Lazy Linking

"Homeopathy and Evidence-Based Medicine: Back to the Future" -- Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

• Kimball Atwood's superb series over at Science-Based Medicine on homeopathy. He argues convincingly in the final post that evidence-based medicine ought to include prior probability -- alternative modalities like homeopathy that violate well established laws of physics should be at the back of the queue for testing in clinical trails. 

"Animal Behavior: Going to the Dogs" (Gated)

• Very interesting news feature in Science on how dogs are quickly becoming the favored model animal for research in social cognition. (It's also discussed in their free podcast).

"Baby Bear's lament: James Wood in the New Yorker"

• Phyrangula is the most popular science blog in the world and this piece nicely illustrates why. It's PZ at his funny and irreverent best. Richard Dawkins even shows up in the comments and compares PZ to Peter Medawar... 

"An Update on C. P. Snow's "Two Cultures""

• Lawrence Krauss reinterprets the "Two Cultures" analysis.
• "Until we are willing to accept the world the way it is, without miracles that all empirical evidence argues against, without myths that distort our comprehension of nature, we are unlikely to bridge the divide between science and culture and, more important, we are unlikely to be fully ready to address the urgent technical challenges facing humanity."

"Skipping Spouse to Spouse Isn’t Just a Man’s Game"

• Natalie Angier on female sexual psychology. She discusses recent research that suggests a desire for multiple partners increases a woman's fitness.

"Why are atheists so disliked?"

• The answer, at least according to research Epiphenom reviews, is that atheists are distrusted. Luckily, there is evidence that when religious people find out how prevalent atheism is, their distrust disappears. All the more reason to support the Out Campaign.