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Greenwald is scathing on the media in general and takes the late Tim Russert to be the avatar of all that is wrong with them: Tellingly, his most celebrated and significant moment — Greg Mitchell says “this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million” — was when [...]
Archive for July, 2009
Greenwald: Media Praises Conkrite But Lacks His Integrity
July 20th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke On Attempts To Ban Controversial Scholars From Entering The US
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke From the ACLU’s blog of rights: In a victory for free speech and academic discourse, last week the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower-court decision upholding the government’s exclusion of Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan from the United States. Professor Ramadan, a leading scholar of the Muslim world, was offered a tenured professorship at [...]
Is There Conflict Between Gays and Blacks?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke LZ Granderson paints an ugly picture (thanks to jackandjillpolitics): Despite the catchiness of the slogan, gay is not the new black. Black is still black. And if any group should know this, it’s the gay community. Bars such as The Prop House, or Bulldogs in Atlanta, Georgia, exist because a large number of gay blacks [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Gay Rights, News Discussion, Politics, Racism 
Tags: Black Experience, Black Gays, Homophobia, Human Rights Campaign, Proposition 8, Slavery, Stonewall 
No Comments »Peter Suderman Nails Snyder’s Watchmen
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I love a great review. In what follows Peter Suderman manages to sum up the core problem of Snyder’s film version of Watchmen in less a paragraph: The sensibility behind it is puerile in the extreme. Say what you will about Moore and his book, at least he had a story to tell and something [...]
Posted in Comic Books, Film, Film Reviews, Pop Culture Tags: Alan Moore, American Scene, Atlas Shrugged, Objectivism, Peter Suderman, Watchmen, Zack Snyder No Comments »How Can You Join A Conversation If You Won’t Dialogue?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Business ethicist Chris MacDonald is opting to skip the Pope’s new encylcical despite its high profile attempts to discuss the ethics of how business is done. The reason? my main reason not to bother with the Pope’s new essay — with all due respect to my friends among the several hundred million Catholics in the [...]
Scientists Discover Not All Human Cells Are Identical
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The study: Scientists in Montreal have discovered that not all human cells are identical, a surprising observation that could turn genetic research upside down. For years, scientists have worked on the assumption that, when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially similar to every other cell. But the results of a [...]
Posted in Biology, Science Tags: DNA, Genetics, Human Mutation, McGill University, Morris Schweitzer No Comments »A Philosopher And NEH Reviewer Weighs In
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Last week, we had several posts (“Wanted: Non-Philosophers To Do Philosophy”, On The Goals Of Introductory Philosophy Courses, and On The Various Disciplines’ Resources For Engaging The Enduring Questions) discussing the NEH grant for novel courses on the “enduring questions” and what it said about perception of philosophy in the academy. Brian Leiter draws attention [...]
Episcopal Bishops Vote 104-30 To Consecrate Same Sex Unions
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Good for the Episcopals: Progressives in the Episcopal Church were on the verge of claiming another victory Wednesday as leaders endorsed the creation of blessing liturgies for same-sex unions one day after they ended a de facto ban on the ordination of gay bishops. They pointed to language in the measure that invites “theological reflection” [...]
The Subliminal Effects Of Odor
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This is a fascinating study on how we make value judgments subliminally and possibly irrationally—when people didn’t know they were detecting an odor, they mistakenly attributed a sense of foulness to people shown to them on a screen. When they did know they were detecting an odor, they didn’t let the odor affect how they [...]
The Gayby Boom?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Johann Hari on the rise of open gay parenting in the UK and the research indicating no averse effects for children: The children of gay couples are desperately and passionately wanted. They are, by definition, planned, with parents who have to go to a great deal of hassle and heart-searching before they are created. Compare [...]
Are Certain Beliefs and Desires The Same Things?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Eric Schwitzgebel makes an interesting case that in some cases believing and desiring may be the same thing, or at least close enough to each other as to be inseparable from each other: In the usual taxonomy of mental states (usual, that is, among contemporary analytic philosophers of mind) belief is one thing, desire quite [...]
Posted in Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Tags: Beliefs, Desires, Eric Schwitzgebel, Erosiac Desire, Mental States No Comments »“Wedding” Young Girls So They Can Be Executed
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This story out of Iran is nightmarish and devastating to read: He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.” In the Islamic Republic it is illegal [...]
Posted in Islam, News, Rape, Religion, Religious Extremism, Women's Rights Tags: Ali Khamenei, Basiji, Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Mark Steyn, National Review No Comments »Consigning Minority Rights To Majority Vote Would Make Constitution Unnecessary
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke David Boies sums up the case he and Ted Olson are making in favor of a constitutional right to gay marriage: Countries as Catholic as Spain, as different as Sweden and South Africa, and as near as Canada have embraced gay and lesbian marriage without any noticeable effect — except the increase in human happiness [...]
Posted in Cultural Secularism, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, Political Secularism, Politics, Separation of Church and State Tags: Canada, Connecticut, David Boies, Due Process, Equal Protection, First Amendment, Iowa, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, Maine, Majoritarianism, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Proposition 8, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ted Olson, Vermont No Comments »Is Cohabitation A Bad Way To Trial Run Marriage?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This research suggests so: Those couples who had lived together before making a commitment to marriage (e.g., before getting engaged) reported significantly lower quality marriages and a greater potential for divorce than those who didn’t live together at all, or those who lived together only after getting engaged.The researchers’ findings remained significant even when they [...]
Roadkill Toys
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The perfect gift for the psychopathic child who has everything:
Sotomayor Dodges Judicial Philosophy Questions
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Clive Crook wanted more from Sotomayor and thinks she got off easy on the most crucial questions: It seemed to me she did not so much clarify the liberal-sounding speeches and remarks (“wise Latina woman” and so on) that have so preoccupied her critics as simply retract them. And both sides let her do it. [...]
UK Doctor Opts To Leave Adoption Panel Rather Than Support Gay Adoptions
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Sheila Matthews’s story: The paediatrician had asked to be allowed to abstain from voting in cases involving same-sex couples. But that led to her being barred from the panel altogether. The married mother of one said she had been ‘made to pay for being honest and upholding my personal integrity’. ‘I don’t feel that placing [...]
10 Basics Of Group Dynamics
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Go here for the explanations of each of the 10 basic “psych 101″ points and also to find further articles on the topic. I found point 6 most interesting and so included it in full below: 1. Groups can arise from almost nothing 2. Initiation rites improve group evaluations 3. Groups breed conformity 4. Learn [...]
Posted in Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociology Tags: Change, Competition, Conformity, Gossip, Group Psychology, Group Think, Initiation Rites, Leadership, Persuasion, Trust No Comments »Letting Go Of God
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Julia Sweeney, of It’s Pat! from Saturday Night Live fame, has a film in which she describes her journey out of religion. Here is a trailer for the film: Here is a performance of the first 15 minutes of her stage show: Greta Christina recommends it as highly as possible: Sweeney is more than just [...]
Posted in Film, Film Reviews Tags: "Letting Go Of God", Deconversion Stories, Greta Christina, Julia Sweeney No Comments »Peter Singer Argues We Must Ration Health Care
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke His article is long, here are just a few key pieces: In Britain, everyone has health insurance. In the U.S., some 45 million do not, and nor are they entitled to any health care at all, unless they can get themselves to an emergency room. Hospitals are prohibited from turning away anyone who will be [...]
An Experimental Philosophy Manifesto
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Portions of the book Experimental Philosophy including “An Experimental Philosophy Manifesto” by Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols can be read here, and Josh May and Jonathan Ichikawa discuss the manifesto here. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Moral Psychology, Philosophy Tags: Experimental Philosophy, Jonathan Ichikawa, Josh May, Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols No Comments »Can You Have A Heart Without Having “The Heart of God”?
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to my post on whether we need God to care about the poor around the world, Marianne offers this challenge: I have observed that atheists discuss and analyze poverty, but do very little about it. Most of the charities in the world are christian in foundation. You will find very few atheist charities [...]
Is God Needed For Us To Care About Starving Kids A World Away?
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A few weeks ago now, I wrote a post, Commitment To Value Without God, in which I discussed how even when I was a Christian, I realized that I did not need to make reference to God in order to either psychologically recognize the value of sumptuous food or good friendship or any of various [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Education, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Moral Psychology, Philosophy, Problem of Evil, Psychology, Religion, Social Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociobiology, Sociology, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Africa, Colonialism, Compassion, Hell, In-group/Outgroup Psychology, Joshua Greene, Joshua Knobe, Nihilism, Peter Singer, Poverty, Starvation No Comments »Sundaily Hilarity: Laughing In Tongues
July 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke From the always terrific Everything Is Terrible via Jerry Coyne.
A Materialist View Of Transcendence
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Greta Christina specifically addresses the meaning of sex from within a materialist’s mindset but her points can extend to more aspects of our experience as well, I think. The transcendent aspect of sex and of numerous other aspects of our experience can be derived from our meditative realization that we are participating in processes that [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Secularism, Sex Tags: Greta Christina, Materialism, Meaning, Spirituality, Transcendence No Comments »
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