---SPSmith
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Congressional Budget Office - The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12699
Article: Actual Scientists Respond to Fake Scientists at Wall Street Journal
Actual Scientists Respond to Fake Scientists at Wall Street Journal
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/actual_scientists_respond_to_f.php
---SPSmith
Article: The 11 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2011
The 11 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2011
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/22/best-psychology-and-philosophy-books-of-2011/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Florida Republican primary results – live
Florida Republican primary results – live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/florida-republican-primary-results-live
8.43pm: "I will make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs," says Mitt Romney. So, perhaps he will be able to move all his off-shore investments from the Cayman Islands back to the US? There's an economic stimulus for America right there.
---SPSmith
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice - Yahoo! News
Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.
"Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," Hodson said, explaining why these beliefs might draw those with low intelligence. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."
Leonard Cohen, With a New Album, ‘Old Ideas,’ Was Never Popular But Always Profound – Tablet Magazine
http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/music/89715/leonard/
To go to a Doors concert was to stare at the lithe messiah undressing
on stage and believe that it was entirely possible to break on through
to the other side. To see Cohen play was to gawk at an aging Jew
telling you that life was hard and laced with sorrow but that if we
love each other and fuck one another and have the mad courage to laugh
even when the sun is clearly setting, we'll be just all right.
To go to a Doors concert was to stare at the lithe messiah undressing
on stage and believe that it was entirely possible to break on through
to the other side. To see Cohen play was to gawk at an aging Jew
telling you that life was hard and laced with sorrow but that if we
love each other and fuck one another and have the mad courage to laugh
even when the sun is clearly setting, we'll be just all right.
---SPSmith
NeuroTribes
http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/
There's also a cheeky irreverence to the tone of the essays — many of
which originated in the blogosphere — that is utterly refreshing. I
can't think of another book on the subject that would include the
statement, "Children with autism are well known for masturbating in
public. (And who can blame them?)"
---SPSmith
Why the secular state has no moral mandate – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Thus, Locke proposed a functional separation of religion and the apparatus of the state. The state should act for entirely secular reasons, based on knowledge that pertains solely to the order of this world. It should place no reliance on the doctrines of one or another religion. The different religious sects, cults and churches, in turn, should not pursue political power or influence in an attempt to impose their doctrines on the citizenry.
History has been kind to Locke, and I suggest that the model he put forward is plausible, independently of the urgent need for seventeenth-century religious rivals to find a modus vivendi. His arguments are deeper than that, and more principled.
---SPSmith
Book Review: Coming Apart by Charles Murray - Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-coming-apart-by-charles-murray-01192012.html
Charles Murray, the conservative sociologist, has written an incisive,
alarming, and hugely frustrating book about the state of American
society. No sense withholding the punchline: He thinks we're in
decline. The American rich are living cloistered and isolated lives,
depriving the mainstream of their fraternity, their wisdom, and their
skills. A growing number at the other end of the socioeconomic
spectrum are dropping out in another respect—abandoning work, family,
and community. At risk is what Murray affectionately terms the
"American project." To Murray, the key to self-government is the
modifier "self"; American democracy, he says, can never be stronger
than the cumulative strength of character of its individual selves. A
government whose citizens lack what Murray terms "the founding
virtues"—virtue being one of the unfashionable terms that Murray
reclaims with delight—might as well be a dictatorship. It will lack
participatory vigor, civic energy, and a sense of inclusion, without
which even the Constitution becomes a dead letter.
---SPSmith
Check out: 'Is Polygamy Really So Awful?' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
Is Polygamy Really So Awful?
By Libby Copeland
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/01/the_problem_with_polygamy.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Monday, January 30, 2012
Why Atheism Will Replace Religion | Psychology Today
The question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence (see my earlier post on this).
---SPSmith
7 Signs the Corporatocracy is Losing its Legitimacy--and 7 Tools to Help Shut it Down | | AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/153933/7_signs_the_corporatocracy_is_losing_its_legitimacy--and_7_tools_to_help_shut_it_down?page=entire
Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize
profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for
environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren't paid enough to
afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes
wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top
executives and others in the 1 percent.
---SPSmith
Do Ask, Do Tell : OutSmart Magazine
http://outsmartmagazine.com/2012/01/do-ask-do-tell/?doing_wp_cron
Susan Bankston: Do you believe that Rick Perry is gay?
Glen Maxey: Throughout this story, I've been careful to refer to
Perry's activities as homosexual or same-sex, never "gay." That's
because as far as I'm concerned, Rick Perry isn't gay. He's a man who
has sexual encounters with other men. Those men predominantly identify
themselves as gay. But Rick Perry is not, as far as I am concerned,
gay.
---SPSmith
mermin_moon
If the data in such an experiment are in agreement with the numerical predictions of the quantum theory, then Einstein's philosophical position has to be wrong.
New Theory Explains How Objective Reality Emerges from the Strange Underlying Quantum World | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/05/new-theory-explains-how-objective-reality-emerges-from-the-strange-underlying-quantum-world/
Quantum theory is one of the most profound discoveries of humanity. In
my view, it's on a par with Cuban cigars and single malt whiskey
---SPSmith
Article: THOMAS FRANK PITIES THE BILLIONAIRE
THOMAS FRANK PITIES THE BILLIONAIRE
http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/2012/01/thomas-frank-pities-billionaire.html
if you believe in fantasy, you need a bogey man when reality hits you in the face
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Francis Fukuyama on the Financial Crisis | FiveBooks | The Browser
But if authoritarian states need more accountability, you can make the case that democratic political systems have been paralysed by the multiplication of checks and balances over time. That really creates a situation of what I call "vetocracy". There are no forcing mechanisms to make the polity take a difficult choice, but there is enough participation that everybody can block things that they don't like. In the US we have a particularly severe form of this because our constitution mandates many more checks and balances and many more vetoes in political decision-making than do the constitutions and basic laws of other societies. The economist Mancur Olson was right, I think, that over long periods of peace and prosperity, the vested interests that take advantage of this kind of political system tend to multiply. So I would relate our current problem to a bad institutional set of rules.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Sympathizes With Newt Gingrich's Moon Mission | Mediaite
Neil deGrasse Tyson Sympathizes With Newt Gingrich's Moon Mission | Mediaite: " “If the nation dreams big and that percolates its way through society, the dreams are enabled by prowess in science. Once everybody gets the feeling through them, they want to become scientists and engineers and participate in this adventure,” Tyson exclaimed. “Scientists and engineers — who are the seeds of tomorrow’s economies in this competitive 21st century we’re entering.”"
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Article: ARIZONA ATHEIST: The Bible: An Exposé: Myth or History?
ARIZONA ATHEIST: The Bible: An Exposé: Myth or History?
http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2012/01/bible-expose-myth-or-history.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Article: The 10 Most Brazen Lies Offered By the Remaining GOP Presidential Hopefuls
The 10 Most Brazen Lies Offered By the Remaining GOP Presidential Hopefuls
http://www.alternet.org/story/153911/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Dole assails Gingrich in plea to conservatives – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs
"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices," Dole said. "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway."
Dole, who served in the U.S. Senate when Gingrich was House speaker, harkened back to Gingrich's style during his time in Congress.
"Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall," Dole said. "He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics helped to topple Gingrich in 1998."
---SPSmith
Molalla City Council Agenda—Page 2 of 2
Jim Needham: ass where ever he goes:
Councilor Needham made a motion to table this item.
CM Barnes stated that there is already a motion on the table.
Councilor Needham stated that a motion to table is always in order.
Councilor Rogge stated that he has to have a second.
Mayor Clarke stated that beings that there is no second he will go back to the original motion and second that we adopt the Council Rules as they are.
Motion approved (5-1) Mayor Mike Clarke, Aye; Councilor Clark, Aye; Councilor Needham, Nay; Councilor Rogge, Aye; Councilor Thompson, Aye; Councilor Wolfe, Aye.
Councilor Needham stated that he can't believe this; this is a total mockery.
---SPSmith
Article: 'Headless body in topless bar' convict denied parole
'Headless body in topless bar' convict denied parole
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/01/headless-body-in-topless-bar-convict-denied-parole.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Atheism as Lacking a Moral Foundation
Atheism as Lacking a Moral Foundation
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2012/01/atheism-as-lacking-moral-foundation.html
In America, it casts atheists as untrustworthy, as least likely to share American values, and as being likely to establish a Stalinesque totalitarian regime complete with programs to round up and execute all believers if it should come to pass that atheists get political power.
This type if attitude deserves more that, "Pardon me, but i do not think that reason and evidence properly supports the conclusions you are asserting."
It deserves, "If your fraking religion grants you such a strong moral foundation, why didn't it teach you about the evil of promoting hatred and fear of others for the purpose of harvesting social and political power? Where is that in your moral code and why don't you start practicing it?"
---SPSmith
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Article: Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com
Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/
Rather, we find moral value to be immanent in the natural world, arising from the vulnerabilities of sentient beings and from the capacities of rational beings to recognize and to respond to those vulnerabilities and capacities in others.
---SPSmith
Poll Results | IGM Forum
One of the leading reasons for rising U.S. income inequality over the past three decades is that technological change has affected workers with some skill sets differently than others.
---SPSmith
Article: State of the Republicans
State of the Republicans
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/state-of-the-republicans/
Funny
---SPSmith
Article: State of the Republicans
State of the Republicans
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/state-of-the-republicans/
it's an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his first wife attacking his second wife for things she said about his third wife and this candidate is the one getting social conservative support.
---SPSmith
Emrys Westacott, The Virtues of Our Vices: tA Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits
Morality, in my view, is not some special nonnatural domain. it is a human invention, although as a number of recent studies in evolutionary ethics have suggested, it probably has its roots in our evolutionary heritage. For the most part, moral systems were not consciously designed with particular ends in mind; they emerged naturally, and those that helped their societies to thrive tended to be selected in. Within recorded history, moral revolutionaries like Moses, the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, and Muhammad sought more or less consciously to construct new ethical systems. They did so with certain goals in mind, and in most cases viewed the moral rules they proposed as reflecting a divine will. This divine sanction justified viewing the rules as objectively correct; it also provided people with a motive to abide by them.
The enlightenment secularized our view of morality but sought to uphold the objective status and binding force of moral principles by seeing them as dictates of reason rather than divine commandments. since the eighteenth century the secularization of our culture has proceeded apace, and this has made possible a more relativistic view of reason and a more flexible conception of morality. of course, there are plenty of religious believers who still think that the moral precepts they favor express God's will. The more traditional among them even hold that we have a duty to make our society mirror some divinely ordained ideal. But a thoroughly secular approach sees things differently. Morality is a tool. it is a set of values, beliefs, principles, practices, and ideals that we use to help promote certain personal and social goals. naturally, people can and do sometimes disagree over what these goals should be. Fascists will sacrifice individual rights to achieve a certain kind of political state; liberals see the state as serving to guarantee basic individual rights. some people posit ideals of nonviolence and brotherly love; others value rugged individualism and the frontier spirit. But wherever there is com mon ground, there is room for reasoned discussion, and we can entertain some hope that, in the long term, people's fundamental values will tend to converge.
-- Emrys Westacott, The Virtues of Our Vices: tA Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9522.pdf---SPSmith
10 Misconceptions Rundown
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCzXZfNIu3A&feature=youtube_gdata_player
---SPSmith
Apple Hits Sales, Profits Record « VOA Breaking News
http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/01/25/apple-hits-sales-profits-record/
Apple's profit exceeded the total revenue for the quarter of the
popular Internet search firm Google.
Apple's profit exceeded the total revenue for the quarter of the
popular Internet search firm Google.
---SPSmith
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Nov2011: Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia
Title: | Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia |
---SPSmith
Article: CrownHeights.info » Christopher Hitchens: The Fall of a Worthy Adversary
CrownHeights.info » Christopher Hitchens: The Fall of a Worthy Adversary
http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=39953
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Left/right differences
The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences
Dodd, et. al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 5 March 2012 vol. 367 no. 1589 640-649.
... the central message of these findings is not that one political orientation is somehow superior to the other but rather that, in light of the connection between location on the political spectrum and physio-cognitive differences, those on the political right and those on the political left may simply experience the world differently. It is probably because of these differences that some on the right view those on the left as hedonists who ignore pressing issues while some on the left view those on the right as doomsayers who obsess over constructed threats and problems.
Dodd, et. al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 5 March 2012 vol. 367 no. 1589 640-649.
... the central message of these findings is not that one political orientation is somehow superior to the other but rather that, in light of the connection between location on the political spectrum and physio-cognitive differences, those on the political right and those on the political left may simply experience the world differently. It is probably because of these differences that some on the right view those on the left as hedonists who ignore pressing issues while some on the left view those on the right as doomsayers who obsess over constructed threats and problems.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Richard Dawkins & Steven Pinker: Is Science Killing The Soul - Page 8
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins_pinker/debate_p8.html
That may also be true, at least according to some philosophical
arguments, for morality. Many philosophers believe that some abstract
entities, such as numbers, have an existence independent of minds.
That is, many philosophers and mathematicians believe that the number
three is not just a figment in the way that the color red is, but that
it has a real existence, which mathematicians discover and explore
with their mathematical faculties; they don't invent it. Similarly,
many moral philosophers argue that right and wrong have an existence,
and that our moral sense evolved to mesh with them. Even if you don't
believe that, there's an alternative that would make the moral sense
just as real -- namely, that our universal moral sense is constituted
so that it can't work unless we believe that right and wrong have an
external reality. So if you want to stop short of saying that moral
truths exist outside us, you can say that we can't reason other than
by assuming that they do. In that case, when we get down to having a
moral debate, we still appeal to external standards of right and
wrong; we aren't reduced to comparing idiosyncratic emotional or
subjective reactions.
---SPSmith
Article: Theism, Atheism, and Blame
If you take "atheism" and its counter-part "theism" NEITHER of these are a source of violence or evil. You cannot draw any moral implications from the statement, "It is not the case that at least one God exists" just as you cannot draw any moral implication from the statement, "It is the case that at least one God exists." They are both behaviorally, morally, and practically impotent.
In order to get to any moral conclusion – any type at all – you have to add something to your fundamental premise, regardless of whether it is atheist or theist.
In order to get violence against homosexuals, you have to combine, "At least one God exists" with "That god commands that homosexuals be put to death" and "We all have to duty to do that which God commands." Then, you can get behavior worthy of condemnation.
However, on this level, the same reasoning applies to atheism. In order to get any form of behavior – any type at all – out of atheism you have to add something to your fundamental premise. We might add, "Man is a rational animal, and it is irrational to provide help to others unless one expects a sufficient profit in return that more than compensates the cost of the help. Therefore, man ought not to help others. Selfishness is a virtue."
---SPSmith
Article: Theism, Atheism, and Blame
Theism, Atheism, and Blame
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2011/12/theism-atheism-and-blame.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Why I despise the Catholic Church especially
Why I despise the Catholic Church especially
http://furtherthoughtsfortheday.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-i-despise-catholic-church.html
I know that it is not a prerequisite of becoming a Catholic clergyman to be a peadophile, and that, of the clergy the vast majority are not peadophiles (just under 10% of ordained priests from 1970 onwards were peadophiles,based on the Vatican's own reports). However, the reason I hold the entire organisation accountable is due to how they dealt with the problem: They utterly failed the children in their care when they discovered what was going on.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Article: What the Right Gets Right - NYTimes.com
What the Right Gets Right - NYTimes.com
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/what-the-right-gets-right/
the Republican Party has won seven of the last eleven presidential elections; controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987 and from 1995 to 2007; and controlled the House from 1996 to 2006 and 2011 to 2013.
---SPSmith
Article: What the Left Gets Right
What the Left Gets Right
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/what-the-left-gets-right/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
| Righteous Abortion: How Conservative Christians Promote What They Claim to Hate
| ||
Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com
"We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries. We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible."
— an unnamed Apple executive, in a New York Times article titled "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work," which examines why Apple and other U.S. tech companies choose to make their products — the increasingly popularsmartphones, tablets, e-readers and more — overseas. Among the many complicated reasons, according to the article: the global economy; the scale, speed and flexibility of overseas factories; and the companies' belief that there is a lack of qualified American workers. One famous Chinese factory, Foxconn Technologies — which has many facilities in Asia and elsewhere — where an estimated 40 percent of the world's electronics are put together, was mentioned in the article as an example of massive scale. At Foxconn plants, workers live onsite in dorms and work 12 hours a day — at least officially. Foxconn has been in the news lately for other things: It apologized last week after CEO Terry Gou reportedly referred to Foxconn workers as animals, with the companysaying his comments were taken out of context. A couple of weeks ago, Foxconn said it had come to an agreement with some employees who had threatened to commit mass suicide over a pay dispute. By the way, Appleannounced earlier this month that it would allow independent monitoring of its suppliers' factories.
---SPSmith
The Keystone - China connection is overblown
Hey, check this out from CNN:
The Keystone - China connection is overblown
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/23/news/economy/keystone_china/
The Keystone - China connection is overblown
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/23/news/economy/keystone_china/
---SPSmith
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Newt Gingrich’s Alternative History : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/12/19/111219taco_talk_hertzberg
As the protagonist of the tale, imagine, if you will, a man who, as
Speaker of the House, orchestrates the impeachment of a President for
an adulterous affair with a White House aide twenty-six years his
junior while he himself is conducting an adulterous affair with a
congressional aide twenty-two years his junior, having earlier left
the first of his three wives while she was hospitalized with cancer.
Imagine a man who attributes these behaviors to "how passionately I
felt about this country." Imagine a man who, told he can't sit in a
front section of Air Force One, shuts down the government. Imagine a
man who becomes the only House Speaker ever to be disciplined for
ethics violations. Imagine a man who, in a country just staggering out
of the worst recession of the past fifty years and facing the threat
of worldwide economic collapse, proposes to hire small children to
work as janitors, mopping floors and cleaning toilets in their schools
(or their orphanages, perhaps). Imagine that man as
Commander-in-Chief. It's no stretch for him. His fantasy life is so
rich that he has already compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, Charles
de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and (for sheer
perseverance) Ho Chi Minh.
---SPSmith
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Rate of abortion is highest in countries where practice is banned - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent
The global abortion rate remained virtually unchanged from 2003 to 2008, at about 28 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, a total of about 43.8 million abortions, according to the study. The rate had previously been dropping since 1995.
---SPSmith
Article: BBC's The Romantics: The Birth of the Individual in Modern Society
BBC's The Romantics: The Birth of the Individual in Modern Society
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/28/bbc-the-romantics/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Friday, January 20, 2012
Malcolm Muggeridge -- The Great Liberal Death Wish
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/MuggeridgeLiberal.php
We used to boast in those days that we had an Empire on which the sun
never set, and now we have a commonwealth on which it never rises, and
I can't quite say which concept strikes me as being the more derisory.
---SPSmith
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Charles Foster on Living Prudently | FiveBooks | The Browser
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/charles-foster-on-living-prudently?page=2
Odysseus is the great hero of prudence in all of our literature. He
thinks before he acts, and bases that action on caution
---SPSmith
‘How do atheists find meaning in life?’ - - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/how-do-atheist-find-meaning-in-life/2012/01/18/gIQAbiFP8P_blog.html
Theistic religion reduces life to something that has no value other
than as the creation of an imagined deity. It decrees that purpose and
meaning can only be found in being that deity's puppet, having no
purpose but its purpose and no value other than as its handiwork.
Theistic religion looks on all that is best and most noble in human
impulse and endeavour and dismisses it as meaningless and worthless
--or worse: corrupt --unless done in the name of God. It is time to
abandon this baseless worldview. It is time to reject theistic
religion and start viewing ourselves and others with real dignity, as
beings with value in our own right and not just as the distorted
shadows of a fictional creator.
---SPSmith
Article: Creationist paper in a medical journal
Creationist paper in a medical journal
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/intelligent-design-paper-in-a-medical-journal/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Cambridge Journals Online - Abstract - THE TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER FALLACY
A man fires a gun several times at the side of a barn and then draws a circle around a cluster of most of the bullet holes. Drawing a target retrospectively like this doesn't prove the shooting skills of the gunman – no one would consider him a sharpshooter if they knew what he'd done. When the equivalent of this happens in other circumstances we call it the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. As with many fallacies, it may not appear fallacious at first inspection
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
The Will to Believe
http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/will.html
James discusses three cases of this sort, of which the religious case
is the third. One of these is a very special case — the sort of case
in which, as James says, faith in the fact can help create the fact.
Where the fact in question is something to be wished for, in these
cases, James believes, faith is obviously reasonable.
---SPSmith
William James (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
The Will to Believe also contains James's most developed account of
morality, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life." Morality for
James rests on sentience — without it there are no moral claims and no
moral obligations. But once sentience exists, a claim is made, and
morality gets "a foothold in the universe" (WB 198). Although James
insists that there is no common essence to morality, he does find a
guiding principle for ethical philosophy in the principle that we
"satisfy at all times as many demands as we can" (WB, 205). This
satisfaction is to be achieved by working towards a "richer
universe…the good which seems most organizable, most fit to enter into
complex combinations, most apt to be a member of a more inclusive
whole" (WB, 210). This work proceeds by a series of experiments, by
means of which we have learned to live (for the most part) without
"polygamy and slavery, private warfare and liberty to kill, judicial
torture and arbitrary royal power." (WB, 205) . However, James holds
that there is "nothing final in any actually given equilibrium of
human ideals, [so that] as our present laws and customs have fought
and conquered other past ones, so they will in their turn be
overthrown by any newly discovered order which will hush up the
complaints that they still give rise to, without producing others
louder still" (WB, 206).
The Will to Believe also contains James's most developed account of
morality, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life." Morality for
James rests on sentience — without it there are no moral claims and no
moral obligations. But once sentience exists, a claim is made, and
morality gets "a foothold in the universe" (WB 198). Although James
insists that there is no common essence to morality, he does find a
guiding principle for ethical philosophy in the principle that we
"satisfy at all times as many demands as we can" (WB, 205). This
satisfaction is to be achieved by working towards a "richer
universe…the good which seems most organizable, most fit to enter into
complex combinations, most apt to be a member of a more inclusive
whole" (WB, 210). This work proceeds by a series of experiments, by
means of which we have learned to live (for the most part) without
"polygamy and slavery, private warfare and liberty to kill, judicial
torture and arbitrary royal power." (WB, 205) . However, James holds
that there is "nothing final in any actually given equilibrium of
human ideals, [so that] as our present laws and customs have fought
and conquered other past ones, so they will in their turn be
overthrown by any newly discovered order which will hush up the
complaints that they still give rise to, without producing others
louder still" (WB, 206).
---SPSmith
Check out: 'The Very Real Paranoia Over Genetically Modified Foods' on Slate
God debunking article
The Very Real Paranoia Over Genetically Modified Foods
By Emily Willingham
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/01/genetically_modified_foods_ari_laux_s_alarmism_in_the_atlantic.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Article: Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, with Jonathan Miller
Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, with Jonathan Miller
http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/atheism_a_rough_history_of_disbelief.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: What is Wrong with SOPA?
What is Wrong with SOPA?
http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/what-is-wrong-with-sopa.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Not Very Appealing | The Digital Cuttlefish
Not Very Appealing | The Digital Cuttlefish: "The Christians in Cranston are singing the blues
With their bigotry bared on the six-o’clock news
They’ve all learned a lesson, what it feels like to lose
And it’s setting their senses to reeling
Now between God and Country, the mob has to choose
Will the school board soon be appealing?"
'via Blog this'
With their bigotry bared on the six-o’clock news
They’ve all learned a lesson, what it feels like to lose
And it’s setting their senses to reeling
Now between God and Country, the mob has to choose
Will the school board soon be appealing?"
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Garry Owen
Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed
But join with me, each jovial blade
Come, drink and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus:
Chorus
Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail;
No man for debt shall go to jail
From Garryowen in glory.
---SPSmith
Momday: On Parenting, Science, and Trust | The Mother Geek
Because I trust scientists and doctors, I didn't question the CDC's vaccination schedule. I didn't pore over vaccine research or agonize about the decision to vaccinate my child. Instead, I trusted that the committees of experts at the CDC and AAP carefully make the best recommendations possible based on the data available. Maybe that is naïve. Maybe I am a lazy mother for not trying to become a vaccine expert before I allowed those first needles to enter my daughter's thigh. Or maybe not.
What would be naïve is for me to think that I could become an expert on vaccinations. It would be naïve for me to think that I could understand the vaccine field better than the committees of scientists and doctors who have made this their life's work. I know how much work it took me to become an expert on one or two corners of nutrition and fetal physiology. It took thousands of hours of reading textbooks and journal articles, sitting in lectures, attending conferences, and struggling at the lab bench before I started to feel even a little bit comfortable calling myself an expert in any field. So I think it is naïve for a parent to think that she can become an expert on vaccines by spending some time on the Internet reading questionable sources, almost all of which have some agenda. I accept that I can't know everything, and I have enough faith in humanity that I trust others who know more than me.
---SPSmithArticle: The world has far too much morality
The world has far too much morality
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2012/01/world-has-far-too-much-morality.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
Quote from Steven Pinker (p. 622 of The Better Angels of Our Nature): "The world has far too much morality. If you added up all the homicides committed in pursuit of self-help justice, the casualties of religious and revolutionary wars, the people executed for victimless crimes and misdemeanors, and the targets of ideological genocides, they would surely outnumber the fatalities from amoral predation and conquest. The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives for acts of violence that bring them no tangible benefit. The torture of heretics and conversos, the burning of witches, the imprisonment of homosexuals, and the honor of killing unchaste sisters and daughters are just a few examples. The incalculable suffering that has been visited upon the world by people motivated by a moral cause is enough to make one sympathize with comedian George Carlin when he said, "I think motivation is overrated. You show me some lazy prick who's lying around all day watching game shows and stroking his penis, and I'll show you someone who's not causing any fucking trouble!'"
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
The Ignorance of Defining Atheism as a Religion | Al Stefanelli
The Ignorance of Defining Atheism as a Religion | Al Stefanelli: "atheism is not a religion and cannot be categorized as a belief system, but since when did knowledge stop a believer from being willfully ignorant. "
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
How To Make God Die A Little More | Camels With Hammers
How To Make God Die A Little More | Camels With Hammers: "This is a little bit more confirmation for my hypothesis that the dominant religious institutions lose their grips slowly as each of the myriad of psychological and social functions they serve are stably replaced by secular alternatives. Social and political stability with sufficient means of guaranteeing pro-social behavior and punishments for antisocial behavior alleviates the anxieties which keep gods around. Now if atheists can provide outlets for people’s metaphysical wonder and for their longings for identity-shaping community, grounded values, rituals, meaning, and ecstatic and meditative practices, we can take away the last bargaining chips that authoritarian and superstitious faith-based religions use to win human minds in the modern world"
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Stephen Law: New Scientist - interview with me on bullshit
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-scientist-interview-with-me-on.html
Intellectual black holes are belief systems that draw people in and
hold them captive so they become willing slaves of claptrap. Belief in
homeopathy, psychic powers, alien abductions - these are examples of
intellectual black holes. As you approach them, you need to be on your
guard because if you get sucked in, it can be extremely difficult to
think your way clear again.
Intellectual black holes are belief systems that draw people in and
hold them captive so they become willing slaves of claptrap. Belief in
homeopathy, psychic powers, alien abductions - these are examples of
intellectual black holes. As you approach them, you need to be on your
guard because if you get sucked in, it can be extremely difficult to
think your way clear again.
---SPSmith
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Nick Reynolds At Work
http://nickreynoldsatwork.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/the-moral-high-ground/
The moral ground can be a lonely place.
---SPSmith
Article: Football, With God On Our Side
Football, With God On Our Side
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2012/01/15/football-with-god-on-our-side/
We gather each Sunday
We won't miss a week
It's more than just victory
It's salvation we seek
It's more than religion
It's the reason Christ died
So we could play football
With God on our side
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Tebow
Sorry Tim Tebow, god was way too busy not existing to help you win
your football game. Now about your support for that Christian hate
group Focus on Family whose homophobic and misogynistic policies
remove natural rights from gays and women: american troops should be
pissing on you instead of dead Taliban soldiers.
your football game. Now about your support for that Christian hate
group Focus on Family whose homophobic and misogynistic policies
remove natural rights from gays and women: american troops should be
pissing on you instead of dead Taliban soldiers.
---SPSmith
Perry: Obama administration over-reacting to Marine controversy
Hey, check this out from CNN:
Perry: Obama administration over-reacting to Marine controversy
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/15/perry-obama-administration-over-reacting-to-marine-controversy/
Perry: Obama administration over-reacting to Marine controversy
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/15/perry-obama-administration-over-reacting-to-marine-controversy/
Perry: let's go piss on his mother's grave.
---SPSmith
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Article: Motorcycle Travel Equipment - Odds n' Ends
Motorcycle Travel Equipment - Odds n' Ends
http://motojournalism.blogspot.com/2011/01/motorcycle-travel-equipment-odds-n-ends.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Best in show: 6 gadgets that defined CES – USATODAY.com
Lenovo K800— While Nokia's been shut out of the U.S. phone market, Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, has been shut out of phones entirely. Its PC chips use too much power to go into a smartphone: they'd drain the battery in no time. That's a big problem for the company, since PC sales are flat in the developed world, while smartphone sales are exploding. Now, Intel says a new line of chips is ready for smartphone use, and Lenovo of China is the first to take them up on it, with a smartphone to be sold in China in the second quarter. Outwardly, it's indistinguishable from any other touchscreen phone, and it runs Android.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Article: Andrew Wakefield | Great Science Frauds | Healthland | TIME.com
Andrew Wakefield | Great Science Frauds | Healthland | TIME.com
http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/13/great-science-frauds/slide/andrew-wakefield/#andrew-wakefield
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Friday, January 13, 2012
Coyne, after war
non-intervention and free trade deserve at least a fair hearing as a viable alternative to spreading liberal democracy via military occupation. Given the less-than-stellar record of the U.S. in spreading liberal democracy at gunpoint, such alternatives must be seriously considered.
---SPSmith
Peter Boettke on Austrian Economics | FiveBooks | The Browser
The last book you've recommended is After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy, by Christopher Coyne.
This book is amazing. Coyne took on the topic of how successful the US can be at exporting democracy and the free market in after-war situations. This became a big venture in the 20th century, when the US became much more aggressive about this idea that we could intervene to try to help make other countries better off. Part of it was for geopolitical reasons – after 9/11 we believed that one of the things we had to do was make the Middle East more conducive to free markets and democracy, because then it's less likely to generate terrorists. So then the question is, is that an effective strategy? Coyne takes the strategy as stated by the officials, and then assesses whether the means employed are successful. He uses a very low threshold, which is, after the US intervention, after the country is supposedly settled, does it meet the standard on thePolity Index of modern day Iran? What he found was that in US-led efforts, basically somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the efforts failed to meet even that minimum standard.
Yes, I'm looking down his list of 30 or so invasions that have taken place, and it's not looking too good.
---SPSmithTebowie (1/12/12)
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHB0o9lCizQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
---SPSmith
Article: Prayer mural in high school ruled unconstitutional
Prayer mural in high school ruled unconstitutional
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2012/01/13/prayer-mural-in-high-school-ruled-unconstitutional/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Thursday, January 12, 2012
GoLocal Prov - Home - NEW: ACLU Applauds Cranston Prayer Ban
In his decision, the judge stated: "No amount of debate can make the School Prayer anything other than a prayer." While acknowledging that "the Prayer espouses values of honesty, kindness, friendship and sportsmanship…. the reliance on God's intervention as the way to achieve those goals is not consistent with a secular purpose."
Article: The Magical (and Sometimes Ridiculous) Gadgets of Tomorrow | The Wirecutter
The Magical (and Sometimes Ridiculous) Gadgets of Tomorrow | The Wirecutter
http://thewirecutter.com/2012/01/the-magical-and-sometimes-ridiculous-gadgets-of-tomorrow/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Check out: 'See No Evil' on Slate
I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:
See No Evil
By Brandon L. Garrett
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/01/clarence_thomas_in_juan_smith_eyewitness_dissent_after_another_harry_connick_sr_case.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad
---SPSmith
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Being an Absolute Skeptic
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/284/5420/1625.full
But science is more than the sum of its hypotheses, its observations,
and its experiments. From the point of view of rationality, science is
above all its method—essentially the critical method of searching for
errors.
---SPSmith
Theory of justification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In some way, each of us is responsible for what we believe. Beliefs are not typically formed completely at random, and thus we have anintellectual responsibility, or obligation, to try to believe what is true and to avoid believing what is false. An intellectually responsible act is within one's intellectual rights in believing something; performing it, one is justified in one's belief.
---SPSmith
---SPSmith
Monday, January 09, 2012
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Check out The Moral Foundations of Politics - Video
Check out this collection on iTunes U:
 | The Moral Foundations of Politics - VideoIan Shapiro Political Science |
| iTunes for Mac and Windows |
| Please note that you have not been added to any email lists. Copyright © 2012 Apple Inc. All rights reserved |
---SPSmith
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Article: Environmentalism poses a problem for libertarian ideology | MattBruenig | Politics
Environmentalism poses a problem for libertarian ideology | MattBruenig | Politics
http://mattbruenig.com/2011/12/21/environmentalism-poses-a-problem-for-libertarian-ideology/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Friday, January 06, 2012
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy:
Deena Weinstein in her book Bureaucratic Opposition has developed most effectively the idea of bureaucracy as a political system. She argues that bureaucracies are analogous to authoritarian states: in both cases people are expected to stay in their places, to do as they are told, to offer opinions only when asked, and to identify solely with the rulers and the official ideology. Within authoritarian states, and within bureaucracies, individual and collective oppositions exist. The opposition may be to particular policies, to corruption, to exploitation or to organisational structures. Rather than being misfits who are disturbing efficient functioning, bureaucratic oppositions should be analysed as political oppositions, that is as challenges to the use or distribution of power in the bureaucracy.
Weinstein's analogy between bureaucracies and states is particularly revealing with regard to their links with the war system. Bureaucracies and states each prop up systems of privilege and power. It is appropriate that bureaucracy, as the building block of the state, is similar in the nature of its power structure to a state, an authoritarian state no less!
One important difference between bureaucracies and states is that most bureaucracies rely only on nonviolent sanctions against dissidents, whereas states can call on police and military forces if necessary. Most bureaucracies rely not on the use of force but more on a system of rewards, including favourable feedback and promotions, and on a system of rules that legitimises the structure. Willing service to 'higher causes' within a bureaucracy or in a state provides much more stability than reliance on coercion. Antagonism is further subdued by permitting nonconformity within limits, and using various methods to buy off discontent and coopt dissident leaders. Non-coercive control is all the more effective because it is difficult to recognise and to oppose.
Under state socialism the dominance of bureaucracy is quite overt. State bureaucracies administer all possible aspects of life. In parallel with these state bureaucracies, penetrating them, controlling them and constrained by them is another powerful bureaucracy, the communist party. In each case bureaucratic elites are in positions of state power. Hence state socialism is also sometimes called 'bureaucratic socialism.'
In capitalist societies the dominance of bureaucracy is less immediately evident, but the practice is not vastly different. In many capitalist societies, national economic and political directions are set through a system which is called corporatism. Elites from key influential sectors, typically government, corporations, state bureaucracies and trade unions, get together formally or informally to negotiate the framework for political and economic decision-making. This may occur through national planning agreements between corporations and trade unions, by creation of government departments or advisory bodies on women's affairs, the environment or science, or bipartisan agreement on military expenditures.
As I interpret it, corporatism is essentially coordination by elites, most of whom are bureaucratic elites. To have an effect on policy, one must work through a bureaucratic structure in one sector or another, whether it is a political party, a corporation, a trade union or an environmental advisory body. The appearance is that all interests are represented. The bureaucratic underpinning of corporatism ensures that power remains at the top.
Deena Weinstein in her book Bureaucratic Opposition has developed most effectively the idea of bureaucracy as a political system. She argues that bureaucracies are analogous to authoritarian states: in both cases people are expected to stay in their places, to do as they are told, to offer opinions only when asked, and to identify solely with the rulers and the official ideology. Within authoritarian states, and within bureaucracies, individual and collective oppositions exist. The opposition may be to particular policies, to corruption, to exploitation or to organisational structures. Rather than being misfits who are disturbing efficient functioning, bureaucratic oppositions should be analysed as political oppositions, that is as challenges to the use or distribution of power in the bureaucracy.
Weinstein's analogy between bureaucracies and states is particularly revealing with regard to their links with the war system. Bureaucracies and states each prop up systems of privilege and power. It is appropriate that bureaucracy, as the building block of the state, is similar in the nature of its power structure to a state, an authoritarian state no less!
One important difference between bureaucracies and states is that most bureaucracies rely only on nonviolent sanctions against dissidents, whereas states can call on police and military forces if necessary. Most bureaucracies rely not on the use of force but more on a system of rewards, including favourable feedback and promotions, and on a system of rules that legitimises the structure. Willing service to 'higher causes' within a bureaucracy or in a state provides much more stability than reliance on coercion. Antagonism is further subdued by permitting nonconformity within limits, and using various methods to buy off discontent and coopt dissident leaders. Non-coercive control is all the more effective because it is difficult to recognise and to oppose.
Under state socialism the dominance of bureaucracy is quite overt. State bureaucracies administer all possible aspects of life. In parallel with these state bureaucracies, penetrating them, controlling them and constrained by them is another powerful bureaucracy, the communist party. In each case bureaucratic elites are in positions of state power. Hence state socialism is also sometimes called 'bureaucratic socialism.'
In capitalist societies the dominance of bureaucracy is less immediately evident, but the practice is not vastly different. In many capitalist societies, national economic and political directions are set through a system which is called corporatism. Elites from key influential sectors, typically government, corporations, state bureaucracies and trade unions, get together formally or informally to negotiate the framework for political and economic decision-making. This may occur through national planning agreements between corporations and trade unions, by creation of government departments or advisory bodies on women's affairs, the environment or science, or bipartisan agreement on military expenditures.
As I interpret it, corporatism is essentially coordination by elites, most of whom are bureaucratic elites. To have an effect on policy, one must work through a bureaucratic structure in one sector or another, whether it is a political party, a corporation, a trade union or an environmental advisory body. The appearance is that all interests are represented. The bureaucratic underpinning of corporatism ensures that power remains at the top.
Rick Santorum jeered after comparing gay marriage to polygamy - latimes.com
Rick Santorum jeered after comparing gay marriage to polygamy - latimes.com:
'via Blog this'
Crazy Christian Taliban'er doesn't even recognize why is Slippery Slope argument is ridiculous.
Lets try some others:
1) if having many gods is bad, then having one leads to it. Therefore, there is no god.
2) The state executes murderers. This leads to the state executing whoever they want. Therefore, no capital punishment.
'via Blog this'
Crazy Christian Taliban'er doesn't even recognize why is Slippery Slope argument is ridiculous.
Lets try some others:
1) if having many gods is bad, then having one leads to it. Therefore, there is no god.
2) The state executes murderers. This leads to the state executing whoever they want. Therefore, no capital punishment.
Behavioral Economics: Opt out versus Opt in
Behavioral Economics: Opt out versus Opt in:
'via Blog this'
Ariely conducted a study of the subscription process of The Economist. He gave his students two different forms (see illustrations below), asking them to choose between 2 or 3 options:
(a) online only for $59
(b) print only for $125
(c) print and online for $125
It seems idiotic to include option (b), but when it was on the form more people (84%) chose option (c). And when "print only for $125" wasn't an option, more people (68%) chose option (a). In the latter case, only 32% chose "print and online for $125". It’s clear that even though no one chose option (b) on the first form, it did influence people's decisions to choose the print and online offer.
'via Blog this'
Ariely conducted a study of the subscription process of The Economist. He gave his students two different forms (see illustrations below), asking them to choose between 2 or 3 options:
(a) online only for $59
(b) print only for $125
(c) print and online for $125
It seems idiotic to include option (b), but when it was on the form more people (84%) chose option (c). And when "print only for $125" wasn't an option, more people (68%) chose option (a). In the latter case, only 32% chose "print and online for $125". It’s clear that even though no one chose option (b) on the first form, it did influence people's decisions to choose the print and online offer.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
John le Carré | The Book Haven
http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/john-le-carre/
Of Tom Wolfe's novel A Man in Full, Norman Mailer wrote: "Reading the
work can even be said to resemble the act of making love to a 300lb
woman. Once she gets on top, it's over. Fall in love, or be
asphyxiated." Wolfe
---SPSmith
Ron Paul has two problems: One his, the other ours - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121475630363232.html
Paul is a distinctively American type of libertarian: one that doesn't
have a critique of the state so much as a critique of the federal
government. That's a very different kettle of fish. I think
libertarianism is problematic enough - in that it ignores the whole
realm of social domination (or thinks that realm is entirely dependent
upon or a function of the existence of the state or thinks that it can
be remedied by the persuasive and individual actions of a few good
souls) - but a states-rights-based libertarianism is a social
disaster.
---SPSmith
Article: Michele Bachmann, America's Perfect Monster
Michele Bachmann, America's Perfect Monster
http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/michele-bachmann-americas-perfect-monster
Bachmann is a national clown and a global embarrassment, an extremist so foul that she poses nearly as much of a threat to Republican legislators as to Democratic ones. She's a Republican bomb-thrower who forgets the throwing part. Both parties will certainly be glad to be rid of her. But Bachmann's repose only means the absence of the messenger, not the absence of those who paid for the message.
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
A Darwinian Approach to Moral Philosophy | Talking Philosophy
http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=4054
I am a philosophical naturalist. By this I mean (or at least my
meaning includes) being eager to accept the findings of science and to
use them in my philosophizing as far as possible. So, I start my
thinking about ethics by looking to Darwinian biology on human social
behavior and I come away with the belief that ethics – meaning by this
substantive or normative ethics ("What should I do?") – is a product
of natural selection (on individuals) to further reproductive success.
Substantive ethics is an adaptation like eyes and noses and penises
and vaginas. I should say that (and I am still at the level of
science) I don't think there is any need of external ethical
principles (Mind of God, non-natural properties, Platonic Forms) to
get this result. So ethics in a sense is different from say our
knowledge about railway engines. Without existing independent railway
engines, I don't see that you could have a science of
railway-engine-ology. I don't think you need these external referents
to get ethics. Ethics in this sense is not so much about the real
world as it is about social relationships between fellow species
members.
---SPSmith
Christopher Hitchens: Charles Dickens’s Inner Child | Culture | Vanity Fair
"This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."
Charming, is it not—seductive even—the manner in which that somewhat overpunctuated Victorian sentence suddenly gives way and yields a deposit of "freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased." It is all there to emphasize the one central and polar and critical point that Dickens wishes to enjoin on us all: whatever you do—hang on to your childhood! He was true to this in his fashion, both in ways that delight me and in ways that do not. He loved the idea of a birthday celebration, being lavish about it, reminding people that they were once unborn and are now launched. This is bighearted, and we might all do a bit more of it. It would help me to forgive, perhaps just a little, the man who helped generate the Hallmark birthday industry and who, with some of his less imposing and more moistly sentimental prose scenes in A Christmas Carol, took the Greatest Birthday Ever Told and helped make it into the near Ramadan of protracted obligatory celebration now darkening our Decembers.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Article: Wintertime Is Reading Time
Wintertime Is Reading Time
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2012/01/wintertime-is-reading-time.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Article: Depending on ignorance
Depending on ignorance
http://freethoughtblogs.com/alethianworldview/2012/01/04/depending-on-ignorance/
(Sent from Flipboard)
---SPSmith
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Article: Moral scepticism versus Sam Harris's moral realism – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Moral scepticism versus Sam Harris's moral realism – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/01/28/3123581.htm
Moral judgments are not, in that sense, objectively binding. They do not state truths of reason or facts about the world, even if they purport to. But this does not make morality just arbitrary or capable of taking any form, and it does not prevent us developing coherent, rational critiques of various systems of laws or customs or moral rules, or persuading others to adopt our critiques.
---SPSmith
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Santorum exquisitely deomonstrates a typicial ideological ploy (common to both radical far left liberals as well as the reactionary far right conservatives) – when unable to provide rational reasons to support a claim or belief, resort to logical fallacies. In his case Santorum went straight to an appeal to tradition before he kept resorting to a red herring and slippery slope to desperately avoid answering the questions or provide a cogent explanation for his position.