On the need for critical reasoning 29 Oct 2009 Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s codiscoverer of natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism, was something of a contradiction. On the one hand he argued with a flat earth advocate, getting involved in a lawsuit as a result. On the other he opposed vaccination and promoted spiritualism. It is not the case that simply being a person of good intentions and will protects from stupid ideas. For that, you need critical reasoning skills. Below the fold, from Robert Grumbine’s blog, is a short talk on why vaccination is necessary, and why critical reasoning skills are a matter of public wellbeing. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFVE8csrcRw&feature=player_embedded] Education Science Social evolution
Ecology and Biodiversity Apes and evolution in the news 19 Jun 20094 Oct 2017 So there are a couple of interesting developments about fossil apes. One is the retraction by the author of the claim 14 years ago to have found a jaw bone that was evidence of Homo habilis, a precursor species (arguably) of H erectus, in a recent Nature. Previously he and… Read More
Evolution Tautology 6: A resolution 3 Sep 200922 Jun 2018 If, as Byerly and Michod think, along with many others such as Brandon (1990), there are two kinds of “fitness”; actual and expected, and only with actual fitness is there any possibility of a tautology, we need to work out what expected fitness is. Brandon calls it “adaptedness” proper; a… Read More
Education Brazilian science reporting site 7 Apr 2009 Well, it may be the case that science reporting is dying in English speaking publishing, but it looks like in Brazil, they are still able to do it. I was just interviewed online (good use of the technology) by a reporter from this site, Pesquisa FAPESP. If you do Portuguese,… Read More
I mean, seriously, who are you going to believe? The unanimous opinion of the entire (non-quack) medical and bioscience establishment? Or a former Playboy model?
I didn’t watch that video, or read that blog post (too tired, need sleep), but I still feel compelled to remind the readers here of the recent example of these kind of contradictions: Bill Maher.