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Got sauce? February 19, 2008

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South Kakalaky* bbq regions from Strange Maps.

*No, I don’t know how to spell it…

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tongue-twisted February 18, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : language, society , add a comment

Language Log has two interesting posts on a seemingly (I haven’t read it and don’t intend to) ludicrous book about the history of Western European languages.

Worth noting is this passage, quoted in the second post:

“Take the exemplar of all modern academic paradigms, the Theory of Evolution. There’s no question that the theory is valuable in so far as it has led more or less directly to the creation of the modern Life Sciences, but, true or false, the theory no less certainly contains the sees of its own infinite survival. Having adopted a properly scientific root-and-branch model of speciation in which ex hypothesi all species must be demonstrably linked to other species, it permits the indefinite opening of new categories whenever a species cannot be demonstrably linked to other species. This has the unavoidable corollary that nothing can ever discovered from now until the end of time that can ever call the model into question.”

LL proposes that perhaps the book was written as a bet. Here’s the author in this fictional account of the book’s inspiration: “You don’t understand — no one knows anything, not anything that’ll stand up to an authoritative poke in an anti-authoritarian voice.”

So, of course I’m overjoyed that a post which manages to tie biological evolution and linguistics, tangentially of course, also manages to point out something very important for skeptics, rationalists, and to keep in mind.

Questioning authority is not as important as insisting on evidence and clear argumentation; that is, skepticism, in order to be healthy instead of lending itself to accepting conspiracy theories, must be founded on such an insistence as well as a willingness to acknowledge a source of authority when it has earned its position — keeping in mind, of course, that there always exists room for error. We all love to see the underdog win, and we all love to see people knocked off their high horses and taken down a notch. But we must not let this tendency to enjoy seeing authority’s nose tweaked to allow us to favor absurd arguments based solely upon such nose-tweaking. Above all, it is the content, not the context, that matters.

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best in class February 18, 2008

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Via FP Passport, here’s a link to the winners of the World Press Photo Contest 2007.

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weekly photo #70: The Great Ones February 14, 2008

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The Great Ones
This week’s photo is a close-up shot of Philips Memorial Hall (which I posted a photo of about 59 weeks ago). According to Wikipedia, construction took place in the 1920s.

The names (revealing of the imposed bias of time and place) are:

Virgil, Dante, Shakespear

Leonardo, Raphael, Rembrandt

Voltaire, Goethe, Hugo

Washington, Franklin, Lincoln

Darwin, Edison, Marconi

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good news / bad news February 13, 2008

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So, I had a sip of Johnnie Walker Blue tonight…

Good news: best whiskey I’ve ever had, without a shred of doubt.

Bad news: now even The Macallan just doesn’t taste quite so good…

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happy birthday February 12, 2008

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As I noted yesterday, today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln*; I would be remiss if I did not note that it is also the birthday of Charles Darwin*.

Language Log says it better than I ever could.

*not Wikipedia links.

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why I read EconLog February 12, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : economics , add a comment

I don’t agree with everything posted over at EconLog all the time; of course, one shouldn’t read only opinion pieces if one agrees with the author all the time — life in an echo chamber is surely only considered good by those who are tone-deaf when it comes to self-reflection.

But there are good reasons for my daily check-ins with the blog:

Here’s Bryan Caplan with one, and Arnold Kling with another.

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students of the world unite February 12, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : open access , add a comment

Bora Zivkovic points us to openstudents.org — a student-centered blog about open access and, hopefully, the future of the scientific endeavor.

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weekly quote #19: Walt Whitman February 11, 2008

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As it’s Lincoln’s birthday tomorrow, I found the well-known lines from Whitman’s poem, ‘O Captain! My Captain!‘ fitting:

“My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.”

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