The Mad Sociologist Blog

  • Teachers: You Never Know Who You Are Reaching

    The Letter on Their Report Card Does Not Describe What They Learned I always ask a survey question on my final exams, answerable in essay form, explaining what the student is taking away from my class. I want to know what lessons they learned that may have influenced them in some meaningful way. There are Read more

  • The Entitled Rich

    In a Global Marketplace, why pay taxes when you can use a nation’s resources for free? In 1993 a young Eduardo Saverin was brought to the United States because, in Miami, the tax supported police force and justice department would keep him safe from being kidnapped and held for ransom. When Eduardo grew up, enjoying Read more

  • Tricky Tricks with Statistics

    Don’t Be Fooled by Conservative Hocus Pocus Calling Itself Statistics   I have theory that I call the Reflective Attribution theory. This theory stipulates that people tend to impute their own motives and attributions onto others. For instance, according to this theory one might predict that those people who are inclined to lie are also Read more

  • The Persistence of Memes

    The Long Life and Career of Reagan’s Welfare Queen   A colleague of mine, responsible for selling items at my high school, explained to me that some students try to con her out of her wares. They will use such gimmicks as claiming that they already paid, but did not receive the item, or maintaining Read more

  • Don’t Look at the data in this Post on Global Warming!

    Global Warming? What Global Warming?   (Click the image for the source) Nothing to see here, folks. Go back to what you were doing. This is all a socialist plot! Who are you going to believe? A bunch of stupid climate scientists or well respected, right-wing think tanks? You know how those environmental hippy whackos Read more

  • Trayvon and the Law

    On Learning from Tragedy   If we are to gain anything positive from the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin it must be not only in the re-evaluation of the infamous Stand Your Ground laws (SYGs) that are spreading throughout the country, but rather in an assessment of law in general. The Trayvon Martin case Read more

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