by Carl Howard | Nov 25, 2014 | Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, History, Medicine, Race, Resources, Food and Environment
The idea of Africa as a single place is common in Western countries, which has many consequences. I’ve looked at some of these before in terms of the idea of dividing countries up into first world and third world (here and here). There is a great website focussed...
by Carl Howard | Nov 11, 2014 | Atheism and Religion, Atrocities and Oppression, Biases and Fallacies, Feminism and LGBT, Science and Skepticism
There have been Deep Rifts™ within the atheist and skeptical communities [in English-speaking countries]. These have now been covered enough in the wider media that you might have heard of them even if you don’t identify with any of those groups. Just in the last 2...
by Carl Howard | Nov 4, 2014 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Evolution and Biology, Science and Skepticism
To start with (Via Pharyngula), an astoundingly ignorant rant: “My primary reason for being here is because I believe the Supreme Court should not be legislating from the bench. But I also believe that homosexuality is bad thing,”? he said. “It used to be useful when...
by Carl Howard | Nov 4, 2014 | Atheism and Religion, Atrocities and Oppression, Ethics, Feminism and LGBT, Language, Philosophy
I have a pet peeve: the use of the term “offensive”. Ok, it’s more than a pet peeve – I think its use in public discourse is misleading and harmful. To start, here are some uses of “offensive” that are particularly cringeworthy: You don’t have a right not to be...
by Carl Howard | Oct 21, 2014 | Atheism and Religion, Ethics, Feminism and LGBT, History, Resources, Food and Environment
No, I don’t think I’m exaggerating here. The consensus for population growth has been that the world will peak at around 9 billion towards the middle of this century with a levelling off or even a slight drop-off. The main reason for this is that we’re having fewer...
by Carl Howard | Oct 16, 2014 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Philosophy, Sex
I once heard a comment that went something like this: Bestiality is one area where the left and right can come together. The right thinks it’s wrong because of sexual holiness, the left because of animal rights. The rest of us just say “who cares?”. Originally I was...