It's a really, really big "if."
Matthew Inman’s comic on the creative process (which you’ve almost certainly seen already because you already read The Oatmeal; and if you haven’t because you don’t, now’s the time to start) got me thinking about creativity and political leanings. I don’t know anything about Inman’s own politics, really, aside from the fact that he has … Read more
This is a bit old, but I just came across it– an article in Time reports on a study which says that money can buy you happiness, but it reaches diminishing returns past $75,000 or so. That is, people whose yearly salary is around $75,000 seem to have reached the point at which money can … Read more
A few more thoughts on Eben Alexander’s near-death experience: PZ Myers describes the story in a post called Newsweek panders to the deluded again, which isn’t an inaccurate label (it is indeed a delusion to say that the experience of one questionably conscious neurosurgeon “proves” anything, much less the existence of an afterlife) but I think … Read more
In a Newsweek article grandiosely (to put it lightly) titled Proof of Heaven: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife published yesterday, Dr. Eben Alexander recounts a story of what it was like to visit Heaven (apparently) and speak with God (apparently) which supposedly took place while he was in a coma due to bacterial meningitis. His sole basis for … Read more
Recently I finished listening to Jesse Bering’s book Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? And Other Reflections on Being Human. The book is a compilation of his essays posted at Scientific American so it ranges in subject all over the place, but his introduction states an interest that essentially ties all of them together– … Read more
Via Big Think, actor Jonathan Pryce characterizes stage fright as selfishness: It’s an interesting thought, and I’m not going to say he’s wrong, but will point out a few things: 1. Self-consciousness and selfishness are not the same thing. Portraying it as selfishness isn’t just “cruel” because it’s hard to hear someone telling you that … Read more
“The problem of evil” is the common term for a certain argument against the existence of God. Or at least, the existence of the so-called “omni god”: one who is omniscient (all-knowing), omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omnipotent (all-powerful). The argument goes, basically, that evil would not exist in a universe created by such a deity, because … Read more
Honest question here. The suggestion was made by psychologist-I-admire-greatly Daniel Gilbert after I bitched to him on Twitter about an article he’d retweeted from that publication. The article is called The 7 Worst Things About Being a Male by psychologist Douglas Kenrick, and I have no objections to the existence of such an article. What … Read more
I don’t like Psychology Today, part 2: So Elyse of Skepchick wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago describing an incident that followed a talk on vaccination she gave at Skepticamp in Ohio. You can read the entire thing here, but to put it briefly, a couple she didn’t know aside from a … Read more
Passerotti, God the Father The primary reason, it seems, that people are now telling Dan Savage that he shouldn’t have apologized– even in as qualified and precise terms as he did– is because it gives the impression that one should not criticize religious beliefs. And if one does so, and it offends, the appropriate thing … Read more