I’m back from my first trip to India, where I visited Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, and Amritsar. I enjoyed fine company in all four cities. In Mumbai, my new friend Sachin Aggarwal, head of the local EconTalk Club, rolled out the red carpet — and ACX Mumbai joined the festivities. (Thank you, Scott Alexander, for creating…
Below is my column in The Hill on the Musk mania now sweeping over the media with pundits and politicians unleashing unhinged attacks on the billionaire. In an Age of Rage, Musk is now eclipsing Donald Trump as Public Enemy No. 1. It began with his stance against censorship. Here is the column:
In prior columns, academic articles, and my book, “The Indispensable Right, I discuss the never-ending litigation targeting Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who declined to make cakes that violated his religious beliefs. Phillips continues to be the subject of continuing lawsuits despite the Supreme Court upholding his right to decline to make expressive products […]
Over at sapiens.org, an anthropology magazine, author Elaine Guevara (a lecturer in evolutionary anthropology at Duke) takes modern genetics education to task. Making a number of assertions about what students from high school to college learn in their genetics courses, Guevara claims that this type of education imparts “zombie ideas”: outdated but perpetually revived notions […]
Socialism, once hailed as a visionary and revolutionary alternative to capitalism, has deep roots in the progressive movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Advocating for state control of the means of production and a more equitable distribution of wealth, socialism aimed to correct the injustices of industrial capitalism. However, as we navigate the […]
Below is my column in USA Today on the most chilling moment from the Vance-Walz debate when the Democratic nominee showed why he is part of the dream ticket for the anti-free speech movement. Here is the column: In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm. His opponent, Sen.…
The “Listener letter” appeared in 2021, signed by 7 professors at the University of Auckland (see it here) in New Zealand. It was a response to the drive (still going on) to teach indigenous “ways of knowing”, Mātauranga Māori (MM), as coequal with science in science classes. The letter argued that while MM was of […]
An argument against the use of personal definitions of words can be framed around the concepts of communication efficacy, shared meaning, and societal cohesion. 1. Undermines Effective Communication The primary purpose of language is to facilitate clear communication between individuals. Personal definitions of words undermine this goal by distorting the shared meaning that allows people […]
Byrne Hobart writes to me: One of the purposes of inheritance taxes is to avoid compounding intergenerational wealth. But The Missing Billionaires points out that if all of America’s millionaires had put their money in broad market indices in 1900, their heirs would number 16,000 billionaires, even accounting for taxes, splitting estates among multiple children, etc. So […]
Benjamin Franklin once wrote “Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.” Yet, Franklin might be a bit confused by his critics at the University of Pennsylvania. Anti-Israel activists vandalized his statue as a symbol of colonialism. The man who was instrumental in the Declaration of Independence against the British Empire is being denounced […]
Hillary Clinton has long been one of the most anti-free speech figures in American politics, including calling upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). She is now suggesting the arrest of Americans who spread what she considers disinformation. It is a crushingly ironic moment…
As Australia approaches its next cycle of state and federal elections, the radical Aussie Federal Government is pushing laws which could silence media criticism of their key policy positions.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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