Category Archives: uncategorized

The main problem with Philosophy as a distinct academic discipline is not that it is stupid, but that its advocates *are* often “stupid” in that they badly misidentify its value with claims like the following: Philosophy answers questions like… “Who … Continue reading →

Sad to have him gone but glad for the end of his final illness.  The man’s infectious smile radiated a sincerity that I don’t think anyone has ever denied, and I am thankful that that sincerity included an unwavering commitment … Continue reading →

This article in The Atlantic points to research on people who can remember what they ate for breakfast on a specific day 10 years ago (and are found to be accurate a high percentage of the time when tested)  but it turns … Continue reading →

According to this report  in Vice-Canada, David Suzuki has claimed that “If, in fact, the fourth plant goes under an earthquake, and those rods are exposed, it’s bye-bye Japan, and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate. … Continue reading →

In the course of checking whether Ramez Naam’s GDP figures (in Decoupling Growth From Energy and Carbon) were inflation adjusted, I came across nice looking site about visualizing economics. The graph there matches Naam’s and is clearly identified as illustrating an … Continue reading →

David Brin cheers on The Coming Transparent World while Jaron Lanier is decidedly less enthusiastic. Lanier’s solution is to implement ownership of personal data with the right to deny access and charge whatever price we want for such access.  Of course, although … Continue reading →

Ophelia Benson picks up on an interesting minor point in an essay by Conor Friedesrorf where he attributes some of the goodness of his friend to the influence of religion: “Nick happens to be one of the best people I know. Even … Continue reading →

The “Dear Muslimo” scorn being heaped on Richard Dawkins over his lost honey would be undeserved were it not for his own earlier mockery of Rebecca Watson’s mild complaint on behalf of women who feel uncomfortable as a result of unwanted attention at … Continue reading →

In Why Falsifiability, Though Flawed, Is Alluring: Part I , William M. Briggs argues that “most theories scientists hold are not falsifiable” because “if the predictions derived from a theory are probabilistic then the theory can never be falsified. This is so … Continue reading →

There has been a lot of heated reaction recently to a couple of incidents in which people have apparently denied the sincerity of others’ statements of belief. Oprah Winfrey responded to atheist swimmer Diana Nyad’s expression of wonder and awe … Continue reading →

What Is Bjørn Lomborg Trying to Achieve? – asks Keith Kloor in his blog at DiscoverMagazine.com, and with reference to his recent profile in Cosmos. Kloor says “it’s worth asking at this stage in his career if  Lomborg is a … Continue reading →

via Decisions, decisions | Annoying Precision. Newcomb’s paradoxis the name usually given to the following problem. You are playing a game against another player, often called Omega, who claims to be omniscient; in particular, Omega claims to be able to predict … Continue reading →

To follow up on my previous post:  since the occurrence of an event having low probability according to some model is not always reason to doubt the model, it becomes natural to ask what would be reason to doubt the model. And … Continue reading →

One of my favourite betes noires claims to have put everything wrong with P-Values under one roof. My response started with  “There’s nothing wrong with p-values any more than with Popeye. They is what they is and that’s that. To blame … Continue reading →

one of the most pressing issues facing America is the media’s over-reliance on widely-debunked, non-credible sources, which poisons the atmosphere for a genuine discussion of our biggest problems and their best solutions via Clean Slate? Asking Bjorn Lomborg To Help … Continue reading →

In Whos Afraid of Peer Review? ‘Science’ magazine publishes a purported bit of “research” into the failings of open access journals which starts by selecting those of less repute and fails to do any comparable study of the population (of traditional subscription-based … Continue reading →

Tunisia’s Islamist party to step down after talks – The Hindu. If only the Egyptians had waited to see how the Tunisians do it they might have been a lot better off than they are now.

Richard V. Reeves, in The Glass-Floor Problem – NYTimes.com concludes with: This is delicate territory. Nobody wants parents to stop trying hard for their children. But nor do we want a society in which the social market is rigged in … Continue reading →

Ever since whatever happened at the Obama/Putin meeting at the G10 it’s been an amazing time for optimism regarding the future of humanity. But of course the election of Hassan Rohani actually precedes that meeting.

Ophelia Benson. quoting Stephen Pinker in paraphrase of Stephen Jay Gould to the effect that “Science gets the empirical universe; religion gets the questions of moral meaning and value” struck me as identifying the key point on which Gould’s idea … Continue reading →