The anti-free speech movement in the United States was largely an outgrowth of higher education where viewpoint intolerance has taken hold of many schools. Indeed, intolerance and orthodoxy are often defended on the left in the name of tolerance and pluralism. Harvard Professor Timothy McCarthy is one of those voices demanding the removal of faculty […]
Posting will be light today as I am embroiled in many issues and am troubled. One question for which I’ve always received feedback is this: did a “Jesus person”—a human on which the Biblical legends of the New Testament are based—really exist? I’m not accepting that any of the deeds attributed to a “Jesus” are […]
A reader inquired if the support lost by the major party of Government since the election is a record. I didn’t think so, but have now gone and checked the data. This compares the 1st 1 News poll of the middle year of a term against the last election result. So the biggest gain at […]
Here’s Richard Dawkins ostensibly discussing his new book (The Genetic Book of the Dead) with Steve Pinker, but of course you can’t confine a discussion between these two to a single book. Even from the beginning it ranges widely, in which Pinker discusses not only the epiphany that The Selfish Gene gave him, but levels […]
Long ago, I co-blogged for EconLog with Arnold Kling. Now he’s running a book club for Liberty Fund. Last month, Arnold invited me and philosopher Rachel Ferguson to discuss Mike Huemer’s new Progressive Myths. Enjoy!
These UK poll results from Matt Goodwin are disturbing. The number of adults who would refuse to fight for their country has more than doubled in 20 years from 19% to 41%. In one sense it is no surprise. When “the blob” constantly portrays your country as an oppressor, and that you should be ashamed […]
An excellent EconTalk episode with Pete Boettke on the socialist calculation debate. I like Boettke on the three Ps. The three Ps–property, prices, and profits and loss. Property incentivizes us. Prices guide us. Profits lure us to new changes and losses discipline us. Today, “incentives matter” is often considered the first lesson of economics. But […]
In The Conversation last October, Andrew Thomas (Deakin University) discussed the recent (at that time) military flare-up between Iran and Israel, likening it to a ‘game of chicken’:Israel’s strike on military targets in Iran over the weekend is becoming a more routine occurrence in the decades-long rivalry between the two states…There is a reason why…
The latest 8-9 minute comedy/news bit hasn’t yet been posted on YouTube, but there is a two-minute chuckle on new posters reflecting America’s new set of allies. It’s called “Rosie the Pivoter,” and here it is:
Elon recently re-opened the perennial debate about whether Social Security is a ponzi scheme. Here’s my, lightly edited post from 2011. Elon is in good company calling social security a ponzi scheme. First up is Nobel prize winner Paul Samuelson who wrote: The beauty of social insurance is that it is actuarially unsound. Everyone who reaches […]
Gov. Tim Walz has never appeared burdened by legal niceties or accuracy in pushing his agenda, including his anti-free speech policies. However, his recent effort to block an effort to enact a “no duty to retreat” rule for self-defense hit a new low. Walz completely misrepresented not only the underlying bill, HF 13, but ignored […]
One clause of the Magna Carta says: All merchants shall have safe and secure exit from England, and entry to England, with the right to tarry there and to move about as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs, quit from all evil tolls So tariffs […]
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.
“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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