Category Archives: Popular Culture

Taking a science angle on our world wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t look at popular culture. Science &… looks into how science plays into what becomes popular with people around the world

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“Unfriend”…

…is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2009 Word of the Year.   The term “unfriend”, a verb, means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking Web site such as Facebook.  (read more here…)
Oxford lexicographer Christine Lindberg says unfriend has “real lex appeal.”  (ugh….  there is no such thing as a good pun…)
Admittedly, I think it’s just really interesting to see how language evolves over time…
Apparently, finalists for 2009 also included:
 – netbook, which is a small laptop
 – sexting, which is sending sexually explicit texts and pictures by cell phone
 – birther, a conspiracy theorist claiming that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States
 – tramp stamp, a tattoo (usually on a woman) on the lower back

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Ignoring Science

Recently, Sharon Begley of Newsweek wrote about psychologists’ unwillingness to utilize proven scientific methods in their practices.  For example, Begley points out that rigorous clinical trials show that cognitive and cognitive-behavior therapies are effective against depression, panic disorder, bulimia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder.  Instead she brings to our attention that:

“Millions of patients are instead receiving chaotic mediation therapy, facilitated communication, dolphin-assisted therapy, eye-movement desensitatization, and… well, ‘someone once stopped counting at 1,000 forms of psychotherapy in use,’ says (Univesity of Wisconsin professor Timothy B.) Baker.”

Dolphin-assisted therapy, huh?  Nice… if you can get it.