By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad,” President Obama said, while talking about the first grade victims in the Newtown massacre of 2012. Only his face read “sad” rather than “mad,” as he gave a statement earlier this week on his new executive actions to reduce gun violence. […]
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is every parent’s lament: Time is going by so quickly…It seems like only yesterday…They grow up so fast. Of course, much of this is what I’d call a “retrospective illusion.” It is only when we are looking back on the past that the days, months, or years seem to
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Our stories like the number three: There are three little pigs and three bears, as well as Harry, Ron and Hermione. Our movies like threes, as Star Wars now embarks on the last of its three trilogies. Our advertisements like the number three as well: the iPad 2 is “thinner, lighter, faster.”
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In 1620, Francis Bacon wrote in Novum Organum, “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion…draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be an increasing number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or
Reject Your Confirmation Bias (Or At Least Try To) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Consider this scenario: two swimmers are drowning, and the even greater problem is that they are so far apart that the single lifeguard cannot rescue both. Instead the lifeguard must choose, because trying to save both could end in saving neither. Logically, we would say that in this scenario, the lifeguard
Take Your Obligations Seriously (Even When They’re Impossible) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you’ve had young children, then you know that at a certain stage, watching the same movie over and over again with your kid comes with the territory. As much as the repetition might annoy you, the kids seem to love the familiarity and comfort of knowing exactly what is going
Repeat Yourself: (Carefully) Repeat Yourself Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The field of law still holds a first-place title among other professions, but it is a title that law really, really does not want to hold: The practice of law is the least diverse profession in the United States. American lawyers are 88 percent white, and two-thirds male, and that
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Social scientists who measure public opinion for a living tend to love forced choice questions. By asking respondents whether they “support” or “oppose” an increased military response in Syria and Iraq, for example, you avoid having too many go for the soft squishy middle of being “not sure.” Of course
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Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Last week saw the killing of 14 and the wounding of an additional 21 in San Bernadino by a County Health Department employee. He apparently left a company training event after some kind of argument, and later returned with his wife, as well as an arsenal of tactical military equipment. The event
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “Earned Dogmatism” is a relative newcomer as an academic phrase, but it refers to the closed-mindedness that sets in once one dons the “expert” hat. While we like to think of experts as broad-minded, creative, and analytical, new research suggests that the “expert” label is more likely to induce a
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