Blog Stats
- 2,882,414 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- What does Lee Smolin mean when he says that the most fundamental theory can have no symmetries? – GrindSkills on Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn: Physics, Evolution, Atheism, and Buddhism
- Anon on Hanger 18: 1950s Military Clerk-Typist, June Crane, Claims That There Were Alien Bodies Stored at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
- ra on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Mars on Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- lastunicorn5 on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Rhianna on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Nevaeh on Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible’s “Night of the Living Dead” Passage
- Dogwhistle politics explained on A List Of Republican Dog Whistles That No Longer Seem To Work
- Why Do Christian Fundamentalists Burn Books – theologyarchaeology on Does the Bible Advocate Book Burning?
- Philosophy homework help - Nursing Essays Center on Feminism for Beginners
- Philosophy homework help - Coursework Heros on Feminism for Beginners
- Pat on Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
- Answer the questions | Philosophy homework help | Writings Gate on Feminism for Beginners
- mike on Blogging UFOs: What Do You Make of Professor Robert Jacobs’s Bizarre UFO Testimony?
- Ray Léonard on In praise of Chateauneuf (Voltaire’s godfather and tutor)
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- "The Vision of Christ That Thou Dost See": William Blake on the Many Faces of Jesus
- "Male and Female Created He Them!": Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam's Body?
- Climate Scientists Contemplate Moves To Canada and Greenland
- "The Poet's Eye in Fine Frenzy Rolling": Shakespeare and the Origin of Religion
-
Recent Posts
Recent Haiku Tweets
- @abrahampiper Yahweh as a frustrated deity, much to be pitied! Abraham Piper's insight here, if thought about as a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 year ago
- RT @tbonier: More than 80M votes cast and we're not done yet. Thoughts: - It's too late for an "October surprise" to have a significant imp… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: 1. Want to thank @DanielNewman for using his HUGE platform for this work. I want to clarify what this is. In the voter… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Tell me again about how old and feeble Joe Biden is??? twitter.com/ProjectLincoln… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Remember when you had a chance to choose country over party and you chose party @SenatorCollins? Well, @ProjectLincol… 1 year ago
Tag Archives: progress
“Robo sapiens”
O brave new world! In the science section of The New York Times this week is a report on Atlas, a recently designed robot built for use by the Pentagon: “People love the wizards in Harry Potter or ‘Lord of the Rings,’ but … Continue reading
Sunita Williams’s Guided Tour of the International Space Station
This is life in space with departing International Space Station Commander, Sunita Williams. A few hours after making this video, she returned to Earth, landing in Kazakhstan with two of her colleagues, one from Russia and one from Japan. __________ If … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged astronauts, NASA, progress, science, space, space station, the Enlightenment
Leave a comment
Gray on Pink(er): Because of Our Evolution, the Irrational We’ll Always Have With Us
John Gray thinks Steven Pinker’s thesis in his new book—in which Pinker argues that the world is progressing toward an ever less violent future—is deluded. In the Jacob-wrestle between Enlightenment rationality and our evolution-formed imperatives, Gray is betting that our … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, evolution, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, progress, reason, steven pinker, the Enlightenment
5 Comments
The Truth of Progress: Steven Pinker Interviewed by Reason Magazine
Steven Pinker’s new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, on the decline of violence through history, is great—maybe his best book ever. Well, on second thought, let’s say it ties his The Blank Slate. That’s saying a lot. Here’s Pinker talking about The … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged nonviolence, peace, progress, psychology, reason, science, steven pinker, the Enlightenment, violence
3 Comments
Think big thoughts: two images from the 1909 Paris Air Show held at the Grand Palais
Maybe your life’s vision is set too low. Take the Paris Air Show of 1909 for inspiration, and think of how far people with vision, intelligence, ambition, and imagination managed to reach in just the past one hundred years. Can you imagine … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged exhibition, flight, life, Motivation, Paris, planes, progress, reason, science, space, technology, vision
2 Comments
A delicious deconstruction of John Gray by A.C. Grayling
Of John Gray’s Black Mass, A.C. Grayling writes that the book: tells us that the world is in a bad way and that there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps we can infer from this that his aim … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged a.c. grayling, atheism, Christianity, Hitler, John Gray, progress, reason, science, secular humanism, stalin, the myth of progress
6 Comments
Evolutionary Progress: From Darwin to Hitler?
Richard Weikart is Professor of Modern European History at California State University, Stanislaus. He has a new book that has just come out. It is titled Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). I got the book … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, biology, eugenics, evolution, history, progress, Richard Weikart, science
Leave a comment
40 Years Ago, on July 20, 1969, Human Beings Stepped onto the Moon
And here’s what the front page of the New York Times looked like on July 21, 1969: I can’t help but hear, in the headline, an echo of the ancient Roman Imperium: We came, we saw, we conquered. And here’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged anniversary, history, life, lunar, lunar surface, moon, moonwalk, NASA, neil armstrong, progress, science, space
Leave a comment
Prometheus Unbound 