Pentagon Tapping In to Social Science to Target Activist Movements

Staff / Truthdig Aug 7, 2016 A report published by The Guardian explains how the Minerva Initiative is partnering with universities to militarize social science and better understand the factors behind civil unrest. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Truthdigger of the Week: Fatema Mernissi, a Founder of Islamic Feminism

BLANK Jan 10, 2016 The original research of the erudite sociologist, who died Nov. 30, showed that the subjugation of women in Muslim societies has no basis in the Quran and other Islamic scriptures. "Islam was not sent from heaven to foster egotism and mediocrity," she wrote. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Study Finds Religious Children to Be Meaner Than Secular Children

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Nov 6, 2015 And their parents think they're more empathetic. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

64% of Psychology Experiments Fail Replication Test

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 31, 2015 An international team of experts found that of 100 studies published in top-ranking journals in 2008, the results of just 25 percent of social psychology experiments and half of cognitive studies could be replicated in independent trials. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Modern Life Is Making Dementia in Your 40s More Probable

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 14, 2015 Bournemouth University health and social science professor Colin Pritchard urges governments to act on research showing more and more people are getting dementia in middle age. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Preferences for High Masculinity and Femininity May Be Peculiar to Modern Societies

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Dec 7, 2014 A new survey of 12 populations around the world challenges the commonly held assumption that human beings naturally prefer highly masculine men and highly feminine women. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Celebrated Scientist Renounces National Academy and War

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Mar 21, 2013 Last month, University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins resigned from the National Academy of Sciences to protest the election to the group of Napoleon Chagnon, a peer whose specious arguments in favor of a natural human tendency toward violence have helped militarize the discipline and legitimize wars of aggression. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

Taking Math to the Talking Myth

Ellen Goodman / Truthdig Jul 19, 2007 As old stereotypes about the differences between men and women continue to resurface in the form of the latest book releases (see: "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" or "Men Are Clams, Women are Crowbars"), scientific evidence continues to refute them. What does the evidence show? What any chatty man or any woman of few words can tell you: The sexes are not so extremely opposite as we're made to believe. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Why We ‘Do It’

Staff / Truthdig Jul 19, 2007 Granted, social science must always be consumed with caution. Still, papers about people's sex lives are entertaining if not always illuminating. Here, we've taken the 10 most frequent reasons cited by participants of a sex study conducted by the University of Texas psych department in which people were asked to select motivations for having sex from a list of 237 choices. The choices ranged from "I realized I was in love" to "I was slumming." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )