More Wilco

Forget philosophy, let's have more Wilco.  They were fantastic at Fair Park Music Hall last night. (Not my video, by the way.) Next week, for something very different, we're seeing Kanye West and Jay-Z. Possible topic for my next column--Wilco vs. The Throne. Title: "The Rough and the Shiny"? Like "The Raw and the Cooked"? Right, well, I haven't had any coffee yet.  Too bad about the bad sound

New Free Inquiry

I'm going to have to get my hands on the latest issue of Free Inquiry, which includes a forum on "enhancement."  Russell Blackford writes for the defense (his article is online), and Adrienne Asch for the prosecution (among other authors). There's also a column by PZ Myers on my favorite time-waster and yours, that elevator matter of yore.

Jesus, Etc.

Going to the Wilco concert tonight ...  grin!  You have to love this song--

The Power of "How?"

As a result of a recent column by Julian Baggini (lots of links here), I find myself thinking about the power of "how?"--as in, the power to induce skepticism that lies in there being no explanation how a purported event happens.

So ... Santa Claus supposedly circles the globe on Christmas Eve and invades houses through chimneys, leaving presents for good boys and girls.   I can't say how,

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm in "Happy Valley" for Thanksgiving--home of the infamous Sandusky mess.  Go ahead and judge me -- because yes, we did a little Sandusky tourism yesterday.  We call this place "MOP" for short (Middle of Pennsylvania) and absolutely nothing ever happens here, so it was amazing (amazing!) to see NBC news trucks downtown.  I hang my head in shame, but we did drive by Joe Paterno's house.  There

What Science Can't Know

This short column by theologian Keith Ward generated a sprawling discussion at atheist blogs over the weekend. Let's see if I can summarize the discussion in less than 10,000 words, and maybe clear up a few things.

Ward's main assertion was this:  "many religious statements are naturally construed as statements of fact...."  More precisely, they're naturally construed as purporting to be

Everyone should see ...

... this terrific news report about factory farm egg production.  I have the greatest admiration for people who go undercover like this. So much for Sparboe eggs--no longer bought by McDonalds or sold at Target.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Procreative Beneficence

the perfect baby
ANNIE
We all think a pregnant woman should protect her probable future child, A.  Annie should get good prenatal care, stop smoking, absolutely not engage in binge drinking, go on bed rest if needed to avoid premature delivery, etc.  She ought to try to bring A into the world without any abnormalities she can prevent.

BETTY
Now suppose Betty isn't pregnant yet, and she's

Everyday Rebellions

From David Brooks:
First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They

Pinker on Violence (4)

I'm busy today, so I'm going to let Steven Pinker write a post for me.  Here's a really interesting passage from The Better Angels of Our Nature (highlighting unintended)--









When I call myself a moral realist, it's this kind of a picture I have in mind.

Why are there so few women in philosophy? (again!)

The powerpoint (you-tube-ized) from my talk a couple of days ago is here.  I presupposed a picture of female attrition that I'm now less sure of.  Based on this graph from "Gender and Philosophical Intuition" (Buckwalter and Stich), I assumed women are less attracted to philosophy classes starting very early on.

 
Then there's also attrition after the undergraduate course series. You see it on

Where were you at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11?

People will no doubt be asking you that in years to come, so I suggest making a mental note of it now. I was having a nice chat about music with my physical therapist. (I'm getting cured of the weird affliction known as "frozen shoulder".) It's always fun to discover someone who likes the same music. Thumbs up: Arcade Fire, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Decemberists, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and (yes)

"Crowds Riot in State College"

You can't imagine how bizarre that headline sounds - to someone who grew up in State College and went to Penn State.  They literally call it "Happy Valley" and it's happy (and just a tad boring) 99.999% of the time.  Perhaps they were right to fire Joe Paterno, tragic as that is--certainly they had to if he knew what his graduate assistant coach had witnessed, and did no more than report it to

Why are there so few women in philosophy?

Links that go with my talk tonight --

Beebee and Saul, "Women in Philosophy in the UK"
Buckwalter & Stich, "Gender and Philosophical Intuition"
Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender
Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference
Lewis, "Where are all the women?"
Last but not least:  The Incredible Shrinking Man 

Powerpoint --

I Like the Cat

I like the cat's tail
It goes swish, swish
I like cat's whiskers
They go twitch, twitch.
I like cat's eyes
They go glisten, glisten.
I like cat's ears,
They listen listen.
I like cat's fur
It's so soft, soft.
I like when cats jump
They go aloft, aloft.
I like cat's paws
They go pad, pad.
I like mysterious cats
They make sound just a tad, tad.
I like cat's mouth
It goes yawn, yawn.
I like all cats

Ways of Silencing, Reasons for Outing

For my course on procreation and parenthood, tomorrow's reading is a chapter from Jenny Saul's book Feminism.  It's about "the politics of work and family" and starts with an important distinction.  A workplace can be discriminatory on the "difference model"--that involves blatant discrimination on the basis of gender.  A workplace can also be discriminatory on the "dominance model."  Everything

The Evolutionary Psychology of Gender

Wednesday I'm giving a talk about why there are so few women in philosophy, so I've been reading around, thinking about various hypotheses.  For people who find the question interesting, this report by Helen Beebee and Jenny Saul is a must-read (I wrote about it here).  They draw on the book Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, by Cordelia Fine -

Who's Being Indoctrinated?

I'm starting to contribute to The Secular Outpost, starting with today's post about indoctrinating children. Next week that will be the topic in my class on procreation and parenthood, so stay tuned (maybe) for more on the subject.

If you're wondering, Kitty is resting comfortably.  His surgery went well, and now we're waiting for the pathology report.

Animal Ethics Comes Home

For the past 6 weeks or so, we've been struggling with one of our cats' health  - he vomits about once a day, eats little, hides under beds. He's lost a lot of weight, and this is clearly life-threatening.  We started with blood tests and x-rays, which didn't identify the problem. Then our vet put him on the steroid prednisone, which helped a lot for a few weeks, but the problems came back. Next

Hammers and Songs

So, seven billion ... and counting!  I really enjoyed Toby Ord's recent lecture on population (here) and find much that he said convincing, but what about the hammers and songs? 

Ord argues that there are advantages to there being seven billion people, not just disadvantages.  One of the advantages comes to light when you contrast hammers and songs. One hammer is not easily shared with an

Number Magic

Something interesting and important is bound to happen today, don't you think?