Category Archives: Professor Posts

Anyone still interested in the polio story will want to know that the last reported case of polio infection was just more than one year ago and did not result in permanent paralysis. Since January of 2011, no case of … Continue reading →

CAN A CHEESEBURGER BE A PLACEBO? This is really hard to believe. You’re all familiar with the placebo effect, I imagine. Patients engaged as subjects in a study to test the effectiveness of a new medication routinely receive one of … Continue reading →

Bad Economy keeps couples together It seems illogical, but a bad economy might keep couples from divorcing. Of course, the legal process of divorce can be expensive, what with all the legal fees, but it’s also very difficult to split … Continue reading →

I try to keep my politics in check in the classroom and just be upset about everything no matter which side of the House it comes from, so I apologize that the article this post links to has Republicans in … Continue reading →

Is it possible long exposure to “procedural TV shows” like CSI has tainted jurors’ expectations? Do citizens sitting on juries expect investigators to have DNA results in 20 minutes, or to employ extremely high-tech methods to catching and convicting every … Continue reading →

Ah, the stuff we burn! Take fossil fuels, for example. Why do we continue to burn them after all we know about how they strangle the planet? Because they’re still so cheap. Yes, even when it costs $500 a month … Continue reading →

Still not happy with your research topic? These may get you thinking: CLEAN GIRLS GET SICKER? There’s a growing body of research showing that children exposed to lots of germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies, asthma … Continue reading →

The more mammograms a radiologist reads, the more obscure tumors she will find. Just so, I hope you’ll become better attuned to spotting counterintuitivities in everything you read as the semester proceeds. Here are some you may have missed when … Continue reading →

Masters of counterintuitive thinking and popular authors of the book Freakonomics and the companion column in the New York Times, Steven D. Levitt, the economist, and Stephen J. Dubner, the writer, find unexpected explanations for human behavior everywhere they look. … Continue reading →

The very phrase “for-profit prison” should raise a red flag for anyone on the lookout for counterintuitivity. Once governments were the builders, owners, and administrators of prisons, but budgets for government services and capital investments have not kept up with … Continue reading →