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Richard on the confusion of whether the you on drugs is really "you." This is a big worry for some about anti-depressants. But still there is something odd about these sorts of concerns.
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Ardis' Utah War primer. A nice summary if you aren't up on the history.
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After years of waiting the Joseph Smith Papers are finally published.
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Philosopher's Carnival 82. Sorry I've been too busy to contribute. I liked the entry "when do two objects touch?"
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SEEx: the Science and Entertainment Exchange. Trying to get better science into movies.
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From Marginal Revolution. "...aggregate capital investment in GM and Ford since 1980 has led to a net reduction in capital of $465 billion...with that $465 billion, "GM and Ford could have closed their own facilities and acquired all of the shares of Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Volkswagen."
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Infrastructure: is money the problem? "Spending is up 50 percent over the last 10 years, after adjusting for inflation. As a share of the economy, it will be higher this year than in any year since 1981."
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Intuitive fatalism. The difference between the superstitious and skeptical is at the level of belief and not intuition.
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Four things I learned from bad science
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Tanasije has an interesting argument on why the universe has always existed. Take that Kalaam.
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Does involving parents really help students learn? Depends on how they're involved
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Two very thoughtful posts on gay marriage by Russell Fox and Nate Oman. My own views are pretty similar although I also think there's a reasonable worry about polygamy in all this. I don't want polygamy legalized and suspect that was the Church's main fear too.
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What do we lose if definite descriptions are ambiguous between reference and attribution? I'm pretty sympathetic to the ambiguity issue. (Primarily due to issues in religion such as the issue of God in discourse) Check out Richard's arguments against ambiguity (linked to in the post).
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Degrees of responsibility
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NDPR on Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy. "... philosophers all too often argue from claims about language to conclusions about non-linguistic reality. " It's hard to disagree with that even though I think it can be overstated. The review is a nice overview of the problem even if it's not really a positive review of the book.
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Consciousness Without Attention? A lot of these debates seem largely semantic. (Actually I tend to think a lot of philosophical disputes are largely semantic) This one appears to be more substantial.
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Time magazine on the Mormon/Prop-8 aftermath.
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Interesting side-effect of a pandemic. All the large quantities of drugs (such as tamiflu) end up in the sewer system. What are the consequences of that? No one is quite sure.
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What fuels college tuition inflation? According to this theory college Presidents making use of federally back college loans and inexperienced (naive) young people. Probably some truth to this. Lots of people end up at 25 with huge college loans they'll be paying off the rest of their life if they are lucky. Me - I didn't take any loans out at all and am quite glad.
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Mormon America is a representative of the New England Puritan cultural tradition in 'Red America.'" Razib weighs in on Mormons, history and politics.
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Brandon on Mill's utilitarianism. Mill was very influential on me when I was young. But I'm no utilitarian. I do think everyone should read both Utilitarianism and On Liberty. Brandon argues Mill was unlike modern utilitarians.
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Genes in a post-genomic era. Single genes don't code for single proteins. "...the average protein-coding region produces 5.7 different transcripts. Different kinds of cells appear to produce different transcripts from the same gene." Fascinating and a must read. I need to get an updated primer on genetics. It's evolved way too much since college.
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Young neurons led astray
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5 Questions on Philosophy of Action.
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"Duty has the virtue of making us feel the reality of a positive world while at the same time detaching us from it."
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More Entries

McDermott Responds to Critics

Gerald McDermott wrote a fairly controversial article in First Things a few months back that generated a lot of discussion. He’s responding to some of the criticism in a post up at Summa Theologica. While I frankly find the whole “are Mormons Christian” discussion to be fairly silly and pointless there were some [...]

Others in the Book of Mormon

A nice primer on “Others” in the Book of Mormon (aka the problem of why indigenous peoples don’t appear to be mentioned in the text)

Flynn on Race and IQ

James Flynn has had some very interesting and controversial articles in New Scientist the past few months. They have mainly dealt with the taboo topic of IQ and black America. Yet he’s offered some very compelling and insightful alternative explanations that go against the “it’s genetics” theory that became popular (and simultaneously made [...]

Scary

OK, since it’s Halloween. Kulturblog on the best scary films and the best Halloween songs.

The Raven

The Raven as done by Stan Lee, Christopher Walken, Tim Burton, Vincent Price, and Harvey Corman.

On Gibbering Numbskulls

Brandon on Gibbering Numbskulls. Great post by Brandon on some of the hyperbole regarding stupidity in America.

Obesity and Pleasure

Obesity and being unable to take pleasure in the taste of food. The stereotype is obese people love food too much but the fact is the opposite.

Defending Libertarianism

Defending Libertarianism after the collapse. The basic argument? Libertarians are painted in caricatures and private markets magnify government errors. I’m anything but a Libertarian and I’m not sure this is a sufficient defense. But those are two big arguments. (Especially the former - attacking naive Ayn Rand readers as if [...]

Borges’s ‘Library of Babel’

Against Multiple Choice Exams

The case against multiple choice exams. One other bad thing - usually the more you know the tendency that more than one answer is right. That whole “most right” answer bit that teachers try to foist off is really just an excuse for laziness (IMO).

Sterling Assisted Electric Car

The guy behind the Segway is coming out with a sterling engine assisted electric car. Sterling engines are pretty cool and, if I recall, give you about 20% more MPG than standard diesel engines. We’ll see how this turns out given how underwhelming the Segway was.

Dawkins vs. Harry Potter

I’m sure you’ve seen this. But it kind of boggles the mind. Richard Dawkinds plans to find out if stories like Harry Potter have a pernicious effect on children. For some reason this immediately reminds me of all those people talking about the evils of comic books.
The prominent atheist is [...]

Defining God

Sorry for the delay in posts folks. Things got busy. In the meantime Enowning had a great little quote from a blog on God and Heidegger.

Amano Blog

In case anyone is curious there is now an Amano Chocolate blog

Obama on Redistribution

Volokh on that 2001 Obama interview about redistribution of wealth and the supreme court. It takes a much closer and nuanced view than most. It also speculates about judicial picks based on the interview. Worth reading.

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