jump to navigation

laying arms bare June 18, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a comment

Language Log has a nice post up (and check out the linked OICTIQ post) about the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.

I found it interesting, even though I don’t really care about the founders’ intents.

[?]

more inequality June 17, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : other , add a comment

After finishing “The inheritance of inequality”, I came across this post at Econlog… the bit about lock-in becoming much harder to fight even by the time kids are in elementary school definitely caught my eye, so now I’m reading James Heckman, “Schools, skills, and synapses”.

[?]

weekly quote #30: Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis June 16, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : other , add a comment

This week’s quote is from “The inheritance of inequality” (which can be found as a .pdf here), from the conclusion (pp 22-23). After summarizing what factors of wealth and income correlate between parents and their children, and by how much, the authors briefly discuss how their findings could impact policy, first in a more objective sense and then in a more normative one:

“Does a level playing field entail no correlation between parental and child incomes? …There are important values of family life and privacy that would be compromised by any serious attempt to completely disconnect the fortunes of parents and children. Rather than pursuing an abstract (and to our minds unattractive) objective of zero intergenerational correlation, a better approach might be to ask: which mechanisms of intergenerational transmission are unfair, and direct policies accordingly.”

[?]

movin’ on up June 14, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : supernaturalism , add a comment

I must be doing something right* — first my recent visit in the comments on “overestimating religon” (Hi, Mike!), and now a “comment” on my last post, “cult evolution”. Well, less of a comment and more of a sad attempt to advertise a ridiculous web site, The Quest of Right, which is a mish-mash of ID, New Age, and some other crap. No need to seek it out, fair reader (and I’m certainly not gonna link to it, and I edited the comment to remove any links): nothing to see there but the usual: ‘correcting science’, ‘quantum electrons’, ‘oxidation’, ‘anti-matter’, and so on.

At any rate, I’m finally attracting some theistic oddballs! Yay!

*Most likely, it’s a result of having blog posts featured at the bottom of the forum main page.

[?]

cult evolution June 13, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : other , 2comments

So I just finished reading “Towards a unified science of cultural evolution” by Alex Mesoudi, Andrew Whiten, and Kevin L. Laland, which makes a case for incorporating the techniques and methodology used to study biological evolution into the study of cultural change.

And, here’s a talk at TED by Susan Blackmore, focusing on memes and how they are made more potent by technology (that is, culture…).

Interesting ideas, especially if one is interested in cultural change, and also if one doesn’t agree with the assertions at the heart of the paper and talk.

[?]

weekly photo #83: NYPL June 10, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : other , add a comment

NYPL
This week’s photo is one of two I took during an all-too-brief visit to Gotham. It wasn’t even a visit, really — just eight or so hours I had in the morning to poke around while I waited to catch a flight, since I missed a connection the evening prior. Time was limited, as was clothing and cash, so I cruised past the NYPL, the Empire State Building, and went into the AMNH.

[?]

overestimating religion June 9, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : supernaturalism , 5comments

Two sciencebloggers, Jason Rosenhouse and Razib (at his non-sciblog blog), on an article by Alan Jacobs at the WSJ on whether or not religion is as powerful as people make it out to be.

Money quote from the WSJ article:

“That those seeking to acquire or keep power do use [religious] language, and regularly, indicates that religion has influence. But the idea that without religion people would stop seeking power, stop manipulating, stop deceiving, is just wishful thinking of the silliest kind.”

EvolutionBlog, responding to an earlier paragraph in the article, but I think it’s applicable to the part quoted above as well:

“No one, not Dawkins not Hitchens not Harris, believes that religion is the source of all, or even of most, of the evil in the world. They believe simply that it is a major source of bad things, and one singularly worthy of attention because of the bizarre societal taboo against criticizing it.”

And Gene Expression:

“The ingroup-outgroup dynamics in world religions lead to the emergence of fictive kinship. Anthropologists and sociologists have done a great deal of work about the functional importance of religious groups for individuals in terms of generating social networks and undergirding civil society. Social networks and the emergence of civil society are not necessarily features of religion, but religion is sufficient to generate both, so its utility is rather clear.”

I’m of a mind that the analogy between the dictator claiming patriotism and the theocrat claiming religion is actually a strong one — odds are both are using certain language and concepts to promote their own selfish ends. The fact that they can use that particular concept causes me to take a much more critical stance regarding it: religion, patriotism, any idea which can be so easily bent to serve one’s own ends deserves strong scrutiny — and sacred cows, the notion that certain areas of life should be beyond public questioning, should be looked at more closely still.

Tags for this article:

[?]

the Clever Hans effect and the placebo effect June 6, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : other , add a comment

You might have heard of Clever Hans, the horse that could count and perform other tricks which seemed to indicate a remarkable intelligence — and they did, but not of the sort that would first come to mind. Hans was not actually doing any mental arithmetic; instead, he was responding to cues — conscious or unconscious — from those who were asking the questions.

And it seems, as Mind Hacks posts on, this same “Clever Hans effect” plays a role in the effectiveness of placebos: with patients playing Hans and doctors playing von Osten (or any observer).

Tags for this article: , , ,

[?]

seriously June 6, 2008

Posted by ocmpoma in : supernaturalism , add a comment

No, really, if you don’t read Overcoming Bias, you should.

Here’s Eliezer on free will.

Tags for this article: , ,

[?]