Politics

I had a bunch of political posts I wanted to get to (in addition to commenting on Blake’s book) However I’ve reached the stage where I just want the election to be over with. The current stock fall isn’t helping my spirits. Unlike many I don’t think the leader has a huge [...]

Believing in Anything

Great post at the Frontal Cortex on magical thinking. “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing - they believe in anything.” Fascinating study showing that the irreligious or liberal Christians tend to be more likely to believe in the paranormal and pseudoscience than Evangelical Christians.

Hypocrisy and Politics

Don’t worry, the concern is primarily philosophical and not political. Here’s my question. Everyone (on both sides) is all up in arms over hypocrisy. It’s hypocritical of Obama activists to attack Palin with sexist arguments when criticizing sexism elsewhere. Likewise it’s hypocritical of McCain activists to defend Palin’s family while criticizing [...]

Economic Theory Wrong?

Interesting article up at New Scientist. (It’s behind a pay wall so I’ll summarize it) It’s about why economic theory is out of whack. The paper they are discussing is available at arXiv though. It’s “Stock Price Jumps: News and Volume Play a Minor Role”. (OK, not a very catchy [...]

Politics of Energy

Even though oil prices are dropping pretty significantly this week I suspect the days of cheap oil are over. While I’m no fan of McCain I think one has to acknowledge he’s really taken the bull by the horns. (See, for instance these posts by Framing Science where even Democratic operatives think McCain [...]

Academics and Mormons

A constant discussion at some of the more academically oriented LDS blogs is the relationship between Mormonism and Academics. Is there a tension? Does ones Mormonism influence ones intellectual pursuits? The one thing that I think most Mormons have emphasized is the strong push in our culture to gain learning. At [...]

Science Under Attack?

I was listening to the podcast of NPR’s Science Friday as I was packing chocolate. Last Friday’s show included a discussion about that Louisiana Creationism issue I mentioned last week. The Science Friday Show went well beyond that though.

Louisiana Puts Creationism in the Schools

Louisiana appears to have passed a law teaching Creationism in school.

Vaccines Again

OK, I promise that forthcoming posts will primarily be focused on philosophy. I’ve got a bunch of fairly technical posts coming up. I wanted to comment a bit about all the controversy over vaccines though. It’s been a big topic of discussion at the various science blogs as well as being in [...]

Higher Education Bubble

The higher education bubble? (HT: Instapundit) “Over the last 10 years, after adjusting for inflation, tuition is up 48% at public schools and 24% at private schools.” Are people with credit risk borrowing a lot of money to pay for something that doesn’t offer the returns necessary to pay off those loans?

Meltdown of the EPA

Meltdown of the EPA (HT: The Intersection). I was pretty critical of the EPA under Clinton but what’s happened under Bush on so many things is horrific. He’s replaced political debate with fixing the science. I think on many issues (including global warming) there’s a big valid political disagreement about what to [...]

Global Warming Doubters

Nice discussion from January over at Dot Earth about scientists who are concerned about global warming. The article is about the American Geophysical Union statement on global warming. But in the comments they address the supposed experts on that supposed Senate report about climate skeptics that has been making the rounds. One [...]

Effects of Ending Drugs

Marginal Revolution has an interesting discussion on what would happen if drugs were legalized. I tend to agree that a lot of the problem are drug-users and not just the crime around selling. But the effects of the government war on drugs are horrendous. I wish we could end that.

The Texas FLDS Situation

I’ve not talked about the FLDS situation here since I want to focus on philosophy here. For those interested I’ve made a few posts on the subject at M*. The first was on the double standard between the polygamy and underage marriages of African immigrants and the FLDS. The second was noting [...]

Cognitive Enhancers

Everyone is talking about Nature’s new story on cognitive enhancers. Basically a study of scientists who had used drugs to enhance mental performance.
One in five respondents said they had used drugs for non-medical reasons to stimulate their focus, concentration or memory. Use did not differ greatly across age-groups (see line graph, right), which will [...]

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