Saturday, November 24, 2012

He will kiss the hand that had no food to offer

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Speeches That Changed the World by Cathy Lowne is an odd little collection of "Over 100 of the most influential speeches ever made...

The Gods of Wisdom and Virtue

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Among my favorite poems is Rudyard Kipling's Gods of the Copybook Headings. Here is a rendition by Bill Whittle where he takes license ...
Friday, November 23, 2012

But our preferences do not determine what's true

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Carl Sagan in Wonder and Skepticism . The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may ...
Thursday, November 22, 2012

Then who is the skepticism going to be mainly applied to?

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I recently posted in Critical Thinking - Much talk and little action , that there was a gap between how widely we praise critical thinking a...
Wednesday, November 21, 2012

People are happier when they perform the virtues, in fact the very seven virtues of the Western tradition

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From Happyism: The creepy new economics of pleasure by Deirdre N. McCloskey. As a result, real income per head commenced rising after 1800,...
Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Proof that humans can work magic

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Carl Sagan in Cosmos p. 281 A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") impri...
Monday, November 19, 2012

Critical thinking - much talk and little action

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From Critical Thinking to Argument by Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Just picked it up and have not read the book yet, other than to dip int...
Sunday, November 18, 2012

The best we can do is a system that fails a little bit better

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As usual, a thoroughly insightful article by Megan McArdle, Chasing the Tails . Over the last few years, I have been having a lot of earnes...
Saturday, November 17, 2012

What goes right is more important than what goes wrong

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From The Heart Grows Smarter by David Brooks. Longitudinal studies are great but you have to be careful about how they evolve over time. ...
Friday, November 16, 2012

We have to distinguish the core of science from the frontier

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The Half-life of Facts by Samuel Arbesman. Page 163. Science is not always cumulative, as the philosopher of science Thomas Kune has noted...