All You Need Is Love?

"The second lesson of history is that the time has passed when we can construct our social policies, work schedules, health insurance systems, sex education programs — or even our moral and ethical beliefs about who owes what to whom — on the assumption that all long-term commitments and care-giving obligations should or can be organized through marriage."

Stephanie Coontz writes about the history of marriage and how differently it is organized today for the CATO Institute. Read her interesting & informative look back on the history of marriage and what that history means to us today here.

Following The Money

"Southern California is a major source of money for presidential campaigns, and fund-raising for 2008 is already setting records. Here's how the top candidates fared in the L.A. area."

The Los Angeles Times is tracking political contributions and making the info available here. You can even type in your zip code and see in what direction your area is leaning.

Ethics & Blastocysts

This article presents something to ponder about ethics and stem cell research, and the promise of a new book to check out in May: The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering.

By Michael J. Sandel, in the Boston Globe.

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Just vs. Unjust Inequality?

"For economists, then, inequality has typically represented at worst a necessary evil and at best a reasonable price to pay for growth. So, for the most part, they have not been concerned with the apparent trend of rising inequality. Development economists in particular have focused instead on the reduction of absolute poverty. "
...
"Subsequent work by many economists has strengthened my conviction that while inequality may be constructive in the rich countries—in the classic sense of motivating individuals to work hard, innovate, and take productive risks—in developing countries it is likely to be destructive. That is especially true in Latin America, where conventional measures of income inequality are high. It also may well apply in other parts of the developing world, where our conventional indicators are not so high but there are plentiful signs of other forms of inequality: injustice, indignity, and lack of equal opportunity.
Distinguishing between constructive and destructive inequality is useful. To clarify the distinction: inequality is constructive when it creates positive incentives at the micro level. Such inequality reflects differences in individuals’ responses to equal opportunities and is consistent with efficient allocation of resources in an economy. In contrast, destructive inequality reflects privileges for the already rich and blocks potential for productive contributions of the less rich. "

Nancy Birdsall writes about globalization and inequality in the latest edition of The Boston Review. Read it here.

Darwin In Situ

"It 'has always appeared to me more satisfactory to look at the immense amount of pain & suffering in this world, as the inevitable result of the natural sequence of events, i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct intervention of God' [said Darwin]. Like most Victorian parents, Darwin had watched several of his children die in infancy, including his beloved daughter Annie in 1851. He was not the only one who found such tragedies easier to comprehend if they resulted from 'general laws', rather than being the products of God’s personal and seemingly murderous intent."

From a London Times book review of an interesting book looking at Darwin and the religious views of the time. Read it here.

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The Lottery Is A Tax On People Who Do Not Understand Probablilty Theory

"Dr. Cohen argues that lottery tickets are not an investment but a disposable consumer purchase, which changes the equation radically. Like a throwaway lifestyle magazine, lottery tickets engage transforming fantasies: a wine cellar, a pool, a vision of tropical blues and white sand. The difference is that the ticket can deliver.
And as long as the fantasy is possible, even a negligible probability of winning becomes paradoxically reinforcing, Dr. Cohen said."

A typical cost-benefit analysis of playing a state-run lottery proves without a doubt that no one would play..
So many people love to say that actions like playing the lottery are irrational..

Both of these claims are wrong -- we just need to consider more parts of the equation to figure out why people do it (and the certainly do it). Read about one approach to understanding human behavior in the face of punishing odds in The New York Times here.

Tips From Academics, Part I

"How to review a book [without reading it]
Put it in front of you, close your eyes and try to perceive what may interest you about it. Then write about yourself"

--- Pierre Bayard, Professor of Literature, Paris University
quote taken from the London Times online

Why?

"Notwithstanding some egregious examples to the contrary, though, a sweep of scientific progress since 1600 seems undeniable. We tend to attribute this to the discovery and invention of new things; but at least as important has been the ability to perceive old things in new ways. The Aristotelians looked at a swinging body, Thomas Kuhn says, and saw something 'falling with difficulty;' Galileo looked at it and saw a pendulum. This aspect of science, which is explanatory and explicatory, sometimes bears a distinct resemblance to philosophical analysis. Cosmologists, for example, conceptualize a galaxy as 'particles making up a continuous and perfect fluid;' economists define a ‘product’ as a 'collection of units that are perfect substitutes to purchasers.'"

Toni Vogel Carey discusses the question of whether philosophy, like science, is progressive. Read about it in the latest online issue of Philosophy Now.

From Wishful Thinking To Positive Action

Did you ever wonder why you felt compelled to help when you see someone suffer? The Hindustan Times reports on studies of altruistic behavior from a physiological perspective. Read about that here.

Knock On Wood

"...magical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.

The appetite for such beliefs appears to be rooted in the circuitry of the brain, and for good reason. The sense of having special powers buoys people in threatening situations, and helps soothe everyday fears and ward off mental distress. In excess, it can lead to compulsive or delusional behavior. This emerging portrait of magical thinking helps explain why people who fashion themselves skeptics cling to odd rituals that seem to make no sense, and how apparently harmless superstition may become disabling."

The New York Times discusses the psychological study of "magical thinking." Read all about it here.

Picking One's Brain The Hard Way -- Scientific Developments and Electric Probes

"(There are two 'problems' in the study of consciousness), which the philosopher David Chalmers has dubbed the Easy Problem and the Hard Problem. Calling the first one easy is an in-joke: it is easy in the sense that curing cancer or sending someone to Mars is easy." … "The Easy Problem, then, is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain and explain why it evolved.
The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head--why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things and inspire us to say, 'That's green' (the Easy Problem), but it also actually looks green: it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. As Louis Armstrong said in response to a request to define jazz, 'When you got to ask what it is, you never get to know.'"

Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard, discusses the latest scientific inquiries into consciousness in his article in Time Magazine.

Gimmie! Gimmie! Please?

"In exploring the morality of economic behavior, they aim to put a more positive spin on Western-style capitalism. They want to demonstrate, in a post-Enron world, that markets are driven not by greed but by positive behavior.

To test their theories, researchers from economics and other disciplines are conducting a variety of studies, including experiments that look at how monkeys work together to get their favorite foods and the effect of business school teachings on values in the boardroom."

Evelyn Iritani writes about a possibly new discipline they are calling the "science of moral behavior." Read all about it in the Los Angeles Times.

Politics and the Battle Over Definitions

"Is Bush a conservative? Of course not. When all the evidence is in, I think historians will agree with Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, who wrote a carefully argued article judging Bush to have been the worst president in American history. The problem is that he is generally called a conservative, perhaps because he obviously is not a liberal. It may be that Bush, in the magnitude of his failure, defies conventional categories. But the word 'conservative' deserves to be rescued."

Jeffrey Hart examines past presidents and modern philosophers in order to draw a line between President George W. Bush and American Conservatism in the November 20th edition of The American Conservative.

"God Is Dead"

Making Nietzsche accessible to the masses: The Nietzsche Family Circus

Geometry, and Physics, and Metaphysics, Oh My!

"Since the early nineteenth century, Descartes has routinely been called the father of modern philosophy. His attempt at a fresh start for human knowledge, relying on his own reason and casting aside received wisdom, came to typify the Enlightenment project. While his “Discourse” and “Meditations,” with their focus on the nature of certainty, the existence of God, and the relation between mind and body, continue to be read by philosophy students, the bulk of his writings, which were on scientific subjects, has been forgotten. In his own day, his physics, cosmology, geometry, and physiology were given at least as much attention."

Anthony Gottlieb of The New Yorker, looks at two new biographies on Decartes here.

Brain Scans and Politics

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up ... Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones," Westen said.

An article about confirmation bias in politically interested people in _Scientific American_.

"If boys are doing worse, whose fault is it? To many of the current critics, it’s women’s fault, either as feminists, as mothers, or as both."

"Perhaps the real 'male bashers' are those who promise to rescue boys from the clutches of feminists. Are males not also 'hardwired' toward compassion, nurturing, and love? If not, would we allow males to be parents? It is never a biological question of whether we are 'hardwired' for some behavior; it is, rather, a political question of which 'hardwiring' we choose to respect and which we choose to challenge."
Michael Kimmel, a Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, writes on "A War Against Boys?" in the Fall issue of Dissent Magazine.

VOTE

It's that time of year again (or if you are in California, where we are voting more often than it rains here, it is another Tuesday, so it must be time to vote). I have been too busy with work to post any good resources or commentary, but I will at least say this: VOTE. You may be suffering from voter-fatigue, or you may be feeling powerless, or you may just be lazy, but you still need to go vote. For the people who don’t care much: we at least need to let them know we are watching so they don't do anything too crazy, and the easiest way to do that is by voting. For the people who are a little more hopeful or engaged: there are a bunch of important issues on the table this time & we might actually be able to make a difference if we get out there. It can't be government "by the people" unless "the people" act. We may each only be 1 in 300,000,000 now, but our actions add up (and with low voter turnout, each of us will count for a lot more than 1 in 300,000,000 anyway).

See you at the polls.

Environmental Game Theory

The Los Angeles Times reviews a cost-benefit analysis of particulate exposure.
Read the article here

Social Impact in Game Theory

Why say no to free money? It's neuro-economics, stupid
"Studies show how the brain lets the emotions override common sense when reaching some tough decisions. Our correspondent reports on the 'ultimatum game' "
-- Article in the Times by Mark Henderson