Society

So the editors actually noticed?: Duarte et al provide evidence suggesting that social psychology is not a welcoming environment for conservatives. Papers are reviewed differently depending on whether they are considered to support liberal vs. conservative positions, and anonymous surveys reveal a considerable percentage of social psychologists willing to explicitly report negative attitudes towards conservatives. This shouldn’t surprise us. Everything social psychologists know about group behavior tells us that overwhelming homogeneity, especially when defined through an important component of one’s identity like political ideology, will lead to negativity towards an outgroup. We also know a thing or two about confirmation bias and all the ways in which it can affect our decision-making, and it is odd to suggest it might Read More ›

I spend a bit of time teaching and talking to junior-high and high-schoolers, especially homeschool students. One of the things that I try to teach them is how to approach teachers who are Darwinists when they get to college. Anyway, I though some readers might be students and might appreciate the advice. Obviously, this is not gospel-truth, but it might give you a place to start from.
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Tania Lombrozo has a great piece up at NPR on why, more importantly than common ground, is charitable ground.
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We live in a post-modern [actually, ultra-modern . . . in Joe Carter’s sense of “modernity on volume level ELEVEN, not merely  ten” . . . ] world, or so we are commonly told. In that world, it is a commonplace to hear that “Aristotelian logic” exhibits a black- and- white thinking fallacy (strawman: any shade of pink, gold or green  etc. will do as NOT-WHITE . . . ). It is equally commonplace to see that truth and rationality are reduced in the minds of such to mere opinion, to be decided in the end by the nihilistic principle might and manipulation make ‘right.’ Which is in itself a big red warning flag. In such a situation, those who Read More ›

Over at the KF blog, we have recently been entertaining some ghosts from our civilisation’s past, who are concerned about its present and now sadly likely future in light of the sad history recorded in Acts 27, of a sea voyage to Rome gone disastrously wrong because the voyagers were manipulated into venturing back out at Fair Havens, when they ought to have been wintering. That is, while democracy is obviously better than realistic alternatives, there is nothing sacred or necessarily sound and wise about majority rule (even when minorities are heard out, respected and protected — as seems increasingly to be fading away . . . ), especially when the majority view has been manipulated by agenda driven interests. Read More ›

Yesterday, I ran across the video to be shown below and posted a comment that I think needs to be headlined and seriously pondered if we are concerned that the university functions in an objective, fair-minded, truth-seeking way: This study (HT: WK) as presented in a short lecture by Dr George Yancey — a sociologist — on bias against Christians in the academy, among progressives (especially cultural progressives) and even in IQ tests, should give food for thought as we reflect on the above. Video: Dr Yancey’s  IQ test questions (strictly: fallacy-detection questions, evidently used by some to claim that Christians are less intelligent than secularist progressives and fellow travellers) are especially revealing of how biases are embedded in what Read More ›

A couple of days back, we saw where Cornelius Hunter put up one of his dual post comments here at UD; on the recent proposal to set up a Darwin Day celebration. In glancing at the commentary at his personal blog, I came across the following highly revealing exchange involving one of the most virulent objectors against UD, from here on: N: [cites T] “but not okay to name a day after someone who actually lived,…” [Responds:] I hope by this statement you aren’t implying Christ never existed. Later, we find this comeback: T: [Cites N]  “I hope by this statement you aren’t implying Christ never existed.” [Comments:] Can you provide any evidence that “Jesus Christ” ever existed? And no, Read More ›

Off topic, but important as a service to UD’s readers. HERE. Pardon, I took some days before commenting, until I found some useful info beyond the media panic headlines. Notice the clip from Oracle’s advisory, the link to the FAQ and the further link on gory technical details. The bottomline is that over the past year Java has apparently been the vector used for 50% of hacking attacks, and Adobe reader has been used for 28%. Internet Explorer and Windows — the “traditional” targets of hobbyist hackers and those who hack for money from organised crime or spy agencies —  by contrast, have gone way down. At least, as percentages. Hacking is not going away, and we need to take Read More ›

( To comment, kindly go here) One of the objections to the markup of the Wiki ID article is that this is tilting at a windmill. I disagree. It should already be plain that the Wiki article is representative of a standard set of talking points used to polarise the unwary against design theory, and to lead them to think there is nothing serious to see here, move along. But, as has been shown step by step over the past several days, this is based on a willfully constructed false narrative. One, that brings Wikipedia’s vaunted commitment to a neutral point of view and to objectivity into serious question. However,  there is a second good reason to putting on record Read More ›

Yesterday, we saw how Wikipedia is one of the most influential sites on the Internet, how it vaunts itself on its commitment to NPOV, a neutral point of view: Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. This policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it. “Neutral point of view” is one of Wikipedia’s three core content policies. The other two are “Verifiability” and “No original research“. These Read More ›

Yesterday was a hard day, even for those like me who were quite late to the news. We woke up here to the news on BBC — a Caribbean tradition — that someone in China had attacked a classroom with a knife of some kind and had slashed twenty-two children. This, in a country where there is a very harsh one child per family law, backed up by forced abortions etc. And, apparently, it is not the first such recent attack in that country. (Cf article in the Hartford Courant — and yes, that is tragically close to home.) Then, across the course of the day, news emerged of a similar attack in an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut, USA. Read More ›