The rise of the west and the changing sociopolitical landscape

Aeon this weekend highlighted a 2017 article by Joel Mokyr looking at how Europe became the richest part of the world (or at least one of the richest).  Historically, there have been many theories, ranging from racist rationals, cultural ones, to it merely being Europe and the overall west's turn to be on top. That … Continue reading The rise of the west and the changing sociopolitical landscape

Don’t teach Congress about science and technology; teach the voters

M. Anthony Mills has a short piece at Politico advocating the return of the OTA (Office of Technology Assessment), which was defunded in the 1990s as a budget cutting measure.  The argument is that congress needs to know more about science and technology, that maybe if they knew more, they'd make better decisions. Except, politics … Continue reading Don’t teach Congress about science and technology; teach the voters

Having productive internet conversations

Anyone who's frequented this blog knows I love having discussions, and can pontificate all day on subjects I'm interested in.  I've actually been participating in online discussions, on and off, for decades. My earliest conversations were on dial up bulletin boards.  Those were usually tightly focused discussions about technology and gaming.  With the rise of … Continue reading Having productive internet conversations

Why the US two party system is so entrenched

The other day, I came across this Big Think explanation by historian Sean Wilentz on why the US always seems to gravitate to a two party system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnju7zOH_Zs Unfortunately, while I think Wilentz touches on the main points, his explanation doesn't seem as clear as it could be. To start off, he refers to the … Continue reading Why the US two party system is so entrenched

The reliability hierarchy of expert opinion

There's been a mild amount of angst on the internet in recent days over a couple of well known science communicators espousing nonsense on matters outside of their field.  The first was Bill Nye, who made comments about philosophy that most charitably could be described as uninformed.  The second was Neil deGrasse Tyson's tweets about biology expressing … Continue reading The reliability hierarchy of expert opinion