Tuesday Links

Autogynephilia became something you were not allowed to discus in polite psychological circles.  If the pendulum is really swinging the other way in the trans debates (I am a poor judge of pendulums), then maybe that will change.

Babylon Bee.  Ouch 

Tyler Cowen believes that elite universities need to bear the consequences of their actions, but there are better ways. (Paywall, but there are workarounds).  Ilya Somin says they deserve everything they get.

Francis in Full, by Bishop Robert Barron. over at First Things.  Barron is the founder of Word on Fire ministries, which has supplied some of the reviewers for NR's Great Books podcast, and I have been favorable impressed. I think he gives Pope Francis credit where it is due and defends him with clarity against some unfair criticism. I continue to dislike "the Earth is a pile of filth" that neglects to mention that by population, it has been worse throughout history than it is now, and the similar misunderstanding of use versus abuse of free markets, comparing the latter to mythical prior ages of shared property and respect, or to stated aspirations versus actual results.  But I did have my mind changed on some of the other points about Francis, so it's a good thing I went over.  First Things has a paywall, so choose carefully which articles you want before they shut you off. But even reading the first couple of paragraphs of each is valuable to a mind like mine.

When we find old bones, sometimes they are the ancestors of no one. 

AI Diagnosis: (via Aporia) Towards Conversational Diagnostic Artificial Intelligence. Nature April 2025. For written Q&A, AMIE demonstrated greater diagnostic accuracy and superior performance on 30 out of 32 axes according to the specialist physicians and 25 out of 26 axes according to the patient-actors. Verbal conversation was not tested.

I wonder if people will still want to hear the information and recommendations from an actual human being, though? My step-father was CEO of a mutual fund and explained that they would assign a gray head to meet with clients, especially older ones, in addition to the younger advisors who had done the actual work, because clients wouldn't part with their money on the word of the young ones, especially if they were female.  That would have been in the 80s and 90s, and I don't know if that is still true.