Cognition: In the Head?

There’s a great review that gets at the issue of externalism of cognition being linked to alot. Note that the topic isn’t content externalism but whether cognition can be said to be all in the head. I think the arguments for content externalism have been remarkably strong and hard to overcome. Cognition is a slightly [...]

Evolution and Global Warming

Razib over at Gene Expression put up a great post on the correlation between doubters of evolution and doubters or global warming. I’d wanted to post on it but I’ve been out of town on work for some time. Surprisingly (at least to me) there really isn’t much of a relation. Yes, as expected, evolution [...]

Evolution, Religion and Voting

Razib has an other great post at Gene Expression. This one is on voting and belief in Creationism. An important point frequently overlooked: I think mocking someone for this belief in a political context is somewhat strange: the survey literature is pretty robust that Americans are split down the middle on opinions about evolution. More [...]

Gen X More Loyal to Religion

Interesting story at Science Daily I had missed. Apparently Gen-X are more loyal to their religion than prior generations. This isn’t to deny the increasing rise of the non-religious or the like. It’s just that the authors think that the trend may be leveling off. Although Gen-Xers are relatively likely to be raised with no [...]

Leaving Your Religion Unhealthy

Interesting study discussed over at Science Daily on how “people who leave strict religious groups are more likely to say their health is worse than members who remain in the group.” It’s not clear to me what they mean by strict, but LDS is included in that group by the researchers.

New Science from CMS?

Will there be new science from CMS? There’s something that can’t yet be explained. I’m convinced that physics will really progress only when these accelerators give clear data about the unexplained. (Sorry – knowing there is dark matter is insufficient if we can’t really analyze it yet) Also see this article. Of course it’s premature [...]

The Real Science Gap

Interesting story on the real science gap. “It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.” This is completely true. The question is (honestly) whether we need more. But right now [...]

Philosophy, Science and Age

Over at the Splintered Mind there’s an interesting post on when scientists and philosophers produce their “great work.” (Yeah – it’s from a month ago: I’m behind on my reading) As Eric notes, Einstein famously quipped that “a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of thirty will never [...]

Churchland & Eliminative Materialism

So I was listening to Philosophy Bites on the drive home last night and they were interviewing Patricia Churchland. Of course the Churchlands have been famous for pushing eliminative materialism in philosophy of the mind for probably over 30 years now. I have to say that after listening to the interview that I found little [...]

Evolution and Theology

Yes, I’m really behind on blog posts here. Sorry, I’ve been quite busy. Larval Subjects had an interesting post on theology and evolution. It’s primarily brief comments on Nagel, Fodor and Plantinga responding to Darwinism. However Levi raises a good critique I’ve heard both from more fundamentalist critics of evolution as well as atheists criticizing [...]

Vaccine Doctor Dismissal

The doctor who perpetrated fraud regarding a vaccine link with Autism will finally be banned from medicine. Yes it’s not done yet, but it looks like it’ll happen soon. It’s hard to underestimate the damage to children this guy has done. Not to mention the irrational panic he’s caused in parents. Those parents who aren’t [...]

Chemistry Set Generation

I, like many, was enraged by this ridiculous story about a school that evacuated due to a “bomb threat”. The threat? An 11 year old with a science project in a Gatorade bottle – a motion detector. All this reminds me of the good old days of the chemistry set generation. Back when I was [...]

Should Downs Syndrome Be Cured?

The New York Times has up an editorial, “Should Downs Syndrome be cured?” Of course. This idea that debilitating problems in babies should be left because others have it is ridiculous. Guess what, if you spend your childhood battling cancer it’ll change your personality as well. I think a lot of this sort of discussion [...]

Faith Instinct

Over at Gene Expression Razib reviews Nicholas Wade’s The Faith Instinct. It sounds like a different sort of book from the more cognitive science oriented ones like Scott Atran’s In Gods We Trust. (Which I enjoyed a great deal). One problem I’ve always had over the question of the evolution of religion is that the [...]

The Laboratory Safety Song

OK I saw this at Science Blogs and had to share. The muppets do lab safety.

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