Misleading pseudo-scientific argument of the week. Mark Liberman, Language Log (2009-09-03). According to Abigail Norfleet James, Teaching the Male Brain: How Boys Think, Feel, and Learn in School (2007), p 37: The shape of the inner ear is not the same for boys and girls. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the female cochlea responds more quickly to sound… (Linked Wednesday 2009-09-30.)

Semantic fail. Mark Liberman, Language Log (2009-09-03). Leena Rao at TechCrunch points out a case where semantic search turned into anti-semitic search. This morning I wrote about NetBase Solutions' healthBase, a semantic search engine that aggregates medical content from millions of authoritative health sites including WebMD, Wikipedia, and PubMed. But is it a semantic engine or an… (Linked Wednesday 2009-09-30.)