Ten percent of the brain

Time after time again, I come across people claiming, "according to recent research" as it goes, that humans only use 10% of their brain. I guess, neurologists BELIEVE that we don't use a great part of our brain because they yet HAVE NO IDEA what it's for. When information like that percolates from the academia through the media into the public domain, it loses all academic nuances and becomes a simplistic meme people take for a gospel and repeat until the majority believes it to be true. Foucault often used to bitch about it.

Proof and evidence in science

Everything in science is about enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt, never a conclusive proof, especially so in social sciences. So everything is essentially "may" or "may not". To claim otherwise, is journalists' job.
 

"Once one says "may", all the evidence have been redacted. All the educated guesses, all the logical inferences, thrown out the window. With the empirical data, and the established theories, what can one conclude? Of course it is not impossible that the conclusions of one's analysis is incorrect, but that's an interpretation of the conclusions, which is up to the reader. Don't put words in the mouth of the reader. Especially not words of doubt, not after so many pages trying to convince the reader of the legitimacy of the conclusion of the analysis. With the empirical data, and the established theories, what can one conclude? Nothing? Ok, then put the "may" in there, so the reader knows the text was a waste of time to read..."
 

That's essentially the logic of what happens to scientific information as it passes through the media on to the layman: it ends up trivialised and truncated so that it can be presented as "scientific facts from recent research" in the latest Marie-Claire. Even Foucault bitched about that in one of his interviews. But then again, it helps "sell science" to the masses, so there you go.
 

That one can conclude nothing is a bit too dramatic. We can gather enough evidence to suggest that certain things are most likely to be true. Considering how much effort and rigour go to get to that point, and that at some point of time, it is bound to give way for better, or perhaps, entirely different results, it's decent enough. In reality, science is a lot of educated guesswork, just the way it is put together, the scientific method, makes it much more reliable than, say, gossip, but it is not inherently THE best or multi-purpose method of cognition. Trying to create a belief in the infallibility of "scientific proof" is what makes science scientism, a religion like any other. Do we really want that now?

Why do we have different currencies and why do they differ in value?

Because you can then sell and buy money, which will make it a product instead of a mere measuring system or labour and value. And because every product in the market has a price, if you sit at the source of money manufacturing, the banks,  you can manipulate the price of money and, ipso factum, you will control all prices for everything. Consequently, the more things around are monetised/commodified, the deeper and wider it this control by way of money. 

BTW, up to 85% of world trade are futures: promises to guarantee against the risks of possible fluctuations between currency exchange rates of money that  have ever only existed as flickering digits in a computer. 

QED

Global South vs. Western Canon

This is an epistemologically flawed political project. First they denounce Orientalism: there's no Other, we're all same humans. But then they say but The Global South is different and cannot be understood by outsiders.  So essentially, it's self-Orientalisation now re-branded in the Global South packaging. If you push for universalism, stay consistent at least about the basics and think through how you are going to resolve your logical fallacies.

Besides, any theory without empirical evidence is unfalsifiable arm-chair pontification. It cannot be proved neither right, nor wrong:and hence has nothing to do with science. Theory need to be grounded on studying a particular object by applying a particular method to it. Both the object and the method should be laid open and clear for critical scrutiny. When the object is something as vague as "culture" (in fact, ANYTHING) and the only method is Homi Bhabha-style projectile verbal vomiting, the critical scrutiny is but one likely guess against another, and the resulting theory is not worth the paper its written on.

Food and wholesomeness

Imagine all that negative energy around those celeb kitchens, and then you have to eat food "blessed" with a few dozens 'fucks' and a few dozen 'shits'.

"Why do celeb chefs love to swear as they cook when the "negative energy" that goes with it can be imparted in it making the food less wholesome than if cooked with love?"

Because food in restaurant marketing is commodified and thus acquires a monetary value, which is the raison d'etre of the whole shebang. You can't commodify "energetic wholesomeness" and hence it has no market value and, ipso factum, does not "exist" for the participants of the above-mentioned shebang.

English grammar and social theory

Being able to speak correctly your mother tongue and knowing its grammar are totally different kettles of fish. The former is acquired by virtue of growing up in a certain linguistic environment, the latter is a an abstract skill that takes a substantial educational effort. The difference is the same as between experiencing gravity since your birth (animals do that too!) and being able to explain it in words (takes some education in Physics, far from everyone does that).

Many of my students, British kids from solid middle-class backgrounds, never get to learn English grammar at school, which, in my opinion, deprives them of the chance to develop a level of abstract thinking required for university students, to realise that apart from the obvious, superficial level of existence, there's a structural level, which may not be visible, yet is extremely important to be aware of. Such kids invariably struggle with learning social theory, because it takes grasping exactly that level of abstraction.

When I talk to their parents who, thanks to having enjoyed a more "old-fashioned" kind of education, do happen to know the difference between an adjective and a noun, I realise, on the micro-level, what the educational trend for replacing training in critical and abstract thinking for learning a trade to "finish school, get a job and pay taxes" is doing to this society. People who can't access reality critically, who can't see beyond the obvious or what they are told, become a docile flock that can be duped into literally anything: mindless consumerism, media-instigated xenophobia, unnecessary wars, giving up on hard-earned civil liberties and labour rights, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Just look around and see for yourself.

Sheeple, get a clue!

Sick and tired of people whose only idea of the world is the latest propaganda soundbite they caught from a news presenter reading whatever shows on the autocue cooked up by some spin doctors overpaid by their corporate employers to guide the public opinion to legitimise whatever self-serving political turn the present ruling party makes to continue "dividing and ruling" their clueless electorate who keep turning to news presenters for opinions