radicalcontra

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Reversing global warming reminds me of a similar argument about health care insurance reform: first get everyone together to agree to fight it, and then worry about the price tag.

I’d just rather avoid the detour of essentialism completely. John Horgan tries wittily to pit essentialist arguments deploying a primate mascot as an exemplar with his own poster monkey.

The danger of essentialism was underscored by another St. Louis speaker, Karen Strier of the University of Wisconsin. She has spent almost 30 years studying South American [...]

This is a political analog. George Johnson is just too polite, and I support John Horgan’s robust conception of using the terms, “theory” and “fact”. Progressives kick ass with the reactionaries, and the moderates are far too conciliatory. It’s all about the context. Undergrads and laypeople need verities; scientists are always in creative ferment. The [...]

I took a break from horror films and talking points battles about Muslims in the US military to give myself a real scare, by entering the scary world of science politics. Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos, a 2006 documentary laughing at both sides of the intelligent design-evolution legal battle. My wife finds the notion of [...]

James Kwak reasonably parries:
There is the obvious fact that a person’s income as an adult is highly correlated with his or her parents’ income. (There was a recent debate about why in the blogosphere, but as far as I know no one contesting that this was the case.) But beyond that, we all owe a [...]

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This is how a real leader plays!

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On one hand, I'm just fascinated by this entire world crowded with proto-hominid and other primate species. The question of how Ardi's home in a wooded environment affected bipedalism and brain development has my little brain racing.

On the other hand, there's just not a lot of material for these conjectures. And, yes, the questions are compelling, but it also creates yet another salient through which Intelligent Design crackpots can attack Darwin - since a social explanation for bipedalism, not a technol

I know thinking about the Koreas and Maldives in the same light might be surprising, and heretical. It’s just that the images are certainly jarring, but also manipulative. Tiger Spirit concerns the human side of the Korean peninsula security issue. (Arguably, the security issue IS the only salient concern.) And, in a publicity stunt [...]

I really need to watch The Planet of the Apes again. Better still, I should read the book. First comes Ardipithecus ramidus, and now Franz De Waals

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(Part Two)
If I weren’t so angered about the hole into which regulators, bankers, and politicians have sunk the value of the world economy, I would find Paul Volcker’s jovial baritone a lot more entertaining.
I still want to know why Volcker isn’t Treasury Secretary.
Posted in Books/Movies/Media, [...]

Mark Ward has some pretty strong words about the United Nations’ local procurement practices in Afghanistan. it might not seem as sexy as General McChrystal and counter-insurgency operations, but what Ward criticizes highlights what might be even more sinister. Afghanistan is feeding a lot of contracts, and Afghans aren’t benefitting.
Posted in Business/Economy, Central Asia, IGOs [...]