I often comment that religious people don’t have the right to never be offended when someone questions their beliefs. Their ideas – theistic, supernatural, cultural, or otherwise – are still ideas. This is because I strongly support the concept of a marketplace of ideas – that “the truth or the best policy arises out of …
Category Archive: morals
Aug 28 2010
Exposed scientific dishonesty illustrates why science is so great
That title may sound counter intuitive, but give me a chance to explain. You may have heard about the bit of academic scandal that’s been happening at Harvard recently. Marc Hauser is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, and Biological Anthropology. He was the leading researcher on the evolution of …
Aug 01 2010
Vatican dress code swiftly owned by wise old woman
The Vatican has been cracking down on violators of their dress code. Members of the Swiss Guard have been drawing aside men in shorts and women without sleeves across the entire Vatican City State, not just St. Peter’s Basilica like usual. This would be boring news if it weren’t for the awesome quote at the …
Jul 06 2010
On “fixing the gays” and science used for evil
This is old news by now – it broke while I was out of town at a conference – but enough people have emailed me asking for my opinion that I still wanted to comment. tld;dr: A researcher is giving pregnant women experimental hormones to prevent lesbianism and “abnormal” female behaviors such as aggressiveness, a …
Jun 01 2010
Is pedophilia a sexuality?
“Do you think pedophilia is a sexuality that you dont have a choice about? (similar to not having a choice about homosexuality)” I’m going to give a very tentative and qualified “maybe” because I don’t know enough about pedophilia (and since I’m pre-writing this while packing for my Florida vacation, I don’t have time to …
May 30 2010
Making a biological child for gay couples
“Is there a way to have two people of the same sex have a kid who is biologically related to both? (Either gay or lesbian couples)” Short answer: Yes! But it’s complicated. Long-ish answer: Creating a child from same-sex parents isn’t as easy as just combining the DNA from two eggs or two sperm. The …
May 13 2010
Why I would be executed in Iran
If I lived in Iran, I would be executed pretty quickly. Some of the things I’ve done that are death-worthy (especially the first one): Enmity against God, corruption on earth, apostasy, heresy and blasphemy A third conviction of drinking alcohol Homosexuality Distribution of obscene/pornographic audio-visual materials You can also be executed for: Adultery Public order …
Mar 18 2010
Raised without sexual guilt?
Hey everyone. I’m joining the formspring.me bandwagon, as it’s a good source for blog fodder. Basically you can go here to ask me anonymous (or not anonymous) questions on anything you’d like. I won’t promise to answer everything, but I’ll try. Ones that I really like will become an official blog post, like the one …
Mar 01 2010
Abortion & the value of human life
Abortion has been on my mind a lot recently. Not for personal reasons. We’ve been discussing it in my biomedical ethics class, though I’ve unfortunately missed a lot of the discussion because of my grad school visits. On top of that, Angie the Anti-Theist, a blogger I follow, has been generating a media storm because …
Jan 20 2010
Morality: Philosophy vs Biology
This semester I’m taking an introductory course through the Philosophy department called Biomedical ethics. After four classes, I’m convinced I’m insane for taking this class “for fun.” So far we’ve just been learning about ethics in general, and my brain is already melting. Somehow my mind manages to agree and disagree with about every topic …
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