I’m on the Religion panel, and I think my talk on the Ideological Turing Test and fostering productive fights will go up online. I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and in honor of the talk, I’ve finally overhauled my pre-conversion “About Me” tab above. Want to take a look and give me any notes in the comments of this post? I’ll have time for a few revisions after my plane touches down. Older versions of the “About” description are archived here,... Read more
See, this is exactly why I love culture-wide book clubs. I mention Harry Potter in passing, and you all start discussing the proper nature of love, and whether Ron/Hermione or any of the other case studies we’re all quite familiar with from the series, fit the mold. I said that one of the reasons I hate the Ron/Hermione pairing is that Ron has, at best, apathy and at worst contempt for Hermione’s curiosity and brightness. I didn’t she, or anyone else,... Read more
First there was the start of the fiscal year, then the beginning of school (I still haven’t broken myself of the habit of marking time in semesters), then Rosh Hashanah, and now, sneaking in just before Advent, is start of the Year of Faith (beginning on Oct 11, the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council). I’ve signed up for two interesting readings meant to supplement the year, so I wanted to pass on the information to the Catholic (or... Read more
Late last week, Xanthate asked: I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married sex, and other sins? I’m a recent convert, and I’ve chosen not to watch/read this sort of stuff, so I’m interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t watch much TV, just The Thick of It (for the vigorous and inventive invective) and Switched at Birth (for the ASL practise). So I don’t run into much sex on either show. (Plenty... Read more
Oh dear. The dryad costume is not going well. My inability to hand draft a corset meant I had to turn to a commercial pattern. While I waited for it to arrive, I started working on the big branchy mask, only to find that I’d ordered the wrong gauge of wire, and this stuff was too weak to help my hair stand on end (even though this is the style my hair is normally most cooperative with!). So now I’ve... Read more
Via statistician Andrew Gelman’s blog, this description of Columbo’s method seemed like a nice example about how something like the LARPing exercise can return a negative result. Here’s what Columbo does. He hears the killer’s story and he takes it very seriously (it’s murder, and Columbo never jokes about murder), examines all its implications, and finds where it doesn’t fit the data. Then Columbo carefully examines the discrepancies, tries some model expansion, and eventually concludes that he’s proved there’s a... Read more
Eli of Rust Belt Philosophy has expanded his critique of the LARPing exercise, and I found it really helpful. The game is meant to help you defend against not taking an idea very seriously or not working out its consequences or predictions, and now I understand why Eli doesn’t think that properly falls into the category of good epistemology. I’ve excerpted below, but you should nip over and read the whole thing. On its face, this sort of thing [ugh... Read more
Bob Seidensticker of Cross Examined (the one who sparked the discussion of the Atheist Prayer Experiment), put up a post earlier this week titled “I Used to be an Atheist, Just Like You” where he talks about three groups of atheists. Let me quote the relevant part: Group 3. These are the well-informed atheists. They understand both sides of the ontological, teleological, cosmological, transcendental, fine-tuning, and moral arguments and more. They are at least well-educated amateurs on evolution, evolution denial,... Read more
I was about title this “7 Geeky Takes” and then I thought, “Why is this day different from all other days?” — 1 — I have always loved Bill Nye the Science Guy. I loved him as a kid and I loved him even more when he guested on Numb3rs and turned out to be a terrible actor (which means all his science enthusiasm is totally unfeigned). So I’m delighted to tell you guys that there’s a great interview with him... Read more
I’ve been introducing one of my housemates to Battlestar Galactica and we got into an argument about whether it’s acceptable to root for the Cylons or specific Cylons. Luckily for blog readers you don’t watch BSG (shame on you), this spilled over into a more general argument about what qualifies an individual as an enemy. I don’t think there are any humans about which you can exuberantly say delenda est – that which must be destroyed. There are times when lethal force or imprisonment... Read more
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Unequally Yoked
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