The New Yorker on “Freakonomics” and Global Warming 15 Nov 2009 To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction. This is the turn that “SuperFreakonomics” takes, even as its authors repeatedly extoll their hard-headedness. All of which goes to show that, while some forms of horseshit are no longer a problem, others will always be with us. [Read more] General Science Politics
Evolution The value of the history of science 4 Aug 20084 Oct 2017 My Sciblings Bora, John, Brian and Benjamin have asked what the value of the history of science is to scientists. Below the fold is my apologia for writing a stonking great history of a scientific concept (species, in case the sidebar wasn’t enough hint), in which I defend the worth… Read More
Politics You can’t have proper human relationships unless you are a Christian 4 Apr 201018 Sep 2017 … according to Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, who seems to think that prior to Jesus nobody ever had a decent human relationship. A secular society is right out, brother. The idea that secularism suggests that people might form relationships without the scaffolding of the church seems to worry him… Read More
Evolution Evolution and economics 28 Sep 2008 It all began with Larry Arnhart giving a “Darwinian” account of the case for financial bailouts. Then David Sloan Wilson rejected the argument from the Invisible Hand. Then Massimo Pigliucci entered the fray. What’s at issue? Read More