Category Archives: Uncategorized

John Allen Paulos, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. Basic Books, 1995. Author’s Conclusion: Always be smart. Seldom be certain. Journalists should ask, in addition to Who, Where, What, etc., How Many? And How Likely? And no matter how detailed the … Continue reading →

Scene 25. The psychiatrist, concerning the worship of a 17-year-old stable boy raised in isolation by his religious mother: I only know it’s the core of his life. What else has he got? Think about him. He can hardly read. … Continue reading →

Steven Pinker’s favorite books http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/steven-pinkers-10-favorite-books.html include title by Gamow, Dawkins, Deutsch, and his wife Sean Carroll’s correctives to Jordan Peterson’s fandom Cleaning your room is good; using pseudo-intellectual babble about archetypes to identify culture with masculinity is… Posted by Sean … Continue reading →

I’m far behind on posting “Links and Comments”, and think I should try to do so daily. For now, I’m catching up on everything I’ve copied to my notepad documents for blog use, listing them in reverse chrono order, with … Continue reading →

Slate: Donald Trump Doesn’t Share America’s Values. The Transcript of His Call to the Philippine President Proves It. \\ The Blaze (which I never look at but I saw via a relative’s Fb post): Fake academic paper published in liberal … Continue reading →

I’ve never marched for any cause — it’s not my style — but I think tomorrow’s “March for Science” is as worthy as anything could be, despite the inevitable casting of science as some sort of partisan issue. It’s the … Continue reading →

In discussing the human advantage of long-term memory [in the book I’ll post notes about shortly], enabling us to plan and imagine possible futures, he reflects that, with every death, an entire library of experience is lost. He recalls his … Continue reading →