Good News, Bad News for Ivan

by James Poulos

Teaching by PowerPoint is out . . . . . . and teaching by Twitter is in. . . . . Continue Reading »

23 Jun 2009 0

Booze: For, Against, and * Hiccup *

by James Poulos

Steve Sailer suggests that booze works wonders: Perhaps alcohol enables one individual to display a wider range of personalities than can be achieved through solely genetic means, thus allowing personalities to evolve farther in directions suitable for making a living, while still allowing people . . . . Continue Reading »

21 Jun 2009 0

Science, science über alles

by Will Wilson

Yuval Levin continues his string of hits with a snark-filled review of Congressman Diana DeGette’s new book . DeGette’s confusion about somatic cell nuclear transfer dovetails nicely with one of Levin’s earlier points . Namely that the mere fact that “being on the side of . . . . Continue Reading »

19 Jun 2009 0

Demand, Reward — Profit

by James Poulos

I’ve said elsewhere that our vision of politics is being corrupted by a well-meaning but misguided epistemology of compassion: increasingly, we consider the person or group demanding a right to be the most trustworthy source of information about whether they deserve it. Anyone aggrieved, we . . . . Continue Reading »

11 Jun 2009 0

Hipology

by James Poulos

The results of two studies indicate that people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers. That from a study forwarded along to Richard Florida by Cambridge ‘personality psychologist’ Jason Rentfrow. Dig deeper, and the following . . . . Continue Reading »

7 Jun 2009 0

The Fatal — Or Is it Fateful? — Conceit

by James Poulos

Since the mid-’80s, a long progression of doomsayers have warned that our declining market share in the patents-and-Ph.D.s business augurs dark times for American innovation. The specific threats have changed. It was the Japanese who would destroy us in the ’80s; now it’s China and . . . . Continue Reading »

4 Jun 2009 0

Science, ethics and abortion: The perspective of Britain’s Chief Rabbi

by Joe Carter

“Why should an intelligent person believe in God?” That was the first question posed to Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks at a dinner for religion journalists sponsored last night by the Templeton Foundation, by the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn. Rabbi Sacks, the author of eighteen books . . . . Continue Reading »

21 May 2009 0

The Business of America and the Transvaluation of Values

by James Poulos

David Brooks’ recent column on genius , which offered a portrait of the Mozart who excelled by logging his ten thousand hours of rote practice to get on sooner to the good stuff, seemed to gibe poorly with not only our romantic understanding of unique human excellence but our practical . . . . Continue Reading »

21 May 2009 0

Science and Moral Neutrality

by Ivan Kenneally

It is generally accepted by both the left and the right that science itself is a morally neutral enterprise, since it merely creates the mechanisms of power that can be used for moral and immoral purposes alike. In a public speech a few years ago, President Bush expressed this commonly-held view, . . . . Continue Reading »

15 May 2009 0

Love, Money, Science, Self

by James Poulos

“There is a complexity to human affairs,” David Brooks has announced, “before which science and analysis simply stands mute.” This is correct, but in comes in the context of a column that seems to cut in a strange way against it. It is as if we all contain a multitude of . . . . Continue Reading »

14 May 2009 0