Good Friday is all about social distancing--of the Romans from the Jews, of the disciples from Jesus, of Jesus from life, and perhaps God the Father; and perhaps Jesus from humanity as well.  Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?  May we all remember this Good Friday as an especially palpable Good Friday, now and in days to come.

And also, I have links for you.

A study about expertise, uncertainty, and public reception: “The accusations of a post-truth society, and claims that the public ‘had had enough of experts,’ prompted us to investigate whether trust in ‘experts’ was lowered by their openly admitting uncertainty about what they know,” said Dr. Spiegelhalter, one of the principal investigators.

The study’s findings suggest that being transparent about uncertainty does not harm the public’s trust in the facts or in the source.”  Also, a nice distinction between “deep uncertainty” and “risk.” 

If this was the view of democracy last year, what will it be like after the pandemic?  

An NBER paper – – it may behind a pay wall – – arguing for the reality of a “U shaped curve“ in life satisfaction, with middle-age being the most unhappy. Psychologists apparently do not believe such a pattern exists, but these scholars, both economists, look at the data the psychologists offer, and they see it even there.  Carol Graham, one of the authors of the paper, is quite astute, it seems to me.

In related work, this is very interesting:

In general, we discover that autonomy, relatedness, and competence are almost five times more important for perceptions of having meaningful work compared with compensation, benefits, career advancement, job insecurity, and working hours.

I love the idea of “forest islands" in the Amazon – – heaped up mounds of earth built by human hand, to create perpetually dry hills in the midst of a giant wetland plain.  And this is cool too:

Genetic and archaeological evidence suggests there were at least four areas of the world where humans domesticated plants around 11,000 years ago, two in the Old World and two in the New World. This research helps us to prove South West Amazonia is likely the fifth.

Cool stuff on what we can learn from pottery, exemplified in work around London:

around 5600 years ago the area around what is now Shoreditch High Street was used by established farmers who ate cow, sheep or goat dairy products as a central part of their diet. These people were likely to have been linked to the migrant groups who were the first to introduce farming to Britain from Continental Europe around 4000 BC -- just 400 years earlier.

Jon Cotton, a consultant prehistorian working for MOLA, said: "This remarkable collection helps to fill a critical gap in London's prehistory. Archaeological evidence for the period after farming arrived in Britain rarely survives in the capital, let alone still in-situ. This is the strongest evidence yet that people in the area later occupied by the city and its immediate hinterland were living a less mobile, farming-based lifestyle during the Early Neolithic period."

And still we call this Friday good.  

Lord, we are not worthy.