So it turns out that an organization I thought was doing good work, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (associated with Center for Inquiry, James Randi, and Martin Gardner) was actually caping for pedophiles. Uhhhh oops?

Since this, bizarrely, turned out to be one of my longest videos ever (??) here's a quick thread to sum it up for those of you like myself with short attention spans. 1/10
In the '90s the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was founded to call attention to the problem of adults suddenly "remembering" child abuse that never actually happened, often under hypnosis. Skeptics like James Randi & Martin Gardner joined their board. 2/10
A new article reveals that the FMSF was founded by parents who had been credibly and PRIVATELY accused of molestation by their now-adult daughter. They publicized the accusation, destroyed the daughter's reputation, and started the foundation. 3/10 https://t.co/0tIP7x03SG
The FMSF assumed any accused pedo who joined was innocent, saying "We are a good-looking bunch of people, graying hair, well dressed, healthy, smiling; just about every person who has attended is someone you would surely find interesting and want to count as a friend" 😬 4/10
Turns out, psychologists don't recognize "false memory syndrome" as an actual disorder. There's a lot of disagreement over the extent to which memory can be manipulated & later recalled, and a lot of valid criticism of "false memory" research. 5/10
Oh, also? Two board members of FMSF gave an interview to a pro-pedophilia magazine, saying pedophilia is a "responsible" choice and an "acceptable expression of God's will." 6/10
That said, The Cut article is unfair in a few respects. It casually says (prominent skeptic) Elizabeth Loftus defended Ted Bundy without mentioning that she was likely right: cops may have manipulated the witness to ID Bundy. They just happened to have the right guy. 7/10
Also, people like Loftus have been instrumental in stopping cops from pressuring both witnesses and suspects into "remembering" or admitting to crimes that never happened. It happens often and leads to innocent people ending up in prison. 8/10
Loftus testified in the McMartin Preschool trial, in which teachers were accused of raping kids -- and also of flying around like demons. One kid said Chuck Norris was one of the rapists. The kids were manipulated. After 6 years, the teachers were exonerated. 9/10
Yes, memory can be manipulated, but also, guilty pedophiles will jump aboard an organization that claims they're innocent with no investigation. Prominent skeptics didn't do their due diligence & got conned because of it. 10/10 https://t.co/zkkBPYBsAk

More from Science

An interesting thing about carp is that they can go into anoxic hibernation and switch to an anaerobic metabolism based on converting glycogen to ethanol.

The waste ethanol is diffused out the gills

https://t.co/V3D1umHf04

Carp can switch over to an anaerobic metabolism and quietly exhale booze until the situation gets better.

They basically evolved the same metabolic pathway as yeast, independently.

In theory, if you spent a few thousand years breeding carp for it, you could use them to make booze.

They'd be enormous, almost entirely glycogen deposits with a fish added as an afterthought.

The really interesting thing about anaerobic carp, is that they can go 4-5 months without oxygen by relying on liver glycogen.

You, a human, have only about 100 grams of glycogen in your liver, about 400 more grams in your skeletal muscles. Call it 500 grams total.

In humans, glycogen is also burned for energy. This is where the marathon runner's bonk comes from: you only have about 2,000 calories worth, and running a marathon burns those 2,000 calories.
Ever since @JesseJenkins and colleagues work on a zero carbon US and this work by @DrChrisClack and colleagues on incorporating DER, I've been having the following set of thoughts about how to reduce the risk of failure in a US clean energy buildout. Bottom line is much more DER.


Typically, when we see zero-carbon electricity coupled to electrification of transport and buildings, implicitly standing behind that is totally unprecedented buildout of the transmission system. The team from Princeton's modeling work has this in spades for example.

But that, more even than the new generation required, runs straight into a thicket/woodchipper of environmental laws and public objections that currently (and for the last 50y) limit new transmission in the US. We built most transmission prior to the advent of environmental law.

So what these studies are really (implicitly) saying is that NEPA, CEQA, ESA, §404 permitting, eminent domain law, etc, - and the public and democratic objections that drive them - will have to change in order to accommodate the necessary transmission buildout.

I live in a D supermajority state that has, for at least the last 20 years, been in the midst of a housing crisis that creates punishing impacts for people's lives in the here-and-now and is arguably mostly caused by the same issues that create the transmission bottlenecks.

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".