by Carl Howard | Dec 24, 2012 | Blog Topics, Feminism and LGBT, Philosophy, Society
With the US election being a boon for marriage equality, Australia’s had some additional coverage. In this context, it was almost expected that an open letter to Prime Minister Giliard went viral. Usually I avoid the comments sections of such opinion pieces, not...
by Carl Howard | Nov 27, 2012 | Blog Topics, Philosophy, Science and Skepticism
“Do you believe in evolution?” This has to be one of the most annoying questions about evolution out there. To see why, have a look at this 1hr talk by Josh Roseneau about what Miss USA can teach us about evolution. For the meaty part, see below where he plays a...
by Carl Howard | Nov 22, 2012 | Blog Topics, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Philosophy, Sex
On Dan Savage’s podcast and advice column about sex, he sometimes get questions about particular turn-ons that ask about their origin. Three fake examples I made up since it’s a bit hard to go through the thousands of archived questions: “My partner has a rape fantasy...
by Carl Howard | Nov 15, 2012 | Blog Topics, Mind, Psychology and Consciousness, Philosophy, Science and Skepticism
Often modern debates between religious and non-religious people end up hinging on the meaning and use of why questions. Consider a fake dialogue between A and B: A: Science may be able to say tell us how things are but it will never explain why things are. B: Like...
by Carl Howard | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog Topics, Feminism and LGBT, Philosophy, Race
A while ago, one of my friends started a discussion on Facebook about porn. The question was something like: is porn “morally good or morally bad”? I thought I’d be the Socratic asshole and noticed that it was telling that the question even makes sense — if you...
by Carl Howard | Sep 27, 2012 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Ethics, Philosophy
The recent post on anti-bullying got me thinking about the irrational way we humans tend to assign people responsibility when they do something bad or careless. Here’s the meme again: The boy you punched in the hall today. Committed suicide a few minutes ago. That...
