Katherine Stewart @kathsstewart has adapted parts of her excellent book, The Power Worshippers, for Free Inquiry, one of the Center for Inquiry’s 2 journals. She takes the lid off the very nasty Religious Nationalism movements that threaten US democracy:
Still reading Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler with horrified fascination. Hitler’s world-class egomania, lies, lazy incompetence, insane mood-swings, bonkers anthropological theories & bigoted, murderous nastiness were clear for all to see. Yet millions followed adoringly.
Just read ‘Freedom from Speech’ by Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff, co-author of ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, which is also very good, by the way). Strong title, and the book lives up to it. It’s short, in a series the publishers call Broadsides. Strongly recommended.
I’ve read Irreversible Damage, and I strongly recommend it.
Just read ‘Freedom from Speech’ by Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff, co-author of ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, which is also very good, by the way). Strong title, and the book lives up to it. It’s short, in a series the publishers call Broadsides. Strongly recommended.
Finished Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture. Superb (mostly because written by scientist) intro to philosophy. Now greatly enjoying Blueprint by Nicholas Christakis. So far, fascinating natural history of humans in small groups: shipwrecks, kibbutzes, shakers, communes, South Pole.
Very nice to see a thorough and vivid exposition of the Extended Phenotype (he calls it “Exophenotype”) by @NAChristakis in Chapter 10 of Blueprint, a book that I strongly recommend in general. So good to read a sociologist who understands evolution and takes it seriously.
Rereading A Huxley’s After Many a Summer. Brilliant portrayal of US culture through horrified eyes of literary Englishman + juxtaposition of his literary culture with science, perhaps gleaned from Julian H. Skip tedious philosophy of Mr Propter character (A Huxley himself?)
Excellent article by the distinguished geneticist AWF Edwards on the lamentable posthumous dishonouring by Caius College of RA Fisher, true genius, founder of population genetics & modern statistics, and arguably the greatest Darwinian since Darwin.