The forces of cultural evolution push hard on political humor

John Oliver holds first “balanced” climate debate on television

Very nicely done! The monologue is great, but then the “performance” of the balanced climate change debate is really what drives home the point here. Don’t watch networks that present false “debates”.

Cognitive Ethology and Cat Companionship

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Animal Magnetism” I still think that we would be appalled and offended if we could literally read the inner emotional dialogue of a cat, but I have to agree with the main contention of Barash and Lipton: that animals have feelings and connections with each other — and sometimes with Read More

String Theory: should we care?

On Being “Reimagining the Cosmos” I always find myself stuck on the fence when it comes to the confrontation between physics and philosophy (and by extension religion). This episode effectively captures my ambivalence. On the one hand, I like that Brian Greene really sticks to his guns on the “sensation of free will”. If there Read More

Can you replicate the collective adaptive value of religion without god?

NPR Morning Edition “Sunday Assembly: A Church For The Godless Picks Up Steam” It is interesting to see people explicitly seeking out the benefits of religious community whilst trying to maintain their objective understanding of the material world. Conventional wisdom is that “god” is needed to make religions work, but perhaps just a collective intention Read More

Is selective rejection of science really a problem?

In a recent short opinion piece (Scientific American “Creation, Evolution and Indisputable Facts“), Jacob Tanenbaum argues that selectively rejecting evolutionary biology is dangerous to the scientific culture of America. He rightly points out that our populace does not reject science as a whole, but instead picks and chooses what science to doubt and what science Read More

Freakonomics takes the quantitative knife to how we produce and consume food

Freakonomics Radio “You Eat What You Are” This piece delivers a much needed kick in the self-righteous pants to the locavore movement. It systematically disassembles the assumptions of the local food movement, ending by discussing the minimal quantitative ecological benefits of using the “I only eat local” rule. It pulls apart belief from reality, and Read More

Does American faith in genetic determinism limit the achievement of our students?

National Public Radio Shots “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning” This piece went in a direction that I just did not expect. There is so much focus on the role of rote learning versus problem solving in comparing “Eastern and Western” approaches to education, but I have never heard a clear Read More

Governor Cuomo makes the connection between natural disasters and climate change, calls for building in resilience

In an election season when global climate change has been a subject that neither Obama nor Romney seem interested in discussing (see reports by The New Yorker and The Huffington Post), along comes Hurricane Sandy. With the arrival of the second “100 year storm event” to hit the State of New York in as many Read More

David Sloan Wilson on Ayn Rand and the delusion of a world without tradeoffs

The Huffington Post “Ayn Rand and Modern Politics” What I really appreciate about this post is its very simple brand of analysis. It asks a simple question and employs a clear methodology to objectively understand a phenomenon (in this case, the appeal of Ayn Rand to conservatives). Talk about a job of social construction: the Read More