blog
razib | December 1, 2006In the post below there is a lot of talk about genius that might rival Newton. I didn't throw down a list of criteria for why I esteem Newton, a lot of this is gestalt intuition anyway, and I'm probably not reflectively totally aware of why I feel the way I do. That being said, someone threw down Aristotle. Instead of Aristotle, or Plato, or any of the other numerous ancients I mentioned Archimedes. Why? Aristotle certainly had, and has, more influence than Archimedes.
The reason is simple: Aristotle had superhuman intellect, but Archimedes had inhuman intellect. Aristotle had beefed up…
razib | November 30, 2006Over at The Edge Scott Atran and Sam Harris continue to spar over the question of religion. This is a continuation of the discussions that occurred at Beyond Belief 2006. The Q & A's at the end of the presentations were actually far more interesting to me than the talks themselves. Having so many super-intelligent people in the room was incredible. In regards to Atran and Harris, those of you who have read my opinions about religion know that I lean strongly toward Atran in regards to the science of religion as a natural phenomenon. On the other hand, I think Sam Harris plays an…
razib | November 28, 2006
I grew up in the Northeast (almost New England) and the Pacific Northwest. Here is a map of American English dialects.
Via Shaitan. You can take the quiz here.
razib | November 26, 2006Update: Chris has a follow up post.
Chris leaves nothing unsaid. A sample:
In that talk Dawkins sounds, at times, like a 5-year old with the vocabulary and factual knowledge of a world-renowned scientist....
I find it hypocritcal and, as an atheist, more than a little embarrassing that these fundamentalist, Dawkinsian, scientistic, self-styled free thinking atheists, who know jack about the history of religion, or serious philosophy and theology, feel that they can criticize religious fundamentalists for saying things about science (in the evolution-creationism debate, for example) when…
revere | November 26, 2006This weekend is Effect Measure's Second Blogiversary and it coincides with two other events: the new Flu Wiki Forum and the incipient debut of a new progressive public health blog, The Pump Handle, to which The Reveres will be occasional contributors (some original posts, some cross posts). We are semi-thrilled to still be around after two years. Semi-thrilled, because two years is a long-time in the blogosphere, especially if you blogged all 730 days of it. Just a few under 1500 posts all told. We know there are a lot of blogs more prolific than ours and older. Our hats are off to them,…
razib | November 24, 2006Samuel 17:36 - Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.
razib | November 24, 2006How has your post-T-day been if you are a citizen of the Greatest Nation in the World?TM Wow, I woke up this morning to a flare up in the Ed vs. PZ battle here on SB and elsewhere. Bora has the most most thorough round up of links, which can be reduced to theistic-evolutionists-are-sell-outs vs. theistic-evolutionists-are-OK-by-me. In many ways I do probably agree with Bora's perspective on this issue, there are a multiplicity of strategies, and different groups need to approach them from different angles. Of course, being a pragmatic libertarian conservative, I don't feel that Creationism…
razib | November 21, 2006Chris of Mixing Memory is now a Christian. Just so you know. It was reading Kierkegaard that pushed him over the edge. He just told me via IM. You think Chris is an idiot now, right J-Dog?
razib | November 20, 2006When I was a kid, back in the day, I read up to book 6 of The Wheel of Time. It seemed that after book 3 the series went into an exponential decay of quality...and I couldn't handle the flat female characters and I ditched in book 6. Well, turns out that he's churned out 11 books total. A friend of mine once joked about "Egwene's Paradox," which was a variant of Zeno's Paradox. Basically, one of the main characters (Egwene) had a destination, and as she proceeded her velocity dropped in every single book so that she would never reach the terminus. Well, I hear she did reach her goal,…
razib | November 18, 2006I was surprised to see Matt Yglesis on Bloggingheads.tv today, arguing with Ross Douthat...he seems shockingly elfin in his countenance compared to his normal appearance. And interestingly, his voice is far more masculine! I wonder if this is some form of correlated response on the scale of ontogeny?
razib | November 15, 2006The Lord Our God is One! Check out my results from the Belief-O-Matic below....
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (98%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%)
4. Liberal Quakers (84%)
5. Nontheist (75%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (68%)
7. Bah�'� Faith (65%)
8. Neo-Pagan (65%)
9. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (58%)
10. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (58%)
11. Reform Judaism (50%)
12. New Age (45%)
13. Taoism (45%)
14. New Thought (45%)
15. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (43%)
16. Sikhism (40%)
17.…
razib | November 14, 2006It seems that The Family That Walks on All Fours is now on NOVA. I don't have a television so I won't be seeing it, but some of you might catch a re-run. Years ago I remember a slogan: "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" Hm.
razib | November 13, 2006PLOS Biology and PLOS Genetics have a slick brand new look. Go check 'em out!
razib | November 8, 2006Chris Lydon quoted me again on Radio Open Source on the post election episode. It's in the last 10 minutes of the podcast. He read this whole section from my post last night:
The Democrats do not bring a smile to my face. They are lovers of big government and righteous paternalism. It seems entirely likely than in the next 2 years they'll collude with our president in throwing the borders open to masses of future potential voters, a helot caste who will feed the flames of identity politics and class warfare. The multicultural managerial elite and the corporate oligarchs will be smile as the…
razib | November 6, 2006Via Sepia Mutiny a hilarious brown rendition of "12 days of Christmas"....
Also, check out The Office, Diwali (abridged). Slay the pagans when they congregate under their lights!
razib | November 2, 2006"And say to the believing katz that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their fur ... " [24:31]