Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:23 and sunset is 5:49 for 11 hours 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board will hold a Governance Workshop at 6 PM.
On this day in 1946, Winston Churchill delivers his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College, Missouri.
Click image to play video
When someone makes a claim, for example a nutrition claim on Instagram, how should one consider that claim? A post from FREE WHITEWATER on 2.27 highlighted Dr. Idrees Mughal’s debunking of the claim from the “Gluten Goddess” that one should be worried because “fruit is not natural.” See What Good Debunking Looks Like.
Embedded above is a useful follow-up, from Alex Falcone on being skeptical of what you read from nutrition Instagrammers.
Note well: Falcone is a comedian, not a doctor. In a world where so many non-doctors are sure that their own “research” proves something, Falcone reminds us that basic principles of reasoning should lead one to skepticism about that kind of nutritional or medical self-study. One doesn’t have to be a doctor or nutritionist to see that self-study about medicine and nutrition should be undertaken with caution. In the Instagram Reel above, Falcone provides helpful clues to spot sketchy online nutrition claims.
So, is today’s post truly about nutrition?1 Only in part. It’s also a post about not taking local public policy claims (or other political claims) at face value. Whitewater, sadly, has her share of residents2 making weak claims.3 A person should consider such claims with caution, and Falcone offers good tips for reviewing online information that can serve as a model for crafting one’s own cautious approach to other discussions.
_____
- Of course one’s health matters. I’ve nothing but love in my bleeding-libertarian heart for all my fellow residents. Good reasoning matters, too, to keep people from falling prey to spurious health claims. ↩︎
- Mostly — how surprising! — the city’s special-interest men, their operatives, and their catspaws. See The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town. ↩︎
- See Adventures in Underpowered Sampling that discusses the thin argumentation from a local landlord, former member of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, former chairman of that body, former member of the Whitewater School Board, and former president of that board. ↩︎
Chaotic heart of the Milky Way spied by ALMA Array: