Applied Epistemology - Culture

Race in the 17th century

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:09:51 -0500

Justin Smith has written an interesting essay on early modern ideas about human races. I found especially suggestive his observation that the decline of cataclysm-based theories about race was a key step toward replacing myth with history.

Etymology, the first web

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:49:23 -0500

The things you discover when you're curious about Coney Island:

c.1200, from Anglo-Norm. conis, pl. of conil "long-eared rabbit" (Lepus cunicula) from L. cuniculus, the small, Sp. variant of the It. hare (L. lepus), the word perhaps from Iberian Celtic (classical writers say it is Spanish). Rabbit arose 14c. to mean the young of the species, but gradually pushed out the older word 19c., after British slang picked up coney as a synonym for "cunt" (cf.

When Marvel was hard up

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:38:44 -0500

In the dark age of 1991, before Marvel produced its own movies, it produced an unspeakably bad licensed comic. Click on the links at the end of the article.

These police officers should be leveling up

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:26:08 -0500

...I mean, how many cops can say they've arrested sorcerers?

You get rich, then you cling to God

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:30:51 -0500

Obama and Thomas Frank appear to be flat-out wrong.

Sectarianism

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:03:07 -0500

Political philosopher Avishai Margalit has written a perceptive essay on the role of sectarianism in modern politics. An extended quote:

"The idea of the holy is the idea of that which is nonnegotiable. Commodities are divisible either physically or in terms of the duration of their use. What is divisible can be subject to compromise. We can split the difference. The idea of the sacred—at least in monotheistic religions—describes what is indivisible and hence not subject to compromise. If a fetus’s life is sacred, then no splitting of pregnancy into trimesters is allowed.

R.I.P. E.G.G.

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:53:45 -0600

The NYT obit correctly points out Gygax's great accomplishment: he brought fantasy to the people. Before 1973, fantasy was a genre of fiction. After D&D, it became an interactive medium. In this respect, D&D is to fantasy what photography is to painting.

Fun fact from the original D&D book I ("Men & Magic"): "the referee to pl

The decline of religion

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:57:03 -0600

Alan Wolfe (whom I have long regarded as one of America's most shallow public intellectuals) read a Pew study on religions around the world and draws the obvious conclusion: that religion is slowly dying. It's gratifying to find others draw the same conclusions I did a while back.

Celebrity Tolkienologist

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:43:23 -0600

I knew that Stephen Colbert was a big D&D player, but only today did I discover this 2003 interview, in which Colbert shows his Tolkien IQ (and judgment about Faramir's characterization) to be mighty geektacular. (His paraphrase of Faramir's

There should be a quiz before you can vote

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:07:38 -0600

Verbatim excerpt from a student paper:

For instance, when the September 11 attacks occurred during 2001, and most people started blaming the Iraqi people and a dislike towards them was established, I was taught in my household not to blame all the Iraqi people for a mistake that one person committed. However, most people including some of my friends and relatives till this day are against Iraqi people because of what one person by the name of Saddam Hussein did. [...] In this situation they were committing a fallacy called hasty generalization.

Hakim's Story of Science

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:22:13 -0500

A few weeks ago, I picked up the third and final volume of Joy Hakim's Story of Science. It's a nicely detailed and handsomely illustrated history of science for 10-12 year olds. Like Hakim's earlier, acclaimed multi-volume history of the U.S., it's intended to be used as a textbook, especially for homeschoolers.

Secret origins

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:34:06 -0500

One of my hobbies is finding the causal ancestors of fictional inventions. (Spare me your pity.) My most recent investigation is too rich not to share.

The human characters from Scooby-Doo were, like many other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, loosely based on characters from a live-action sitcom (as the Flintstones is a Honeymooners manque), in this case, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Maynard G. Krebs (played by Bob Denver), middle America's inkling of what a beatnik was like, was thus the archetype for Shaggy. Velma, the orange-sweatered, bespectacled "smart girl", was derived from Zelda, the "smart girl" busybody of the show. Zelda was played by actress Sheila James. Sheila James is better known nowadays as ... click here.

Time's up

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:58:19 -0500

The relentless quest for new cell phone numbers in California has claimed 853-1212, a.k.a. the Time Lady. The funny thing is that the Time Lady's Pacific Daylight Time is currently about 2:20 behind the time I get on my phone's display. (I think the Time Lady is more accurate -- at least,

Uncomprehending reading not limited to college students

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:12:56 -0500

The NYT puts forth another fawning piece on the ultra-rich, this time about their shelf decorations reading habits. We discover that the founder of Visa's love of "the great philosophers and the novelists of Western life" yielded a vanity neologism -- "chaordic". (Mr. Hock thus managing to equal the imagination and literacy of a thirteen-year-old Everquest player.) Meanwhile, Mr.

Why I don't believe conspiracy theories

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:49:54 -0500

The short version: because people are too dumb to keep secrets. And that includes the CIA.

The slightly expanded version: conspiracy theories presume a wildly implausible view of human nature. They suppose that almost all human beings are easily beguiled sheep, except the handful of suprahuman geniuses who run the world (and perhaps the few brave, lonely, undersocialized truth-tellers who see through The Man's deceptions).