Culture – Page 187 – William M. Briggs

Belgian “Doctors” To Kill Kids They Think They Can’t Cure

Belgium has just made it legal for "doctors" to kill children. Not those who haven't yet escaped the womb---those kids have been fair game for any quack with a sharp…

Culture Philosophy

Entry For The Most Pompous Statement Of Scientism

Our friend John Cook came (via The Renaissance Mathematicus) across what is easily one of the most pompous declarations by a scientist we have ever seen. The words came from…

Culture

Professor Confesses Why She Inflates Grades

I had a student come into my office (where I was a visiting mathematics professor) shaking with emotion. This was a day or two before the final exam. I couldn't…

Culture Statistics

Lord, Save Us From Impact Factors

Randy Schekman, a Big Cheese in the sciences, is right: people use "place of publication as a proxy for quality of science". Where a paper is often counts more than…

Culture

On Who Regulates Medicine

From Louis Jolyon West, "The Medical World of Dr Stephen Maturin", in Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and a Bibliography, 1994, edited by A.E. Cunningham, WW Norton, New York, First American…

Culture Philosophy

Could A Virgin Birth Ever Really Happen?

In an article Salon mistitled "About that 'immaculate' conception"1---the immaculate conception speaks of St Mary's entry into the world, not Jesus's---Daniel Engber, a developmental neuroscientist at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, gives us…

Culture Statistics

Scientism, Legalism and Precaution: Regulating Nutrition and Health Claims in Europe

Announcing a new paper, with official title "Scientism, Legalism and Precaution -- Contending with Regulating Nutrition and Health Claims in Europe" in European Food and Feed Law Review by Jaap…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Friedrich A. Hayek’s Lecture “The Pretense of Knowledge”

This was reprinted in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. I've chopped it into parts for commenting. To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the…

Jim Fedako on The Week In Doom: The Distraction Of Truth EditionApril 19, 2024
"Critics 'are not merely authoritarian, they demonstrate pervasive normative rigidity that comes from Christian fear of judgement,'" says Boghossian while…
Heresolong on Why I Don’t Want To Be Made To Support IsraelApril 19, 2024
"Israel was created as a result of the Balfour declaration with Britain. " Might want to read up on the…
Incitadus on The Week In Doom: The Distraction Of Truth EditionApril 19, 2024
What a set of pricelessly insane headlines one hardly knows where to begin but remember the sole intention is to…
RussO on The Week In Doom: The Distraction Of Truth EditionApril 19, 2024
Maher has evidently never heard of the word "viewpoint". One can infer that, if they decided to blatantly cheat her…
C-Marie on William M. Briggs on Embracing Uncertainty and Stats as a False God – ThorinquiryApril 18, 2024
I Love to think. Wish all children were taught to think. My Dad started me on St. Thomas Aquinas at…