Education Drama, journalism and science 17 Feb 201317 Feb 2013 Recently the Jonah Lehrer scandal was raised again when he was paid $20,000 to speak on his journalistic dishonesty by the Knight Foundation. I cynically noted on Twitter that being honest and as accurate as I could be netted me exactly nothing in the way of honoraria (I think I… Continue Reading
Biology Evopsychopathy 5: Conclusion 2 Jan 20133 Jan 2013 The criticisms of evolutionary psychology and its predecessors sociobiologies 1 through 3 focus on three major points: 1. It is adaptively-biased; 2. It is gene-centric (or biological determinist, which amounts to the same thing); 3. It is culturally biased in favour of the privileged classes of the people making the… Continue Reading
Politics The meaningless mythical mandate 10 Nov 201210 Nov 2012 Politics, as we are constantly reminded, is the art of the possible. And yet there is this equally persistent theme in political discussion about who has a mandate after an election, and for what. Policies are presented to the electorate as a bundle by political parties, not as a series… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Urkkkh! 19 Aug 201219 Aug 2012 If words were water, I would be paddling hard up to my ears being nibbled by piranha as an alligator came for me. So I haven’t said much here for a while. There’s this paper, this book, this contract, this report and this tendency for me to post comments elsewhere…. Continue Reading
Evolution Evolution quotes: Socialism 9 May 20129 May 2012 To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size. The extreme socialists desire to run every nation as a single business concern. I do not suppose that Henry Ford would find much difficulty in running Andorra or Luxembourg on a socialistic basis. He has already… Continue Reading
Australian stuff The decline of Australian progressivism 25 Mar 201225 Mar 2012 Australian state Queensland had an election yesterday, and the result went from a Labor government to a virtual elimination of Labor in the state parliament. This follows, and exceeds, similar defeats in New South Wales last year, and Victoria the year before. Each year, the defeats increase. Victoria went from… Continue Reading
Freedom Dark days 22 Jan 201221 Jun 2018 In case you didn’t notice, just recently a number of web giants, as well as innumerable other websites, went “dark” in protest against the attempts to control the internet by the US government. But the US isn’t the first nation to attempt this. Iran, Turkey, India, China, and to the… Continue Reading
History A philosophical apology from 1919 for not being pro-war 21 Jan 201221 Jan 2012 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 war; that when the World war was raging bitterly I… Continue Reading
Academe Attack of the Unlibrarian 15 Dec 201115 Dec 2011 I am generally fairly IT savvy (I even have an ancient IT degree), but at the same time I am rather unconvinced that the future is as digital as everyone says. In particular I have been appalled at the constant destruction of physical books by university libraries. Now I am… Continue Reading