The language used to justify policy is…fraught. Every new program is a triumph, as is every cut to an existing one. Every new rule is a sea change, and every executive order a roadmap to utopia. These flowery-but-decisive statements come from all politicians, pointing in all directions, and they always […]
Read MoreDeux ex Smartphone: Healthcare Access Isn’t Going to Democratize Itself
One of my first-year classes in college was History of Theater, in which I learned how the Greeks built amphitheaters into hillsides, carving out a semicircle of seating for the audience around the stage to maximize. The scenery for a play completes the circle, just as it does for any […]
Read MoreTardigrade parade
Why yes, I am watching Cosmos…why do you ask? Actually I think I first time learned about extremophiles, including tardigrades, was while watching the BBC’s Blue Planet series…which I have on DVD, and have watched so many times. I’m looking forward to re-watching Cosmos too, because there are so many […]
Read MoreFull of Sound and Fury: The Media Response to Dennett
This post previously published as an article in the journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion in 2008. What is the best way for a well-known, unabashedly atheistic philosopher to have a discussion with the American general public about the value and nature of religion? It is not […]
Read MoreNo special snowflakes
Dr. X commented recently on just world bias, as displayed by Oprah while interviewing Lance Armstrong: Just one slightly weird blip in an otherwise good job. She asked Armstrong more than once if he expected his day of reckoning to come. Fine enough question, but with an almost cult-like, true […]
Read MoreSam Harris on a NDE as drug trip
I wrote this week about Eben Alexander’s account of his must-be-true experience with the afterlife, which made the cover story in Newsweek. Now I see Sam Harris has weighed in on the topic, and he definitely has opinions. First, he incredulously asks how a neurosurgeon could deliver such an account: Everything—absolutely […]
Read MoreTripping a little 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 […]
Read MoreI’m tripping over you, God
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 […]
Read MoreRillion’s Law applied
I have my own law, devised under the screen name Rillion which I’ve used since about 2000. The law isn’t quite that old, but it has existed at least since 2005. Rillion’s Law states: The amount of knowledge a person has about a particular subject is inversely proportional to his […]
Read MorePareidolia of the day: Holy sh!t!
Today’s incidence of pareidolia is a doozy. Or a doo-….no, I’m just not going there. The title for this post was enough. For the record, pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images […]
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