Over at Slate Star Codex, Scott has an excellent post on the epistemological dangers of punching down. I’m using a long quote, so that you can get the crux of the argument, but I strongly recommend reading the whole thing. What annoys me about the people who harp on moon-hoaxing and homeopathy – without any interest in the rest of medicine or space history – is that it seems like an attempt to Other irrationality. (yes, I did just use... Read more
On Palm Sunday in Catholic churches, the Passion narrative is read aloud. The whole congregation is on our feet while the priest reads the part of Christ, and two lectors pitch in. One of them handles the descriptions and narration and the other takes on the parts of each person who speaks along (Peter, Pilate, etc). The lines spoken by the crowd are assigned to the laity all together. And our lines are mostly brutal. We are the ones who... Read more
The Pope Francis bookclub will resume next week. Since we finished the “Encountering Jesus” section of the book last week, I’d prefer to wait to start the next section “Manifestations of Light” until after Easter, since it feels odd to read and blog in that section during the same week I’m going to the Dominican House of Studies for Tenebrae services. In lieu of the book post, I’ll share two anecdotes from the weekend. I was up in New York... Read more
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, and, over at The New York Times Magazine, a photographer has put together a series of portraits of Rwandans who have reconciled with the people who killed their friends and families. The people who agreed to be photographed are part of a continuing national effort toward reconciliation and worked closely with AMI (Association Modeste et Innocent), a nonprofit organization. In AMI’s program, small groups of Hutus and Tutsis are counseled over... Read more
Time for another roundup of this week’s writing for The American Conservative. First up, my review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Steve Rogers’s approach to loving your enemies. Captain America Skips Politics, Stays Personal Usually, when Americans are characterized as thinking in black and white, it’s because we’ve divided the world or just our nation into “us” and “them” and are out to get rid of them as in President Bush’s statement, “Either you are with us, or you... Read more
— 1 — This week, the theme for the links is experimentation and innovation. First off, Josiah Neeley of The Federalist has a great example of the joys of exploring empiricism, even at very small scales. Frustrated by traffic, and the endless temptation to switch lanes (even though they mysteriously slow), he starts theorizing: Just as the Efficient Market Hypothesis says that you can’t beat the market, the Efficient Traffic Hypothesis says that you can’t beat the traffic. If you... Read more
Have you ever played misery poker? It was a pretty popular game when I was an undergrad, when we all could ante up paper lengths and nearness of deadines to see who would win the prize of “most screwed.” It still comes up in my “adult” life (though my law school friends tend to have a lock on “least sleep”). Some of my friends can match my comments about the latest Gunnerkrigg Court with “Geez, I haven’t had time to... Read more
There’s an unpleasant undertone to Terry Firma’s vision of a kinder, humbler Christianity over at Friendly Atheist. He reads through an essay from The New York Times about a Christian parent’s discomfort when her daughter wants to put an evangelical sign on their lawn. The author talks about her immediate flinch, and Firma thinks that’s all to the good. Along with that gratitude, there’s a bit of embarrassment woven through Taylor’s account, and I think it becomes her. She knows that... Read more
I finished two novels recently, neither of which I would urgently recommend to someone, but both of which were clearly written by people in love with language, and, as I expect that describes some of my commenters, I wanted to give you all a heads up, in case you’d like to check them out at your local library. I’m glad I read both of these, but I read a lot faster than average, so the opportunity cost of a book... Read more
In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. This week, I was particularly struck by one paragraph in this week’s selection from Open Mind, Faithful Heart, where Pope Francis traces out a relationship between memory and intellect: The reason for this is that memory has the power to unite and integrate. Just... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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