A collection of 328 posts
Overly broad masking requirements are at best useless, and possibly harmful, since they can cause confusion and prompt at least some to rebel against masking if the practice is too onerous or impractical.
The developments of the search engine and social media follow the usual path of innovation: incremental, gradual, serendipitous, and inexorable; few eureka moments or sudden breakthroughs.
Charles Murray believes in the values of Enlightenment: science and knowledge, truth and progress.
Biological sex in humans is a binary system.
Ridley presents an inspiring view of history, because we are not merely the passive recipients of thousands of years of innovations. We can contribute to this endless chain of progress, if we so choose.
The chaos of any moment, especially of a moment that requires one to spend a great deal of time alone, is an opportunity to engage with this deliberative way of living.
It was only after coronavirus proved so much more deadly in China and Italy that governments outside of Asia took dramatic actions including radical social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
To plan for problems ahead, such as droughts, was a better survival strategy than expecting an eternity of bountiful harvests.
Do we have the right to supplant Martian life with our own? Yes—because a human life has more value than that of a bacterium.
There is also a wide range of literature regarding sex differences in interest, which is also complicated, and which may explain a larger portion of the sex discrepancy in STEM careers.
Government and policy would be better off if they were presided over and/or dictated by technical experts.
The theory that science is based on evidence derives from a philosophy known as empiricism.
Feminist research into sex differences has typically concluded that the number of sex differences is small, and therefore unimportant, thus making the logical error that a small number of differences means those differences are inconsequential.
Day by day, as genetic science advances, it becomes ever clearer that all psychological traits are genetically influenced.
The last lesson of Gelernter’s piece is that while we shouldn’t judge someone’s arguments by their credentials alone, neither should we give unwarranted credence to those who have impressive credentials, particularly when they pronounce on a field in which they lack expertise.