Haidt & Mooney, Moral Foundations & Spiral Dynamics

This post is the third in my series about Haidt’s newest book, The Righteous Mind (here is the previous post, second in the series). I was watching a video of Jonathan Haidt speaking about compassion in respect to the moral values of liberals and conservatives. I’ve already criticized Haidt elsewhere in the first post in the series (basically, Haidt [...]

Anti-Science in Academia?

There is a phenomena I came across again: anti-science. I wouldn’t feel compelled to write about it again, though, if it didn’t frustrate me so much. The reason I feel frustrated in this moment is because of three different interactions I’ve had this past week or so. What stood out to me is that these [...]

Is Psychological Research Liberally Biased?

http://www.polipsych.com/2011/02/10/liberal-academics-study-conservative-ideology/ I don’t know if reality has a liberal bias, but I can think of one factor that relates to liberalism and the ability to assess reality. One study I’ve seen showed that liberals were on average less susceptible to confirmation bias than conservatives. Maybe it is unsurprising that conservatives wouldn’t be attracted to a [...]

God & Freewill, Theists & Atheists

God and freewill, two things that will forever perplex me. I see them as basically on the same level, theological concepts. God is the faith of the theists. And freewill is the faith of the atheists. I don’t mean this in a necessarily dismissive way. I actually am affirming the notion of faith. We humans aren’t [...]

Jonathan Haidt’s Liberal-Minded Anti-Liberalism

Jonathan Haidt wrote a new book, The Righteous Mind. I haven’t seen the book, but I listened to an interview by Bill Moyers. I recommend checking it out. Haidt does have an insightful view, although I think his view would be even more insightful if he synthesized his own research with other psychological research about [...]

Dull Scientists and the Reliable ‘Dumb’

Why are modern scientists so dull? Medical Hypotheses. Volume 72, Issue 3, Pages 237-243 Bruce G. Charlton “Question: why are so many leading modern scientists so dull and lacking in scientific ambition? Answer: because the science selection process ruthlessly weeds-out interesting and imaginative people. At each level in education, training and career progression there is [...]

Fortean Curiosity: Liberalism & Intelligence

I was hanging out with a friend and chatting about important issues of life… such as the existence of Men In Black and the nature of Fortean realities. Ya know, important issues. My friend mentioned an author he had come across who described his own supposed experiences with Men In Black. He portrayed them as being [...]

US Peace Index (state comparison)

More fascinating data about the US. This is further data which confirms my analysis in a recent blog post: America’s North/South Divide (& other regional data) I’m, of course, not surprised. It makes sense why such patterns exist once you understand some of the underlying factors. We might not normally think about their influence, but [...]

America’s 10 Most Segregated Cities: analysis, commentary

I noticed this article from Huffington Post: America’s 10 Most Segregated Cities 1. Detroit, Michigan The reason I noticed was because the data showed a North/South (i.e., blue/red) divide which is something I wrote about in great detail a short while ago: America’s North/South Divide (& other regional data) However, the HuffPo data seems to imply [...]

White Supremacy Defeated… yet again

I keep coming across racists/racialists who are obsessed with IQ. I dealt with this some in what I posted yesterday. Here is the relevant section: The white supremacists love IQ because African Americans on average have lower IQs. The white supremacists argue that this is genetic, but there is no conclusive evidence for this hypothesis [...]