story telling

"The quest for eternal life, or at least prolonged youthfulness, has now migrated from the outer fringes of alternative medicine to the halls of Harvard Medical School" ... Quest for a long life gains scientific respect

I wonder if the involved researchers at the Harvard Medical School and elsewhere are paying any attention to the broader implications of related research

Paul Krugman's The Politics of Spite is focused on a small issue (current Republican party practices) but speaks importantly to a much more general one, the use in politics of "scorched-earth tactics."  So too with a recent news article: Another Landlord Worry: Is the Elevator Kosher?  Describing a current controversy about shabbas practices, it quotes a New Yorker as saying “Just because there is one opinion doesn’t mean that it is everyone’s opinion. One of the wonderful things about Judaism is that there are competing opinions about everything.” 

Very interesting seminar last night by Guy Blaylock on the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum physics.  Nice example of the principle that a given set of empirical observations is always subject to multiple interpretations, ie that there is always a perspectival or "subjective" element in scientific stories.  And an interesting dissection of reasons for preferring one or another several stories, a dissection that might in turn lead to some new stories.