The current issue of Scientific American contains the usual thought provoking features from its four regular, heavyweight opinion writers. Here is a taster of each of their articles:

First, Jeffrey Sachs on the challenges of tackling birth control and food production in tandem.

The green revolution that made grain production soar gave humanity some breathing space, but the continuing rise in population and demand for meat production is exhausting that buffer. The father of the green revolution, Norman Borlaug … made exactly this point in 1970 when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize: “There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”

It is not enough to produce more food; we must also simultaneously stabilize the global population and reduce the ecological consequences of food production – a triple challenge.

Next, Michael Shermer on the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals.

[Jonathan] Haidt [psychologist; University of Maryland] proposes that the foundations of our sense of right and wrong rest within “five innate and universally available psychological systems” that might be summarized as follows:
1. Harm/care …
2. Fairness/reciprocity …
3. Ingroup/loyalty …
4. Authority/respect …
5. Purity/sanctity …

Self-reported liberals are high on 1 and 2 … but are low on 3, 4 and 5 … whereas self-reported conservatives are roughly equal on all five dimensions, although they place slightly less emphasis on 1 and 2 than liberals do.

Instead of viewing the left and the right as either inherently correct or wrong, a more scientific approach is to recognize that liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral values.

Thirdly, Lawrence Krauss on filtering out bias in news reporting.

I reflected on something I had written a dozen years ago, in one of my first published commentaries:

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”

As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors in response to the effort to bring the US into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in the years since I first wrote those words …

I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism.

And finally the always slightly off-the-wall, zen-like Steve Mirsky on knuckle-cracking research.

Most known knuckle crackers have probably been told by some expert – whose advice very likely began, “I’m not a doctor, but …” – that the behavior would lead to arthritis …

“For 50 years, [Dr Donald Unger] cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control …

Finally, after five decades, Unger analyzed his data set: “There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands.” He concluded that “there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.” Evidence for whether the doctor himself was cracked may be that he traveled all the way from his California home to Harvard University to pick up his Ig Nobel Prize [in Medicine awarded in 2009] in person.

The good thing about all of this is that these guys are working thinkers and are tackling some really knotty issues; moreover they write clear and concise single page articles such that you come away not just understanding the issue but being able to form your own opinion, whether with or against the writer’s standpoint. We need more people like these guys: clear concise communicators with the vision to see the issues and the brain-power to tackle them head-on without recourse to vested interests and politics. More power to Scientific American for allowing them this freedom.