by amelia on
Jun 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The Boston Globe reports on how the increasing potency of marijuana fuels the fires of partisan marijuana debates.
“…The polarized debate about [marijuana's] safety has been rekindled by two reports released separately this month by the federal government and a leading drug prohibition group. Both studies conclude that marijuana’s potency has increased, which they link to reports of more addiction, mental health problems, and emergency room admissions related to marijuana use among teenagers.”
And the sociologist weighs in…
In a field with limited research, partisans tend to create paper thin arguments, as easily made as they are countered, said Roger Roffman, professor of sociology at the University of Washington.
“I think [both sides] do a disservice to the general public,” said Roffman, who has written papers and edited books on marijuana use and dependence. On websites of drug policy reform advocates, “you’ll find lots of information about the very adverse consequences of criminalizing marijuana and very little mention of the very real harm associated with marijuana among some people in some circumstances,” he said.
Meanwhile, on government and prohibitionist websites, he said, “you’ll find plenty of information on the harmful consequences of marijuana abuse and very little information, perhaps, on the harmful consequences of criminalizing marijuana.”
Read on.
by amelia on
May 14, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Check out this fascinating blog post from Jeff Weintraub about MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews’ comments about contrasting sociologists with Americans.
Weintraub writes,
“Tonight, Matthews suddenly decided that even mentioning class and race in connection with elections is for ’sociologists,’ not ‘Americans.’ Using phrases like ‘blue-collar’ is ‘elitist talk.’ And simply by talking about ‘white working-class voters,’ Hillary Clinton is almost ‘like the Al Sharpton of white people.’”
Check out the full story with video link.
by jon on
Apr 01, 2008 at 11:21 am
Sports journalist Dave Zirin has a weekly radio show on XM Channel 167 every Saturday at noon (Eastern time). Zirin has started a regular segment called “Ask A Sports Sociologist.” So far he’s had two sociologists as guests:
You can hear Zirin’s show online here.
Note for Non-Windows users: the files are in WMA format. If you’re on a Mac, just download and install either Perian or Flip4Mac (both are free) and you’ll be able to use QuickTime to hear them. If you’re on Linux, you’ll have to install your distribution’s restricted format packages. For example, instructions for Ubuntu users.
by jon on
Jan 31, 2008 at 10:43 am
Sociologist Duncan Watts is getting some press for his challenge to science journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s famous “Tipping Point” argument, in particular Gladwell’s “Law of the Few”: the idea that a few well-connected people, dubbed “Influentials,” make or break trends.
Fast Company’s Clive Thompson describes Watts’ work:
[Watts] has analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. He has written computer models of rumor spreading and found that your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend. And last year, Watts demonstrated that even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. Any attempt to engineer success through Influentials, he argues, is almost certainly doomed to failure.
Ars Technica’s Julian Sanchez recounts an interview with Watts from 2004:
“We knew 50 years ago that this model was wrong. After the fact, and this is why Gladwell’s book is so beguiling, you see that crime rates dropped or Hush Puppies took off and then you can always find the people with whom it started,” he told me. “But if it’s something about them, why aren’t they driving all the other trends? What turns out to be the deciding factor is not the ‘influentials’ but the people who are easily influenced. You might have someone who influences five times as many people as the average, but the total numbers relative to a population are still very small. Almost all of the action is away from the center.”