Category Archives: Social evolution
Analytic thinking, religion and science – the rhetoric and the psychology
Over the past few decades there has been an increasingly large literature on styles of thinking and cognitive biases (to which I am grateful to Jocelyn Stoller, a reader of this blog, for introducing me) in psychology, culminating in the marvellous … Continue reading
Filed under Cognition, Epistemology, Evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Social evolution
A philosophical apology from 1919 for not being pro-war
Leiter posted the PDF of this on his site. I can’t help but reproduce some of the choicer quotes: “DEAR FRIEND: Your letter gently but un-mistakably intimates that I am a slacker, a slacker in peace as well as in … Continue reading
Filed under History, Logic and philosophy, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Sermon, Social evolution, Truisms
The Shandyan dilemma
Reginald Hill, author of the Dalziel and Pascoe detective series among many others, has died. This is a partial post I started some time back, so I thought I’d post it as is. In Recalled to Life, Reginald Hill has … Continue reading
Filed under Evolution, History, Philosophy, Social evolution
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 4: Predicting traits
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Species have typical traits, anatomically. There is, however, a bit of a myth that before Darwin people thought species had essences which were … Continue reading
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 2: chains and trees
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Very famously, Darwin came up with the idea of the evolutionary tree. What is not often realized is that it is the tree … Continue reading
Filed under Biology, Epistemology, Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Evolution, History, Philosophy, Social evolution
Christian capitalism and socialism
Greg Paul, whose work on dinosaurs I find most interesting, has a blog entry on the Washington Post site on another kind of dinosaur – Christian socialists. He notes that the current American Christian obsession with capitalism is quite contrary to the … Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy, Politics, Social evolution
What should evolutionary psychology comprise?
Recently there have been a number of posts and comments on evolutionary psychology. A new paper in PLoS Biology argues that human brain evolution since the “stone age” (really?) has been rapid and multifaceted. And there are renewed calls for … Continue reading
Religions, cults and wacos
Yes, I’m aware that it’s spelled “wacko” but when people start talking about cults, they often have in mind the insanity that led to the Waco compound disaster. The “Church” of Scientology has used a SLAPP suit to try to … Continue reading
Filed under Politics, Pop culture, Rant, Religion, Sermon, Social evolution
