April 11, 2024: The first article about climate change, why crime perception does not align with reality, and how metabolism impacts human health. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Five years before she wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1963—the paradigm-shifting book that launched second-wave feminism and gave a voice to millions of women—author Betty Friedan wrote another influential article on, of all topics, Earth's ice-age cycles. The article, titled "The Coming Ice Age," and which appeared in Harper's magazine, profiled the work of Maurice Ewing, a prominent oceanographer, and William L. Donn, a geologist-meteorologist. The scientists had proposed that Earth's ice ages come and go because of "polar wandering," which is the migration of Earth's magnetic poles, caused by shifts in Earth's crust.
Why this is interesting: Though the wandering pole hypothesis was soon rejected by other researchers, Friedan's article was the first time the public was made aware of climate change. More importantly, her sweeping profile of the researchers, how they used data and evidence and came up with their hypothesis, took a nuanced look at the process of science. She applied that same perceptivity and big thinking to The Feminine Mystique five years later.
What the experts say: Friedan's granular-style reporting, which encompassed details that humanized the scientists and yielded a more complete picture of how they thought and worked, "captured the power of an interdisciplinary approach—one in which researchers collaborated across specialties and operated as sleuths," writes Rachel Shteir, author of the book Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter. "This, Friedan had learned, is how paradigms shift." | | | People have an overwhelming perception that crime is getting worse in the U.S. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 78 percent of Americans contended that there was more crime than there used to be. But this is simply not true. In fact, crime levels are nearly as low today as they were in the 1960s. Only 2 percent of people are ever affected by violent crime, and 15 percent are affected by any type of misconduct. So where does the disconnect between reality and perception come from?
How it works: People who live in areas with little crime are more afraid of it than those who live in the relatively few neighborhoods where crime is more likely to happen. And older people are more likely to fear crime even though they're half as likely to ever experience it compared with other age groups, according to studies. Media and social media whip up crime fear, as does the general climate of crime vigilance in the U.S.; some researchers suggest that after the attacks on 9/11 our views about crime began to fall out of line with reality.
The impacts: Crime fearmongering is a common political tool to disparage the other side. People who carry misperceptions about crime rates urge more spending on police and higher police presence, rather than spending tax money on needier causes. | | | • The metabolism plays a unique role in human health. | 5 min read | | | • A European court ruled that climate change is a human rights issue, setting a precedent for individuals to hold their governments accountable for not tackling rising temperatures. | 5 min read | | | • A new space-based telescope set to launch in 2035 could help determine whether gravitational waves leave lasting marks in space. | 6 min read | | | • Social psychologist David Dunning explains how people can avoid overestimating their own knowledge, a psychological bias called the Dunning-Kruger effect. | 11 min read | | | Scientific American, Vol. 230, No. 4; April 1974 | | | From a 1974 issue of Scientific American, this map shows the motion of gases at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, namely, the distribution of emission from un-ionized hydrogen. The different colors indicate intensity, from violet (lowest) to red (highest). The vertical axis indicates the velocity of hydrogen lying in the galactic plane: velocities toward us are negative; velocities away from us are positive. The horizontal red ridge indicates zero velocity. | | | • Teachers who ask students to independently correct their own work make the student an active partner in the revision process, rather than a passive recipient of feedback. This approach, called agentic feedback, can help kids thrive academically, writes Camilla Mutoni Griffiths, a social psychologist at Stanford University SPARQ. Agentic feedback "could be a key to improving equity and outcomes in many contexts, from the classroom to the boardroom," she says. | 5 min read | | | Rachel Shteir writes that Betty Friedan portrayed scientists in a way people had never seen before: "She did not ignore or try to hide the ways in which scientific inquiry often stalls and stumbles," Shteir writes. In essence, Frieden was demonstrating the humanity of science. It can be easy to forget: science is conducted by humans, who bring--to their labs, field experiments, and calculations--all the creative, quirky and flawed idiosyncrasies that humans possess. | A special thank you to Kim Diloreto, who sent in the beautiful partial eclipse photo below from Medford Lakes, New Jersey. Truly haunting!
Email me anytime with thoughts and feedback: newsletters@sciam.com. I read all your notes and respond to many. See you tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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