Weekend Reads 10/7/17

A New History of the First Peoples in the Americas

Today, the emerging theory is that the people up in the Bluefish Caves some 24,000 years ago were the founders, and that they represent a culture that was isolated for thousands of years up in the cold north, incubating a population that would eventually seed everywhere else.

Mass Shootings Are A Bad Way To Understand Gun Violence

What we know about mass shootings suggests that they are different from the everyday deaths that happen at the end of a gun. The weapon is the same. So much else is different. And the distorted image we get by using one as a lens through which to view the other has consequences for our understanding of the problem and the policies that might address it.

Are Spiral Galaxies Evidence Against an Old Universe?

Two years ago, I was quite surprised when I encountered people using galactic spiral arms to argue for a young earth. At the time, I had spent almost a full year in a research group on galactic dynamics. With my own eyes, I had seen computer simulations of galactic discs in which spiral arms formed by themselves and persisted for billions of years. Yet, somehow, IGH confronts the viewer with Faulkner, someone with a PhD in astrophysics, claiming that spiral arms are not stable enough for an ancient universe.

Why The Vegas Shooting Happened, and Why Men Keep Doing This

From an early age, we have an unhealthy ideal of masculinity that we try to live up to. Part of that ideal tells us that Real men do everything on their own. Real men don’t cry. Real men express anger through violence.

The byproduct is isolation. Most men spend the majority of their adult lives without deeper friendships, or any real sense of community. Not to mention a complete inability to release anger or sadness in a healthy way.