Michael Shermer has a review of Stuart Kauffman’s Reinventing the Sacred. I’ve often wondered about the attempts to either explain phenomena like conscsiousness, free will and intelligence in terms of physics, chemistry and biology. Kauffman has written a book about … Continue reading
In today’s NY Times, David Brooks’s column seems almost enlightened but there is an undercurrent of dishonesty about it. He characterizes the debate about the Nature of God as being between two groups of fundamentalists. One group – the assertive … Continue reading
and…. The price of freedom is tolerating behavior by others that may be undignified by our own lights. I would be happy if Britney Spears and “American Idol” would go away, but I put up with them in return for … Continue reading
In which Steven Pinker defends the notion that “Dignity Is a Useless Concept.” Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy–the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, … Continue reading
One of the people who was involved in the Milgram experiment wrote his own story. In retrospect, I believe that my upbringing in a socialist-oriented family steeped in a class struggle view of society taught me that authorities would often … Continue reading
The Utopian dream of the looters ends in dystopia and apocalypse. Continue reading
  People often condemn others on partial information. Indeed, necessity sometimes demands hasty judgment. We frequently don’t have enough time to know the whole story. A short story called “The Last Judgment†by the Czech author Karel Capek best captures … Continue reading
When I was a young’un, I used to go swimming at Crystal Palace. It was a 90 minute bus ride but it was worth it because that was the only place that had Olympic-size diving boards. I remember so clearly … Continue reading
Today is forecast to be Warmer than yesterday. It’s a sign!