On my weekly trips to the big-box stores, I try to find a parking spot closer to the shopping cart return than to the entrance. Perhaps it's laziness compounding “civic responsibility,” but I feel a need to return the cart, and it is often easier to be close to its final repository. Of course, if I arrive any time after the early hours for the oldsters, parking spaces and curbs are filled with empty, unreturned carts. Am I alone here?
“I arrived on the scene early one Saturday. The suspects were long gone, but the evidence remained. One cart was wedged into a curb, another sat toppled over in a parking spot, a third drifted like a metal tumbleweed across the lot. My question: Why don’t people return their shopping carts?”
Good question. Hannah B. Waldfogel, a research and teaching fellow at Columbia, has some of the answers in her article, Why Don’t People Return Their Shopping Carts? A (Somewhat) Scientific Investigation
We are all asked to “protect” the climate. Not a bad idea considering that it is the only climate we have, despite Elan’s plans – of course, as George Carlin has pointed out, humans “protecting the earth” is hubris writ large. But I think this article clearly takes protecting the climate too far!
“I’ve been a vegetarian for over a decade. It’s not because of my health, or because I dislike the taste of chicken or beef: It’s a lifestyle choice I made because I wanted to reduce my impact on the planet. And yet, twice a day, every day, I lovingly scoop a cup of meat-based kibble into a bowl and set it down for my 50-pound rescue dog, a husky mix named Loki. … “People often miscalculate climate choices, a study says. One surprise is owning a dog.”
I was sucked in because I, too, have a Loki. But I rebel!. My dog(s) will not add to global warming. From Wired, The Climate Impact of Owning a Dog
Ronald Fischer, arguably the father of contemporary statistics, was an interesting guy. As an avid smoker, he rejected all the statistical data surrounding tobacco and lung cancer. That said, his legacy has been a mixed blessing, bringing good and bad.
“A century ago, two oddly domestic puzzles helped set the rules for what modern science treats as 'real’: a Guinness brewer charged with quality control and a British lady insisting she can taste whether milk or tea was poured first.
Those stories sound quaint, but the machinery they inspired now decides which findings get published, promoted, and believed—and which get waved away as "not significant." Instead of recognizing the limitations of statistical significance, fields including economics and medicine ossified around it, with dire consequences for science. In the 21st century, an obsession with statistical significance led to overprescription of both antidepressant drugs and a headache remedy with lethal side effects.”
From Reason, Our Obsession With Statistical Significance Is Ruining Science
We are all familiar with the experience and phrase, “Like a moth, drawn to a flame.” As it turns out, from a scientific perspective, we have it completely backwards – it is not so much our lying eyes as our misinterpretation. A short video from Nature on new information about what those moths are really doing, and at the same time, a lesson on the scientific method and uncertainty.
What ties shopping carts, carbon pawprints, statistical dogma, and moths to porch lights together is misplaced certainty. We are remarkably good at constructing moral narratives and scientific explanations that feel satisfying, even when they rest on shaky assumptions or misunderstood evidence. A little skepticism—about our own intuitions, about tidy conclusions, and about the limits of science itself—goes a long way.
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
