[This week in my Introduction to Philosophy course, we’re reading Galileo’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” — published exactly 400 years ago — in which he argues that free inquiry in the sciences is compatible with religion rightly understood. Here is a re-posting of my Galileo and the Modern Compromise.] IN HIS OPEN LETTER […]
Galileo on religion and science (Introduction to Philosophy this week) Read More »
Hardin is one of the most widely-read twentieth-century intellectuals, most known for his two pieces “The Tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.” The two are intimately related, as one diagnoses a fundamental problem with resources and the other draws policy conclusions. A key quotation, in which Hardin states
Garrett Hardin on India’s 600 million population in 1974 Read More »
Researchers say the average woman speaks 20,000 words a day, and the average man speaks 7,000. Apparently, the Foxp2 protein is implicated. So we may now have an answer to this wry question from Austin O’Malley: “Why is the word tongue feminine in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French and German?” And this intriguing study of
For Week 13 in my Western Civ course: Human Nature and the New Biology. Previous files in the series: 1. Introduction. 2. The Renaissance Context. 3. England to the Glorious Revolution. 4. Justice and Modernizing the Law. 5. From Feudal to Modern Business and Economics. 6. The American Enlightenment. 7. The Battle for Women’s Liberty
PowerPoint added: Human Nature and the New Biology Read More »
Is peace or war the natural state of man? Do men fight primarily over material possessions or over women? For decades anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon studied the Yanomamö, a remote tribe in South America, learning about their almost-constant warfare — and his findings put him in open conflict with academic anthropologists and the American Anthropological Association.
Ideological wars in anthropology Read More »
Megapixels are so last year. Ramesh Raskar’s TED talk on imaging at a trillion frames per second:
Ramesh Raskar on femto-photography Read More »
As the wags say, you can’t make this stuff up. The Bolivian Minister of External Affairs has decided, for good astrological reasons, to banish the Coca-Cola company from Bolivia. “David Choquehuanca, the minister in question, explained that Coca-Cola will be expelled from Bolivia on the same day that the Mayan calendar enters a new cycle
Crank economics and astrology in Bolivia Read More »
Entrepreneurial Research Science My full interview with physicist R. Paul Drake is now posted at the the CEE site. I met with Dr. Drake in Michigan to discuss the realities of professional science — multi-tasking, grant-writing, travel, and learning from failure — the adequacies and inadequacies of American science education, and the likely future of
Full interview with Paul Drake posted Read More »