At the CSICon meetings in Las Vegas this November, I gave a half-hour talk on the two aspects of evolutionary biology that have been most deeply misrepresented by ideologues: sex and race. “Progressives” maintain that sex is not binary but a spectrum, and also that “race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological […]
This new course, to be offered next spring at MIT, was first singled out on The Babbling Beaver site, which calls attention to “fake news” at the university that usually turns out, as in this case, to be real news. The Beaver said this about the course. Feminist theory, disability justice, critical race theory, queer […]
TweetHere’s my just-published remembrance, in Public Choice, of my late teacher, dissertation advisor, co-author, and friend, Bob Ekelund. Three slices: The only textbook assigned for the course was Milton Friedman’s Price Theory. From some younger members of Auburn’s economics faculty, I heard a few cocktail-lubricated complaints that core theory courses in a modern economics Ph.D.…
Reason reports: It was dinnertime on October 30, 2024, when police handcuffed Brittany Patterson in front of three of her four children and drove her to the station in Fannin County, Georgia. She was then fingerprinted, photographed, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Her crime? Hours earlier, around noon, Patterson had driven her eldest son […]
Rongoā Māori is the “indigenous way of healing”: a combination of herbal and spiritual medicine used by the Māori of New Zealand. As The Encyclopedia of New Zealand notes, there were both supernatural and human illnesses, with the former treated through spiritual means (e.g., prayers, dunking in water, and other treatments described below), and the […]
Just yesterday I wrote about the drive in New Zealand to integrate indigenous medicine (Rongoā Māori, or RM) with modern (often called “Western”) medicine. The problem is that RM not only uses spiritual treatments (prayer, singing, dunking the sufferer in water) but also herbal remedies, and neither of these have been tested for efficacy using […]
Among the major issues not being discussed in the US presidential campaign are those facing the US healthcare system. The two main concerns are well-known. One is high cost. The US economy spends about $12,500 per person on health care in 2022, according to the OECD. The second- and third-highest countries, Switzerland and Germany, spend…
Milton Friedman used to advise researchers to focus on large policy changes rather than attempting to separate a small change’s signal from the noise. In this sense, the “ambitious” policy agenda of the Biden-Harris administration was expected to be a gift to the research community. Accepting this gift, since 2020 I have been making forecasts…
Since 2000, pharmaceuticals for common psychiatric conditions aged out of patent protection. After generic entry, supply increases as more sellers enter the market, leading to lower prices – about 80-85% less! Cheaper prescriptions and more treatment are the stated goal of policies to improve affordability. …Drug prices definitely fell during this period. For the SSRI sertraline, consumer cost per month dropped from ~35 dollars in […]
During the pandemic, economists often found themselves at odds with politicians, physicians, epidemiologists and others. Some politicians, for example, were worried that the pharma companies might engage in profiteering while economists worried that the pharma companies were not nearly profitable enough. Physicians focused on maximizing the health of patients while economists focused on maximizing the […]
Tyler Durden reports at Zerohedge Meat Substitutes Still A Tiny Sliver Of US Meat Market. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. Over the past few years, plant-based meat substitutes have come closer and closer to mimicking the real thing, with brands like Beyond Meat having even sussed out how to create fake meat that “bleeds”. But, as Statista’s […]
Our Treasury is at it again. Telling Kiwis a bleak future awaits them, especially in retirement. Its latest report about how NZ Demographic Change will affect the Country’s Finances is enough make the PM’s eyes glaze over, Finance Minister Willis fall asleep, NZ First leader Peters to press Delete on his laptop & everyone else…
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: As for consumer prices for the current obesity drugs, they are not as high as is often reported, once the various ways to get a discount are taken into account. Despite reports that the drugs cost $1,000 per month, the reality is more favorable. […]
Reuters: Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company said…that it is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to import and distribute penicillin in the country temporarily….Cuban’s Cost Plus will import Lentocilin brand penicillin powder marketed by Portugal-based Laboratórios Atral S.A. There are two remarkable items in the above passage. First, there is a shortage…
The US has high prices for branded drugs but it has some of the lowest prices for generic drugs in the world and generic drugs are 90% of prescriptions. I’ve been saying this for years but here is the latest study: U.S. prices for brand-name originator drugs were 422 percent of prices in comparison countries, […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
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