William Souder’s 2004 biography of John James Audobon, Under a Wild Sky, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His newest book, On a Farther Shore, chronicles the life and […]
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I was speaking at The University of Texas — Pan American not long ago and a student asked me a question that had never been asked of me in more […]
When a German court in Cologne ruled last month that baby boys could not be circumcised for religious reasons, Jewish and Muslim groups erupted in protest while a chorus of […]
On Tuesday, Monsignor William Lynn, former secretary of clergy for the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was sentenced to three to six years in prison for his role in shielding pedophile […]
Scaremail fights government surveillance with the power of nonsense.
Fresh off his potential “Colbert Bump,” conceptual artist Jeff Koons took a potential PR black eye this weekend in a New York Times Magazine piece titled “I Was Jeff Koons’s […]
Anecdotal evidence has long associated genius with mental instability but new neurological research suggests there is a solid biological reason why psychosis inspires creativity.
Back in April, after Romney had pulled ahead of his GOP presidential competitors for good, I wrote about Romney’s penchant, a la Donald Trump and other mega millionaires, to reframe […]
I am beginning to think that Republicans in the House of Representatives need to go whole hog on this Eric Holder contempt of Congress vote and have the U. S. […]
We don’t know what the future will bring in terms of enhancement. But to be fundamentally opposed to it is to fundamentally opposed to the future of medical science.
A Q&A With Dr. John L. Casti, author, X-Events: The Collapse of Everything Dr. John L. Casti is a complexity scientist. This is one of those job descriptions I would […]
If “LA MoCA” sounds to you like something you’d order from Starbucks, then you probably don’t know anything about the recent kerfuffle surrounding what is being called the murder of […]
The extramarital alliance has an interesting history of its own. It’s not all clichés from John Updike and Gay Talese. Here’s a snapshot of how various moments in history might […]
NOTE: I recommend you click “View Entire Story”, so the endnotes work. When prostitution cases are brought before a judge in Britain, a particular kind of “John” (or customer) will […]
“[T]he Author of Nature has determin’d us to receive… a Moral Sense, todirect our Actions, and to give us still nobler Pleasures.” That appeal was made in 1725 by Scottish philosopher […]
On Mother’s Day, in a sermon to his flock at the Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina, Pastor Charles Worley revealed his plan to rid America of its homosexuals: […]
While scientists jump to answer this notoriously difficult question, scientific observation is not well suited to finding the cosmic will that the question implies. This stumper is better left alone.
This is a lengthy post but I want to do justice to Adam Lee, Big Think and the arguments. These are my initial thoughts. Fellow Big Think blogger and friend, […]
Back in May, I reviewed Steven Pinker’s hugely ambitious new book The Better Angels of Our Nature, about the decline of violence through history. I couldn’t do justice to all […]
While writing this post, my mood will vary. I’ll enjoy the beginning – riffing on a new idea is always exciting – but I’ll inevitably hit difficult patches. A few […]
John Gray’s review of Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind is fun because Gray is vehemently opposed to almost everything, but he clearly thinks this is a pretty good book anyway. […]
Due to Friday’s historic Supreme Court ruling, this installment of Purpose, Inc. will delve into an important relationship lesson that models “the perfect ask” as told through Obama, the Bushes, […]
The amygdala is a part of the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions. How does the amygdala function differently in a psychopath’s brain from that of a normal person?
In the midst of an intense meditation on Walt Whitman in his Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence suddenly proclaims: The essential function of art is moral. Not […]
Today’s breaking news was, of course, that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare”. In what will doubtless go down in American history […]
The first post in a series looking at John Stuart Mill and the defence of individual liberty. The great English philosopher and thinker John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) regarded himself as […]
This essay was previously published on AlterNet. In the summer of 2010, I saw him several times a week: a portly, dark-skinned gentleman, leaning against a pillar in Penn Station […]
Here’s a distinguished political scientist—Jacqueline Stevens—who agrees with me that the NSF ought to cut the funding for political science. The Republicans in Congress think that these “scientists” are covertly […]
A new meme is emerging in the blogosphere: Obama as the “imperial president.” From the left, Tom Egelhardt claims Obama “has the powers previously associated with the gods” while Steve […]
What could it mean to say that the self is an illusion? Here’s Bruce Hood, author of the new book The Self Illusion, in an interview at Sam Harris’ joint: […]