{"id":27848,"date":"2026-05-12T17:55:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=27848"},"modified":"2026-05-14T16:27:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:27:32","slug":"new-ideas-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/05\/12\/new-ideas-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"New Ideas in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Has a new circulation system been found in the human body that might explain why acupuncture seems to work?<\/li>\n<li>Has a new framework been found that explains how the laws of nature varied at the start of the universe before settling into what they are today?<\/li>\n<li>Short items: another Republican claims there&#8217;s no racism on the right; Robert Reich on the rebirth of the Jim Crow South; Andrew Egger and Heather Cox Richardson on the flop of Trump&#8217;s right-wing cell phone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a long, interactive (in an irritating way) piece destined for next weekend&#8217;s NYT Magazine, apparently.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/nyt11may26.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/nyt11may26.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Avraham Z. Cooper, 11 May 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/05\/11\/magazine\/interstitium-anatomy-acupuncture-medicine.html\">The Human Body&#8217;s Hidden Pathways<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You have to scroll down to see the images change and bits of text. Let&#8217;s see if I can copy\/quote some of it. Nope, it won&#8217;t let me.<\/p>\n<p>The gist: It&#8217;s about the apparent discovery of a &#8220;third bodily system for the circulation of fluids&#8221; beyond the lymphatic and the cardiovascular. An interstitium. Which the Chinese claim to have been talking about for 4000 years. And which might explain why so many (Chinese) think that acupuncture works.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This is the first I&#8217;ve heard about it, and I&#8217;m not going to automatically assume that this is confirmed just because the NYT is writing about it. My point in noting this is that first, that there are no doubt remain things to be discovered. Second, there&#8217;s no reason to think either Western or Eastern medicine or philosophy has a monopoly on truth, i.e. the understanding of reality. And yet, thirdly, that if there is some new discovery here, it will need to be validated by repeated experiments, and we&#8217;ll hear about it again, from other sources.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Somewhat similarly, here&#8217;s an item I just saw on Fb. Alas, I don&#8217;t subscribe to the magazine (any more), so I can only read a bit at the top.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/07120633\/SEI_295128101.jpg?width=837\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>New Scientist, Jo\u00e3o Magueijo yesterday<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2524701-where-did-the-laws-of-physics-come-from-i-think-ive-found-the-answer\/\">Where did the laws of physics come from? I think I&#8217;ve found the answer<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The rules governing gravity and other laws of nature seem like eternal truths, but cosmologist Jo\u00e3o Magueijo has always questioned their origins. Now, he has a bold new proposal&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Great. The non-subscriber excerpt teases philosophically but doesn&#8217;t say exactly what his idea is. Just this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But I believe the origin of the laws of nature is a question we can\u2019t ignore, one I\u2019ve been pondering for the past few years. Many previous attempts to explain how these laws arose have foundered because they ended up introducing deeper \u201cmeta-laws\u201d along the way. Finally, though, I think I have something better: a framework that explains how the rules of science varied wildly at the start of the universe before settling into what we see today. If I\u2019m right, then the \u201claws of nature\u201d may not be fundamental at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can only speculate a bit: ideas have been floating around for years about the anthropic principle and the multiverse. If the laws of nature were different, we wouldn&#8217;t be here to wonder about them, and so on. Another way of saying, perhaps the laws of nature, the specific values of the fundamental constants we observe, are the only ones *possible* to generate a cohesive universe. But that&#8217;s not a good answer either, assuming some kind of unique quality to our own universe.<\/p>\n<p>I only mention this, actually, to second the previous item. Lots of new ideas are floated every day, every year, in attempts to solve long-running scientific and philosophical questions. But you can&#8217;t jump to any kind of conclusion based on one newspaper report or magazine article. If these ideas are valid, they will be tested over and over, and only then will we keep hearing about them. And years before they make their way into textbooks.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>To prosaic matters.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/rww12may26.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/rww12may26.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She is deluded, or misinformed, or deeply confused.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, yesterday<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peoplefor.org\/rightwingwatch\/rep-harriet-hageman-insists-there-no-racism-right\">Rep. Harriet Hageman Insists There Is No Racism On The Right<\/a><\/li>\n<li>And she says &#8220;The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations&#8230; Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>At best, she&#8217;s ignoring the polarity reversal of the Republicans and Democrats around 1960, which most people don&#8217;t understand.<\/li>\n<li>And if there&#8217;s no racism on the right, why are Tennessee and other right-leaning southern states so anxious to redistrict in order to dilute or eliminate black votes? How could such racism be more obvious?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\">*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!lUoN!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0249a82-09a1-4235-830d-1401fff171c4_800x600.jpeg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On the same topic.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Robert Reich, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/p\/how-to-respond-to-the-rebirth-of\">How to Respond to the Rebirth of the Jim Crow South<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;My conversation with Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Jones told me that, at Trump\u2019s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\">*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!ZoUM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbdf8a943-5269-4493-b45a-f1db1b214ae0_8192x5464.jpeg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Bulwark, Andrew Egger, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebulwark.com\/i\/197344912\/ive-got-a-bridge-to-cell-you\">I\u2019ve Got a Bridge to Cell You<\/a><\/li>\n<li>About the flop of Trump&#8217;s right-wing cell phone.<\/li>\n<li>Why do Trump fans keep falling for these scams?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Heather Cox Richardson<\/strong> on the same topic: <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/may-11-2026\">May 11, 2026<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Here I&#8217;ll quote.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>The story of the Trump Mobile phone seems a microcosm of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p>As Judd Legum of <em>Popular Information<\/em> explains, on June 16, 2025, Trump\u2019s sons Donald Jr. and Eric announced the launch of a new, gold plated, Trump smartphone, \u201cproudly designed and built in the United States.\u201d It would be available in August 2025 for $499. Its website urged customers to \u201cpre-order\u201d the phone by depositing $100 toward it. Don Jr. said the phone would be \u201cAmerican hardware, built in America, without the potential of\u2026[a] backdoor into the hardware that some of our adversaries have installed in there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And yet a disclaimer on the website said the Trumps and the Trump Organization were involved only in the branding of the phone; they had nothing to do with the design, development, manufacture, distribution, or sales of the item. As Legum notes, the idea of a superior U.S.-made phone was always a fantasy, and within two weeks the phone\u2019s description changed from \u201cMADE IN THE USA\u201d to \u201cdesigned with American values in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The phone never shipped, and on April 6, Trump Mobile updated its terms to say the $100 deposit was not actually a deposit for a pre-order, but rather \u201ca conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.\u201d It went on to say the deposit \u201cdoes not lock in pricing, promotions, service plans, taxes, fees, shipping costs, or other commercial terms\u201d and that \u201c[e]stimated ship dates, launch timelines, or anticipated production schedule are non-binding estimates only.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have more. There are always more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has a new circulation system been found in the human body that might explain why acupuncture seems to work? Has a new framework been found that explains how the laws of nature varied at the start of the universe before &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/05\/12\/new-ideas-in-the-world\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,103,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","category-racism","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27848"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27871,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27848\/revisions\/27871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}