Philosophy – Page 123 – William M. Briggs

Diversity Is Not Always Desirable: Part I

I will continue to be away from the computer until (I think) this Thursday. So here is a corrected and amplified classic series, which originally ran in December 2010. Diversity…

Culture Philosophy

Squirrel Arrested For Stealing Nuts: Nonhuman Rights Entail Nonhuman Responsibilities

Wesley Smith writes at the Weekly Standard: [T]he annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science hosted a panel supporting the Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans, which…

Philosophy

Good Friday: Rally For Reason With St Anselm’s Ontological Argument

It's Good Friday, an excellent time to prove---I use this word in its logical sense---that many people come to religion through rational argument. We earlier this week examined the so-called…

Culture Fun Philosophy

The Reason Rally Fizzles

An army; well, a brigade; or anyway at least a couple of battalions of Brights milled around the mall in Washington DC on March 24---various estimates gave "highs are around…

Philosophy Statistics

The Humble Tautology And Probability

Start with the premises P1 = "All men are mortal" and P2 = "Socrates is a man" and from them we want to know the status of the conclusion C…

Philosophy

Bioengineering Humans To Combat Climate Change

Aren't bioethicists a fun bunch? When last we met this speculative crew, they were wondering whether we should "let baby live", and they were developing a pill to eliminate racism.…

Book review Philosophy

The Universe Created From Nothing Says Lawrence Krauss

This fragment of conversation was reported to me by a reliable witness. It occurred between a gentlemen we will call "Daffy" and Lawrence M. Krauss upon the occasion of the…

Philosophy Statistics

Bayes Theorem Proves Jesus Existed And Didn’t Exist

In his shockingly neglected, A Treatise on Probability John Maynard Keynes put his finger on the difficulty people have with probability, particularly Bayes's Theorem: No other formula in the alchemy…

Robert on Lady Pilots Better Than Men, Says The ScienceAugust 7, 2025
Years ago I read an analysis of accident statistics that seemed to make sense. They found that male and female…
Johnno on Academics Say It’s Morally Obligatory To Bioengineer Ticks To Stop You Eating MeatAugust 6, 2025
Put these academics in a box and ship them in a chilled container to General BBQ in Haiti in time…
Johnno on Lady Pilots Better Than Men, Says The ScienceAugust 6, 2025
BRIGGS YOU FOOL! This is good news! Put all of the lady conscripts on the front lines! I'll be here…
Johnno on New Definition Of Death To Increase Organ Harvest BountyAugust 6, 2025
That may happen JH, but some persons are very obviously objectively everyone-saw-him-in-plain-sight absolutely guilty. In fact it is overwhelmingly rare…
Brian (bulaoren) on Lady Pilots Better Than Men, Says The ScienceAugust 6, 2025
I am not surprised by these findings, just as I will not be surprised if a subsequent study finds that…