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Adam Maida / The Atlantic Stop Worrying About Free Beer and Doughnuts. We’re in the Middle of a Pandemic.
For too long, we’ve believed the myth that incentives backfire. But there’s nothing wrong with bribing people to get vaccinated.
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Gosia Herba The Worst Patients in the World
Americans are hypochondriacs, yet we skip our checkups. We demand drugs we don’t need, and fail to take the ones we do. No wonder the U.S. leads the world in health spending.
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Tiago Galo How to Almost Learn Italian
Language apps like Duolingo are addictive—but not particularly effective.
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Edmon de Haro The War on Stupid People
American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth.
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Dan Saelinger How Junk Food Can End Obesity
Demonizing processed food may be dooming many to obesity and disease. Could embracing the drive-thru make us all healthier?
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Frederik Broden The Perfected Self
B. F. Skinner’s notorious theory of behavior modification was denounced by critics 50 years ago as a fascist, manipulative vehicle for government control. But Skinner’s ideas are making an unlikely comeback today, powered by smartphone apps that are transforming us into thinner, richer, all-around-better versions of ourselves. The only thing we have to give up? Free will.
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What's Eating the Small, Loud Band of Alt-Med Critics?
The author speculates on why a tiny but outspoken group of scientists continues to detest alternative medicine
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Evidence, Not Anecdotes
The author responds to Steven Salzberg's argument about the dangers of accepting alternative medicine
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Placebo or Not, These Treatments Work
The author replies to the directors of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
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Stephen Webster The Triumph of New-Age Medicine
Medicine has long decried acupuncture, homeopathy, and the like as dangerous nonsense that preys on the gullible. Again and again, carefully controlled studies have shown alternative medicine to work no better than a placebo. But now many doctors admit that alternative medicine often seems to do a better job of making patients well, and at a much lower cost, than mainstream care—and they’re trying to learn from it.
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Robyn Twomey/Redux Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.
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Extreme Stargazing
A race to spot 110 designated celestial objects in the time between dusk and dawn
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When Is a Planet Not a Planet?
Arguments for and against demoting Pluto
