Author: John Horner
-
HORNER: The ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is dissipating our resources
In 1992, cod fishing on the Grand Banks collapsed throwing 40,000 people out of work and decimating the economy of Newfoundland. Cod had dominated Newfoundland’s economy for 500 years, but over fishing after World War II led to the destruction of this valuable resource and the job opportunities it brought with it. The cod have…
-
HORNER: How do we know when the debt becomes too large?
When is the federal debt too big? There has been a lot of talk in Congress and the nation about the burgeoning federal deficit and how our debt has gotten dangerously large, threatening to wreck the economy. But how do we know when the federal debt is too big? What is the tragic number? It…
-
HORNER: A futuristic look at some Second Amendment possibilities
The following future column inexplicably appeared on my computer this week. I’m not sure how it got there, but my colleagues in the Physics Department say that it might have been the result of a rip in the space/time continuum caused by the release of a large amount of energy. Obviously, things are different in…
-
HORNER: Humanity’s exponential growth spree puts us at the 29th day
There is a French children’s riddle that goes: Imagine you have a pond on which a lily pad grows. The pad doubles in size each day and in 30 days it will cover the pond. You decide to cut it back when it covers half the pond. On what day do you cut it back?…
-
POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Government’s role (vote for winner)
POINT/COUNTRERPOINT Point: Limited government works By Barry Fagin What is government for? Some very important things, and precious little else. The belief that “government is whatever we want it to be” is very seductive. Human beings are social animals who naturally form groups, so government as the way people work together to solve…
-
HORNER: Why are there so many males?
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about science is that you continually get to see the world in a new light. Instead of taking the world for granted, it becomes a constant source of wonder to those who are scientifically inclined. Everything scientists learn about nature, leads us to ask yet more questions. Sometimes those questions…
-
HORNER: Running out of time to slow the flow of ‘global weirding’
“Summer can’t be on its way. After all, Monday and Tuesday were a lot colder than last weekend.” Hopefully, this seems like a silly thing to say. We all know the inevitability of the seasons, but we also know that any particular day can bring a variety of weather. For reasons having to do with…
-
HORNER: Conspiracy theories revel in their vagueness, improbability
Americans love a good conspiracy. Let’s face it: conspiracy theories can be so much fun. For one, you get to feel important; those who believe in conspiracies get to feel that they alone have pierced the dark veil of some illicit scheme only to gaze at the hidden underbelly of our world — while the…
-
HORNER: Democracy demands rational dialogue, not inflamed rhetoric
I don’t know why a young man would try to kill his congresswoman and then turn his gun on the crowd, wounding twelve others and killing six, including a 9-year-old girl. His actions fit perfectly the definition of a senseless act. After all, what could he tell you that would make you say: “that seems…
-
HORNER: Wisdom, more than wealth, a key factor to longevity
There is a wonderful YouTube video going around that illustrates the relationship between health and wealth. Google “joy of statistics health” and you’ll find a five-minute segment featuring Hans Rosling, a Swedish medical doctor, who plots the relationship between per capita income (wealth) and life expectancy (health) over the last two-hundred years on a nation-by-nation…