August 2012 – Page 2 – William M. Briggs

The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism: Ugly Buildings, Ugly Paintings, Ugly Words, Ugly Life

Title before the colon taken from by Mark Anthony Signorelli and Nikos A. Salingaros's piece at New English Review. No real post today, just quotes from an article which is…

Statistics

A Peculiar Prevalence Of P Values Just Below .05

Today's title is lifted directly from the paper of E. J. Masicampo & Daniel R. Lalande, published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. The paper is here, and is…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feser’s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Interlude: Empiricism Is False

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. In going through Feser's book, many in the comments profess to be confused…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feser’s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Part III

First Things First Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. There is only one truth, and everybody must operate by…

Statistics

Stressed Men Prefer Chubby Chicks

Here's a title for you, "BMI Not WHR Modulates BOLD fMRI Responses in a Sub-Cortical Reward Network When Participants Judge the Attractiveness of Human Female Bodies." How about that? I…

Fun

Psychic Cleaners, Emails, & Dialogue

This is a somewhat famous sign on the royal road in Mountain View, California. To economize, the sign is shared by a gypsy and a dry cleaners. I passed by…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feserâ€™s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Part II

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. Act and Potential TLS is not a complete work of theology or philosophy,…

Culture Statistics

USA Homicide Rates: 1950-2010; By Race And Sex

How has the homicide rate changed through time? The Bureau of Justice Statistics of our great government compiles statistics on just this kind of thing. This data arises from the…

John Pate on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 16, 2025
Referring to my previous comment, it's nature via nurture. In any complex system transferring the plans to the finished item…
NLR on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 16, 2025
It sounds like Noble has some good points. People are increasingly recognizing problems with reductionism. For instance, saying that things…
Bobby Dress on How To Tell How Much Of “IQ” Is Inherited & How Much Is EnvironmentDecember 15, 2025
I’m fairly certain that obtaining my degree from Cornell had the unintended consequence of lowering whatever theoretical IQ I might…
JRob on How To Tell How Much Of “IQ” Is Inherited & How Much Is EnvironmentDecember 15, 2025
I love this debate about the heritability of intelligence. The smart people use a lot math about Gaussian and Pareto…
John Pate on How To Tell How Much Of “IQ” Is Inherited & How Much Is EnvironmentDecember 15, 2025
We know we don't understand consciousness let alone intelligence. IQ testing gets a bad rep though, it's a proxy for…