcome of scientific research depends on how a phenomenon is viewed and how the questions are phrased. This applies also to the nativist view of language acquisition. As a complement to MacWhinney’s discussion of nativism from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology, I would like to devote this commentary to the question of the title from the viewpoint of computational linguistics. Formally,...

What if entropy were dimensionless?

One of entropy’s puzzling aspects is its dimensions of energy/temperature. A review of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics leads to six conclusions: ~1! Entropy’s dimensions are linked to the definition of the Kelvin temperature scale. ~2! Entropy can be defined to be dimensionless when temperature T is defined as an energy ~dubbed tempergy!. ~3! Dimensionless entropy per particle typicall...

What if electronic medical records were unnecessary?

In this month’s issue of Canadian Family Physician, we present a debate on electronic medical records (EMRs). Manca extols their virtues (page 846),1 while Greiver counters with their drawbacks (page 847).2 It might seem strange to debate the merits of EMRs when most physicians are already using them. Indeed, according to the most recent National Physician Survey (2014), close to 80% of Canadia...

If humans were built to last.