Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

William J. Lewinski says he did not submit and publish his research findings on which he bases his testimony and teaching in a scientific journal but published in a police magazine because he wanted to reach that target audience.

To assume that his findings would have been successfully published in a peer-reviewed academic journal may be wishful thinking. But for Dr. Lewinski to cite his experimental work in court to explain police shootings of unarmed suspects is more problematic.

Certainly, he knows that scientific findings (even his own) are not accepted (scientifically speaking) until they are independently verified (replicated and published with peer review). One would hope that prosecutors, judges and juries would know this, too.

ALAN W. LANGER

Glen Allen, Va.

The writer is a retired professor of psychology at Syracuse University who has published in, and done peer reviews for, scientific journals.

Note from KBJ: The law has its own standards of authentication and expertise. It does not mindlessly adopt or incorporate those of academic disciplines such as psychology. The letter writer would know this if he had legal credentials, which, apparently, he does not. Scientism is the encroachment of scientific standards, methods, concepts, and terminology on nonscientific fields. It is a form of arrogance, and this is a good example of it.

is the sound of a Muslim terrorist's head exploding.

Here.

Here.

I bought my first bicycle (a Sears Free Spirit) 34 years ago today, on 9 August 1981. I was 24 years old. As of today, I've pedaled 82,332.2 miles, which is an average of 2,421.5 miles per year, 6.62 miles per day, and 46.4 miles per week. I've ridden the equivalent of 3.3 times around the Earth at its equator. (The Earth is 24,901.55 miles in circumference.) Many people have ridden more miles than I have, some vastly more. Danny Chew, for example, is on his way to a million miles. I'm writing this post not to brag, and not to imply that I'm doing something extraordinary, but to mark another year of riding. It was 103º Fahrenheit the past two times I rode (Thursday and Saturday). I thrive in the heat.

Note that only two of the top five candidates (Cruz and Rubio) hold public office, and they're in their first term in the United States Senate. Conservatives are sick to death of Washington insiders such as Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. We keep electing them, but they do the bidding of Wall Street rather than Main Street.

To the Editor:

Re “Fear of Failing” (Education Life section, Aug. 2):

The vast majority of students who commit suicide are male. And yet every single one of your “case studies” was female. Not once did you indicate that males are more prone to succeed in committing suicide than females or that 80 percent of all suicides between the ages of 14 and 28 are males. Why the focus on women to the exclusion of men in such an article?

I see this all the time in articles that deal with health issues (including mental health). Male students also struggle with social and familial expectations of perfection; they also struggle with pressure to measure up. And more of them commit suicide than women. In the future, I hope that you will be gender-fair and inclusive.

ROGER E. OLSON

Waco, Tex.

The writer is a professor of Christian theology and ethics at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University.

Seven-Inning Felix (14-6) pitched seven innings today and earned the victory (over my Texas Rangers). He's on track for 19.5 victories.

Comedy is dying, because nobody's precious feelings may be hurt. Read this.