My ScienceSeeker editor’s picks for this week: Oh-shit-it’s-Friday-edition
Running a day behind, but still, I made it. For your reading pleasure, I suggest you investigate the kinky worm shenanigans going on at the Last Word on Nothing, where Cassandra Willyard reminds us that we rarely pay attention to what’s going on around us
Then you could ponder the plausibility of an analysis of the relationship between ‘exploitability’ and ‘attractiveness’ of women (as judged by male undergraduate psych students), by heading over to Denim and Tweed and reading an imagined dialogue between a biologist and an evolutionary psychologist. Yeah, it’s snarky.
Evolutionary psychology: A dialogue
Now that you’re in the mood for some conflict, watch the death rattle of science on TV with two gag-worthy accounts of a fake ‘mermaid’ documentary that aired on Animal Planet. At Deep Sea News, Craig McClain asks that Animal Planet consider picking one of the millions of kinds animals that actually exists, instead of making up fake ones to fool the 15 million twitter followers of Khloe Kardashian.
Meanwhile, at Laelaps, Brian Switek breaks out his finest debunking boots, reminds us that the aquatic ape hypothesis is pseudoscience, despairs that his debunking will have no effect, and is then proven right in a field of comment facepalms.
Mermaids embodies the rotting carcass of science on TV
By now you should either need a stiff drink, a calming manatee, or at the very least, a squiz at the incredibly adorable baby opalescent squids with their pulsating chromatophores at PsiVid.
Baby Opalescent Squid: A Beautiful Start to the Week
Nope, even that didn’t work. Will try the drink.
