November 2007 Archives

Red, White, and Bleu: A Critic at Large: The New Yorker

Why is it considered entertainment when a predator kills another animal in a wild-life film, Fearnley-Whittingstall wonders, "whereas the final moments of human predation of our farmed livestock are considered too disturbing and shameful to be made available even for information."

The reader understands the point. Meat comes from an animal--a banal connection that has been obscured by the way supermarkets prepare and present our food--and the animal has to be killed. If you fear the sight of a carcass, you shouldn't be eating from it.

Internet Sacred Text Archive

Welcome to the largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.

Race, genes, and intelligence. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

I wish these assurances were true. They aren't. Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern, and there's strong preliminary evidence that part of it is genetic. It's time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true.

The uprising against facism: Students storm Oxford Union debate By Andy McSmith and Jerome Taylor

The principle that everyone is entitled to their say, however obnoxious their opinions might be, was put to the test at the Oxford Union last night as hundreds of protesters gathered to voice their disapproval of the two men from the extreme right whom the illustrious debating chamber had invited there to speak.

Is Our Worship of Consumerism and Technology Making Us Depressed?

Buddha, Spinoza, and Jesus all came to a similar conclusion about despair -- quite a different one than that reached by the modern mental health establishment. Although each described it differently, Buddha, Spinoza, and Jesus concluded that the source of our misery is avarice, material attachment, and self-absorption. While each used different language, they all provided a path away from torment and toward wellbeing. Buddha taught how to release oneself from narrow self-interest and craving. Spinoza taught how to liberate oneself from greed and other irrational passions. And Jesus taught, very simply, about love.

Study: Babies can tell helpful, hurtful playmatest

Story Highlights-

• Study: Babies 6 to 10 months demonstrate crucial social judging skills


• Finding follows theory that some human social abilities are innate, not just learned


• Researcher: "Incredibly impressive that babies can do this"

The new key question: How happy are you? By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Is it time to offer day care for ailing older parents to give their care-giving children a break? Time for much bigger incentives for carpooling? Time to extend maternity and paternity leave substantially?

The answer's yes to all three if you accept the findings of a new kind of public attitude polling that's gaining influence with corporate leaders and in government policy circles worldwide.

It's called well-being research or, by those who want to be seen as especially rigorous practitioners, behavioral economics. Personal trainers and life coaches who borrow from the same findings often call it happiness research.

Taking Science on Faith By Paul Davies

SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term "doubting Thomas" well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

Relative wealth 'makes you happier' - Telegraph

Several studies by sociologists have looked at whether the effect of money on happiness results largely from the things money can buy (the so called absolute income effect) or from comparing one's income to the income of others (relative income effect) and concluded the latter is most important, even though economists usually only focus on the size of salaries...

This has many important implications for economics and social sciences in general. "Our findings are in sharp contrast to the typical assumption in economics according to which people care only about their own achievements and performance levels...

The implications of this work is that we are trapped on a "hedonic treadmill", as one sociologist put it, which means an endless effort to "keep up with the Joneses" to stay happy.

Intelligent Design on Trial NOVA -PBS

This two-hour program is divided into 12 chapters. Choose any chapter below and select QuickTime or Windows Media Player to begin viewing the video. If you experience difficulty viewing, it may be due to high demand. We regret this and suggest you try back at another time.

Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate By Adam Liptak

For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.

Oddly, Hypocrisy Rooted in High Morals | LiveScience

Morally upstanding people are the do-gooders of society, right? Actually, a new study finds that a sense of moral superiority can lead to unethical acts, such as cheating. In fact, some of the best do-gooders can become the worst cheats.

Consumed -- Special Report from American Public Media

We are what we buy -- a glib adage to be sure, but it prompts an interesting question: Is our consumer society sustainable? Marketplace and American Public Media take on that question in this special series. We follow consumerism from its origins to its dominance in the world's economy and, arguably, its culture. And we examine how, and if, it might be adapted to reduce its destructive consequences while keeping store shelves stocked.

An Animal's Place ~ Michael Pollan - The New York Times Magazine

Author, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Michael Pollan, has written a voluminous collection of articles and books on agricultural sustainability and the dangers of modern day food production. In his 2002 essay, titled, "An Animal's Place," Pollan argues that meat eating has become an ethical issue in the face of what are now very common, but undeniably brutal, farming practices. He writes, "The industrialization-and dehumanization-of American animal farming is a relatively new, evitable and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do." In this article, Pollan struggles to find an ethical solution in which his love of meat can coexist with his conscience.  

Fire from the Sky

As war was just breaking out in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a plea that all combatant nations do the decent thing and refrain from bombing civilians. But the advantage, indeed the necessity, of doing the indecent thing had long been revolving in the minds of strategic thinkers.

What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community.

Link here to the TED site for the video source, discussion and more information.

I Am, Therefore I Rationalize By John Tierney

Since writing about the newly discovered ability of monkeys to rationalize, I've gotten reactions to the experiment from some other experts in cognitive dissonance. Some of them find the new research with monkeys intriguing but say it doesn't explain the complicated forms of rationalization employed by human primates.

Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too. By John Tierney

This self-delusion, the result of what's called cognitive dissonance, has been demonstrated over and over by researchers who have come up with increasingly elaborate explanations for it. Psychologists have suggested we hone our skills of rationalization in order to impress others, reaffirm our "moral integrity" and protect our "self-concept" and feeling of "global self-worth."

I Am, Therefore I Rationalize By John Tierney

Since writing about the newly discovered ability of monkeys to rationalize, I've gotten reactions to the experiment from some other experts in cognitive dissonance. Some of them find the new research with monkeys intriguing but say it doesn't explain the complicated forms of rationalization employed by human primates.

Culture vs. Lunch-counter Culture

In educational theory, it's not about culture vs. "counter-culture" but rather what I once called lunch-counterculture: It's all lined up for you and you pick what you want. It's the display case of rotating pies at the diner: one day the student might pick Milton, the next Bob Dylan. But, if Milton and Bob Dylan are equally "valid," equally worthy of study, then Bob Dylan will be studied and Milton will languish. And so it's proved, most exhaustively, in music.

Philosophy Bites

Podcasts of top philosophers interviewed on bite-sized topics...

Why blame me? It was all my brain's fault | Raymond Tallis - Times Online

Imagine this futuristic courtroom scene. The defence barrister stands up, and pointing to his client in the dock, makes this plea: "The case against Mr X must be dismissed. He cannot be held responsible for smashing Mr Y's face into a pulp. He is not guilty, it was his brain that did it. Blame not Mr X, but his overactive amygdala."

Bring back the Greek gods - Los Angeles Times

Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn't advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.

The Virtue of Self-Control

Around 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel launched a classic experiment. He left a succession of 4-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow. If they rang the bell, he would come back and they could eat the marshmallow. If, however, they didn't ring the bell and waited for him to come back on his own, they could then have two marshmallows.

A discussion and review of A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically -- Christianity Today.

We've all seen the email: a letter to a fundamentalist pastor thanking him for his helpful insights on how vital it is to live all the laws of the Bible. But, the letter-writer continues, this uncompromising stance does raise some sticky questions. How and when should you stone adulterers and Sabbath-breakers? What is the best way to inform your first wife that you'll be adding to the family by taking a second and third? How many human slaves should you strive to own, and where can they be purchased nowadays? ...

Such is the agenda of A. J. Jacobs' achingly funny memoir The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs, the author of The Know-It All, begins by describing himself as a secular Jew. ("I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant. Which is to say: Not very.") In spite of his own detachment from religion, he is increasingly curious about the ways it influences 21st-century American life. Rather than standing on the sidelines or casting himself as an aloof pundit, he dives in head first and decides to spend a year living all the commandments of the Bible--that's right, all of them.