4/29 Now I understand women: New data on men’s and women’s emotional processing. Key quotation: “It could be that while men and women have basically the same hardware, it’s the software instructions and how they are put to use that makes the sexes seem different.” And here is some evidence that equality is good for your sex life.
4/28 Corporate non-ethics from the inside: Former Enron speechwriter Rob Bradley recently gave a talk about what it was like to work at Enron. And
where, oh where, would GM be without the UAW? George Reisman explains.
4/27 Following the controversy surrounding David Horowitz’s new book? Here are Amazon’s page for The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, including some vigorous debate in the Customer Reviews section, EclectEcon, and David Horowitz himself.
4/26 Two philosophical friends of mine have started web logs: Meet Tom Stone at Philosopher Stone and Anja Hartleb at Philosophy 101.
4/25 Philosopher David Schmidtz has a new book out this year with Cambridge University Press: The Elements of Justice. Schmidtz is also directs the
Philosophy of Freedom Program at the University of Arizona, which has hosted philosophers David Kelley, Loren Lomasky, and Eric Mack as Visiting Professors.
4/24 The most interesting envelopes I have ever seen: the evolution of the Netflix envelope, with pictures and rationales for each change. And here is enough salt to last us 70 million years: Check out this salt mine 1,200 feet below Detroit, Michigan.
4/22 More great graphically-presented data: World maps of population, birth rates, net immigration rates and more. (Thank to Joe for the link.) And here is a set of maps showing population distributions according to religion.
4/21 A wonderful 49-minute video interview with Richard Feynman. If you haven’t read Feynman’s hilarious and inspiring “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character, put it on your short list. Right now.
4/20 Mirror neurons, emotional contagion, and why it’s good to stay away from angry and resentful people: Kathy Sierra connects the dots.
4/19 Now that the tax deadline has passed and we’ve all calmed down again, here is a scary pie chart: How many days each year does the average American work to pay taxes compared with to pay for food, leisure, and so on? And for more blood-sucking vampires (not that I’m bitter or anything), LiveScience.com is in search of the real Dracula. Update: John Stossel has a fine column on how much tax you really pay.
4/18 I spent two hours that I don’t have exploring this great timeline history of the universe.
4/17 In my Philosophy of Science course this semester, one of the books we are reading is Michael Ruse’s The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard, 2005). Ruse is a very clear writer and teacher—I took three courses with Ruse when I was a student at The University of Guelph. A neat item relevant to the evolution-creation debate is a newly-discovered “missing link”—a fossil of a “375 million-year-old fish, which exhibits changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals.” (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) Finally, creationism takes some hits.
4/15 Two books worth your attention: Objectivist (upper-case “O”) philosopher Tara Smith has a new book out: Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, published this spring by Cambridge University Press. And objectivist (lower-case “o”) philosopher Michael Huemer also has a new book out: Ethical Intuitionism, published by Palgrave MacMillan. Both Smith and Huemer are careful thinkers and clear writers, and I have learned from their earlier books.
4/14 Yesterday was Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Historian David Mayer separates Thomas Jefferson the man from the myths surrounding him. And here are the official White House biography and the website for Jefferson’s home at Monticello.
4/13 In The Guardian, Simon Jenkins closes the coffin on architectural modernism. And Friedrich Blowhard discusses a connection between Karl Popper and modernist arts culture. Update: Peter Cresswell, responding to the Jenkins piece, asks: Modernism: How bad was it?
4/12 In Salon, Jonathan Keats takes on the anti-sex feminists: Is the corset an instrument of bondage—or of liberation? (Thanks to Virginia for the link.) And here feminist enforcers are requiring strict compliance with the party line on fashion. (Thanks to Beverly for the link.)
4/11 Johan Norberg on why Julian Simon is still right.
4/10 When a century of stagnation and brutality just isn’t enough evidence—How the contemporary anti-capitalist mind works. A milder version: zero-sum thinking in French economic culture. (Thanks to Tibor for the link.) A more extreme version: a true-believer socialist longing for a revival of collectivism and redistribution.
4/8 How the world improved from 1993-2006: Bill Emott of The Economist reflects on events during his tenure as editor. (Via Johan Norberg.)
4/7 Here is a well-deserved riposte to two academic paternalists who have proposed punitive taxation for hard work. And here is another academic who advocates mass-death on environmentalist grounds. Bad philosophy, tenure, and your tax dollars at work.
4/6 How sensitive are you? Not emotionally—but in terms of perceptual acuity and judgment. And the next time you sense an insect and insensitively want to swat it, stop to ask yourself this sensible question: How much economic value do insects have? (Answer: $57 billion per year.)
4/5 Images of Muhammed throughout history—some of them horrific and some quite beautifully done. (Thanks to David for the link.)
And here is the first American magazine to reprint one of the controversial Muhammed cartoons on its cover.
4/4 Fruits of the Enlightenment: an experiment in “closed-heart” surgery to repair valves. And check out this very cool light-transmitting concrete.
4/3 EclectEcon notes that New Zealand is considering tradeable water rights. A step in the direction toward avoiding The Tragedy of the Commons. Here is Craig Milmine’s 2000 dissertation applying Lockean and Objectivist principles to water rights. Of course, as Division of Labour reports, some people refuse to learn the lesson. Update: Peter Cresswell has further analysis and links.
4/1 Right out of Atlas Shrugged: Is Ivy Starnes now writing for Time?