Is it just me or is the notion of the Catholic Church accusing Reiki practitioners of having beliefs that "lack scientific credibility" seem ironic? I am in favour of the Church promoting belief in science and even for it to accuse Reiki practitioners of science, but I must admit that a frisson of irony bubbles through me at the thought.Of course, reiki is 'superstition' and is in no way similar to Catholic beliefs like saints laying on of hands. Of course....

Here I report briefly on a recent paper in the Cambridge Journal of Economics by Haile, Sadrieh and Verbon. I appreciate the intentions of the paper, but I believe that it was poorly executed and, consequently, their results are unconvincing. As the authors state, "[N]o study so far has attempted to disentangle the ethnicity effects from the income inequality effects." (705) Their study fails to disentangle the effects too.The authors ran trust games in two South...

I am planning to return to regular blogging soon - coursework and exams ensured that I was not able to blog recently. I apologise. I'll try to blog as the work continues. Still, I have been reading, so I thought I'd update you.FictionGraham Greene - The Quiet AmericanAs The Quiet American was the first Greene novel that I read, I had to accustom myself to Greene's style - it's clean and can stab you suddenly with a particularly deft or accurate description. I thought...

Wow! Denying the Dalai Lama a visa, that's what I call self-righteous. Or maybe it suppresses speech, shows South Africa kowtowing to Chinese interests and promotes illiberal politics inconsistent with the South African constitution.  I could be wrong though.  it could be 'an independent, sovereign decision' as Ronnie Mamoepa says.Hmm... methinks kitty represents my opinion well.    &nb...

William Easterly and Laura Freschi post on the Aid Watch blog about British Foreign Aid.  Owen Barder calls them on several 'facts' that they got incorrect, indicating that their argument is thus deeply flawed (especially in the context of one of Easterly's own recent papers). Anyway, this highlights the value of blogging.  People make a point, others, in the know and with access to the statistics, correct them quickly.  Consequently, our intellectual...