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Learn a foreign language, you sinners (Bonus: dissertation topic for somebody)
I’m kidding about the title of this post. Mostly. This month’s Scientific American: Mind* has a fascinating article by Catherine Caldwell-Harris about moral reasoning in a native language versus a second or foreign language. You need a subscription to read the whole thing, but fortunately for those without a subscription this article seems like a…
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Seeking value from serendipity: Eco, Ruse, Haidt
In his wonderful little book Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, Umberto Eco explores the power of false ideas. In the preface of the book he states concerning the first essay of the collection: The polemical title is “The Force of Falsity,” and in the lecture I wanted to show how a number of ideas that today…
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Suicide: Biology, Sociology and Religion
I have formally studied both psychology and biblical studies, which has entailed somewhat the study of religion in general. Over the last several days I’ve seen a considerable amount of discussion of suicide related to both psychology and religion, some of which has been heplful and some not with some of the unhelpful discussion being…
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Epstein reviews Turner’s The Origin of Ideas
I recently came across Robert Epstein’s scathing review of Mark Turner’s new book The Origin of Ideas in the March/April edition of Scientific American: Mind. I thought some followers of this blog might interested in reading it as well if not for Epstein’s sheer capacity to turn a phrase. Epstein was a student of Skinner…
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The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat meets Memory: A Very Short Introduction
This is a short review of the book Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H. M. by Suzanne Corkin. The title of the post gives my one sentence summary for those familiar enough with books on psychology. Permanent Present Tense has two primary characteristics that make it a worthwhile read. First,…
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ehr. ma. garsh. the Pope blessed a parrot.
Well, God blessed the birds too folks 🙂 … Read your Bibles. I think Genesis chapter 1 is in the protestant Bible, right?: 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the…