FFQF: Liberty and Virtue

Is it not Strange and Sad that Simple Integrity should have so many Ennemies? that a Man should have to undergo so many Evils merely because he will not betray his Trust?…
I have found by Experience, that in this Age of the World that Man has an awfull Lot, who “dares to love his [...]

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Fossilized Music

Since I commute three hours a day to and from work, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, podcasts, lectures, and music. Since getting my first MP3 player six months ago, I’ve done that mostly through MP3 recordings. Then I got another MP3 player, so that I could have one loaded with music and the [...]

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Protest Dance

What is a protest movement? I would say it is a collection of people who want to change the rules of the larger group, but they can’t because they don’t have real power; and so they just complain really loudly to get the attention of the rulers and of the more powerful groups. This only [...]

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Scarecrows

Jer 10:2 Thus says the LORD, “Do not learn the way of the nations, And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens Although the nations are terrified by them;
Jer 10:3 For the customs of the peoples are delusion; Because it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of [...]

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Drop in the Bucket

The bailout bill was passed Friday, and Monday the DJIA dropped 800 points. I guess it didn’t “inspire confidence in the markets.” Maybe it was just a phony “emergency” all along.
Interestingly enough, the second version of the bill supposedly included an option for the Treasury Secretary to accept stock in a company in exchange for [...]

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Founding Fathers Quote Friday: Liberty

The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical. –John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (November 13, 1815)
For [...]

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The New Torture Methods

How the new torture methods are taught at universities:
I learned that you can make a mouse “depressed” by dunking it repeatedly in cold water, by giving it electrical shocks over and over again, by subjecting it to “chronic forced swimming,” or making it experience “social defeat,” by putting a mean mouse in [...]

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Ghost in the Machine

From Mixing Memory, a report of a recent study about the belief in autonomous technology:
The paper, by Epley et al.(1), starts with the hypothesis that people may use religious thinking and other examples of perceived agency (e.g., in pets or gadgets) to reduce their feelings of loneliness. Epley et al. note that, for example, that [...]

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Fear Drill

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Another Honest Evolutionist

The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution
Koonin’s thesis is actually not as interesting as the fact that it is controversial.
Why shouldn’t a scientist pursue any naturalistic explanation? Is there some political agenda that takes precedence over discerning what actually happened?

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