Category Archives: science

Awkward Questions

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

Ten years after the publication of The Blank Slate, The Daily Telegraph’s Ed West asks some awkward questions: …The blank slate doctrine affects almost every area of our lives. Take, for example, recent moves in Ireland to set quotas on … Continue reading →

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Treating Woo-Woo

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

Jules Evans over-worries: I had evangelists either side of me at dinner. The woman on my right was beautiful, charming and, technically speaking, psychotic. I mean that in the nicest possible way. Her eyes grew wide as she told me … Continue reading →

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Getting Skinny with Skinner

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

The Atlantic recently ran a piece on the use of smartphone apps as behavioral trainers. It is an interesting enough topic in its own right but it was a good reintroduction to B. F. Skinner too. I hadn’t thought about … Continue reading →

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Twins

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

From a WSJ review of a new book chronicling the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart: The Minnesota study’s IQ results hit a nerve years before their publication in 1990, overshadowing other controversies that might have been. Many of its … Continue reading →

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The “Bioethics” Fraud

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

Instapundit: “It’s always in bioethicists’ professional interest to suggest that a new technology raises troubling moral issues that require deep (funded) thought and extensive (lucrative) conferences.” Indeed.

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Science

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

How to lose a presidential election 101… Via The Hill The top donor behind a pro-Rick Santorum super-PAC said Thursday that contraception doesn’t have to be costly because women used to use aspirin for birth control. “This contraceptive thing, my … Continue reading →

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Against Self-Government

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

The Council of Europe is, in theory, meant to be some sort of bulwark for the citizens of its member countries against the power of the overreaching state. That’s the theory. But here’s how it really works. The Daily Mail … Continue reading →

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A Test of Civilization

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Andrew Stuttaford

Count me skeptical whether there is a ‘right’ to die, or a right to very much else for that matter, but a truly humane society would not force this helpless man to go to the courts for the relief he … Continue reading →

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Why are you a conservative?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by David Hume

This is addressed to people who consider themselves fundamentally conservative, and not libertarian, and, also reject the supernatural. By this, I mean that if you do support libertarian policies (I often do) it is not necessarily because you are at … Continue reading →

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The Machines That We Are

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the New Scientist: You can now experience the world through someone else’s eyes by tapping into their brain activity. Jack Gallant and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley developed a technique that uses brain scans to reconstruct what … Continue reading →

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