What, Why & How do we Know ?
I’ve been intending to dive into this Tim Hunt debacle, but the twitter storm is moving too fast for me to get a word in, so this is just a holding post – no extended argument here (yet). Science needs women? Doh! Which century are we in? Which geological period is Hunt in? All human endeavours … Continue reading “We need each other.”
It’s pretty well known that following his joint discovery of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick (helped by Rosalind Franklin and Ray Gosling amongst others), James Watson made some dubious suggestions about racial differences based on DNA – disgraceful by today’s standards. It’s also quite likely as “men of their time” that Watson (and Galton, referenced) actually … Continue reading “The shunning of James Watson. Better to understand than to deny?”
I Wasn’t There – Earlier this year I attended the IAI’s How the Light Gets In festival and The Rationalist Association’s AGM to mention a couple of events, but I didn’t make plans to attend the WHC2014 organised in Oxford this weekend by the BHA. You see, I’ve had a bit of a mixed relationship with the … Continue reading “Reflections on World Humanist Congress #whc2014 @BHAhumanists @NewHumanist @_CFIUK”
Coincidentally, I was in a school earlier this week, interacting with Year 8’s and their teachers in a mixed city academy. (A “STEM” Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths event on National “Women in Engineering Day” – “awesome” was the feedback from the school incidentally.) I was very impressed with the staff (as well as with … Continue reading “Teaching Values”
“Dysmemics – Bad Ideas that Reproduce Furiously” caught my eye in the profile header of Paula Wright on Twitter / X. I’ve been using “the memetic problem” for the idea that “bad ideas win over good ideas” in the battle for attention and adoption for at least two decades. Even the sciences themselves suffer from … Continue reading “Dysmemics”
This is a 2023 Annotation of a 2005 paper prepared originally for the Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). The text is unchanged except for correcting a few obvious typos and formatting errors, and to keep me honest the original “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid” remains here complete with old broken … Continue reading “Zero to Pirsig”
Happy New Year everyone, just the one resolution here. Not posted since November and not read much either. Kinda(*) stalled I guess. Work got serious in a shift from planning & requirements gathering to funding & implementation, so I’m distracted by the day-job – in a good way, for all the right reasons – and … Continue reading “Reading (& Writing) Catch-Up Jan 2020”
I said, when reading Aldous Huxley back in 2007, that I was having trouble seeing the wood for the trees – what specific points Huxley was making – even though it was already a given that some kind of perennial philosophy is what we are dealing with in real life. Since before then my approach is … Continue reading “Perennialism”