On the Socratic Method

Why I Don’t Use the Socratic Method. Mainly about lawyers although probably applicable to a degree in philosophy. But then how many philosophy teachers use the Socratic Method? I’ve had only a few although they did a very good job of it. Edit: Also at Volokh and don’t forget the [...]

Are We Happy?

OK, an old poll (2006) but an interesting one. The Pew Poll on happiness. 50% of Americans are somewhat happy and 34% are very happy for a total of 84% of Americans saying they are happy.

The Problem of Evil and Wanting to Not Get What You Want

Over at Crooked Timber earlier this month there was an interesting point about how sometimes we want to not get what we want. The example the author used was not wanting ones football team to always win so there was a bit of excitement, suspense and challenge. I think this ends up being [...]

Sexual Reorientation

Razib at Gene Expression has an interesting post on cognitive modifications such as controlling sexual orientation. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Well, I’ll take that back. A lot of it makes me feel queasy. If it’s done by adults on themselves that’s one thing. And I tend [...]

Do God and prayer trump scientific medicine?

Do God and prayer trump scientific medicine? Great summary of that survey everyone is talking about. I really dislike the “God could save” someone question though. It tends to conflate could with often does. Leading to unfortunate discussion.

Scientists Recreate 1918 Flu Anti-Bodies

Scientists have succeed in replicating 1918 flu pandemic antibodies from 90 year old survivors

Peirce on Intuition

I’d discussed on the weekend intuitions and whether they are trustworthy. I was using the term more as some underlying cognitive process. Over at Brandon’s post I misread him as using that usage as well. Brandon’s point was basically that an intuition is just an element in an argument and as such [...]

NS on Global Warming Ended in 1998

New Scientist on the myth that global warming ended in 1998. This is part of their series on global warming myths.

Best of the Week 6: Academic LDS

(Whoops, sorry about that old header - my bad) Here’s this week’s “best of” for more academic oriented posts on Mormon topics. I’ve found there’s just so many blogs out there now and most tend to post of fluff (IMO). There are always a few blogs that go after the more technical [...]

Analogy for Voting Machines and Viruses

Problems with voting machines are being blamed on anti-virus software. However this analogy is pretty apt for why they shouldn’t have to run anti-virus software.

Robot Rat Exaggerated

Robot with rat brain claims are exaggerated. Bummer. That sounded like a big breakthrough.

Going strong at 100

Going strong at 100. Extreme lifespans don’t mean extreme disability. I watched The Notebook with my wife last night. Can I say how much less scary old age would seem if I needn’t fear dementia or incapacity? I could handle being somewhat feeble if I wasn’t infirmed.

History of Philosophy and Charity

There is an other interesting post by Brandon up. This one is about history of philosophy and what one might call the principle of charity. The problem is when some key element of an argument is obscure. As Brandon notes ideally we should see if the term is used or explained elsewhere. [...]

Moral Dupes

Sustainability and Moral Dupes: a problem of the commons.

“Temples And Ritual In Antiquity” SANE Symposium At BYU

“Temples And Ritual In Antiquity” Symposium At BYU. Sounds interesting. Let’s hope transcripts will be available for those of us with jobs making it hard to attend these sorts of things.

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