Animal Studies Cross Campus to Lecture Hall

Animal Studies Cross Campus to Lecture Hall (NY Times 1-2-12)

This spring, freshmen at Harvard can take “Human, Animals and Cyborgs.” Last year Dartmouth offered “Animals and Women in Western Literature: Nags, Bitches and Shrews.” New York University offers “Animals, People and Those in Between.”

The courses are part of the growing, but still undefined, field of animal studies. So far, according to Marc Bekoff, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, the field includes “anything that has to do with the way humans and animals interact.” Art, literature, sociology, anthropology, film, theater, philosophy, religion—there are animals in all of them.

Remembering Michael Dummett

Remembering Michael Dummett (NY Times 1-4-12)

Sir Michael Dummett, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, died last week in Oxford, England. He held the position of Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University from 1979 until his retirement in 1992. Below is a gathering of reminiscences from fellow philosophers, including Hilary Putnam, Timothy Williamson, Dorothy Edgington, Daniel Isaacson, and several others who knew Dummett, worked with him or were influenced by his life and work. We invite readers to offer their own contributions in the comments section.
—Simon Critchley and Ernie Lepore

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Nice Nihilism--review of The Atheist’s Guide To Reality by Alex Rosenberg

Nice Nihilism (3ammagazine 12-21-11)

'This is a book for atheists'. Rosenberg makes this explicit in the preface. Atheism requires a whole view of the world based on science that is 'demanding, rigorous, breathtaking.' There's a feeling you get when reading Rosenberg that he's fed up with atheists who avoid facing up to the big persistent questions such as: 'what is the nature of reality, the purpose of the universe, and the meaning of life? Is there any rhyme or reason to the course of human history? Why am I here? Do I have a soul, and if so, how long will it last? What happens when we die? Do we have free will? Why should I be moral? What is love, and why is it usually inconvenient?' Rosenberg demands that atheists just stop arguing with theists, for one because 'contemporary religious belief is immune to rational objection' but also because it eats into the time atheists should be taking to work through the implications of their own worldview. Atheists need to spend more time getting to grips with what they should know about the reality we inhabit because science reveals it is 'stranger than even many atheists recognise.'

John Haldane: Philosopher Sir Michael Dummett's death is great loss to UK cul

John Haldane: Philosopher's death is great loss to UK culture (Scotsman 12-31-11)

Between Christmas and New Year, Britain lost its greatest living philosopher. Sir Michael Dummett was 86 and he died at the home in Oxford which he had shared with his wife Ann for the last half century. His death was neither untimely, troubled, nor lonely; he had been ailing for some while and his family was gathered around him.

It was neither tragic nor traumatic, yet in contemplating his passing I am troubled by the thought that it marks a great loss to British philosophy and to our higher culture more generally. Dummett was an outstanding example of a type once familiar among teachers, academics, librarians, and writers, but which is increasingly rare: the highly educated, culturally rounded, morally serious, socially aware and publicly spirited intellectual.

The decline in prominence of such figures, even within their own professions, is due to several factors which suggest that it may mark an irreversible trend, but before explaining that, let me indicate just how exceptional Dummett was and why he led British philosophy for decades.

Scientists List 2011's Most Fascinating Discoveries

Scientists List 2011's Most Fascinating Discoveries (Live Science 12-28-11)

Sometimes the science news that grabs headlines isn't the same news that piques the interest of working scientists. As part of our year-end round-up, LiveScience asked researchers to tell us what they considered the most interesting science stories of 2011 and why. Here's what they wrote back

Archaeologists uncover Native Americans' sprawling metropolis under St Louis

The lost city of Cahokia: Archaeologists uncover Native Americans' sprawling metropolis under St Louis (UK Daily Mail 1-4-12)

Mr Lawler wrote: 'A millennium ago, this strategic spot along the Mississippi River was an affluent neighbourhood of Native Americans, set amid the largest concentration of people and monumental architecture north of what is now Mexico.

'Back then, hundreds of well-thatched rectangular houses, carefully aligned along the cardinal directions, stood here, overshadowed by dozens of enormous earthen mounds flanked by large ceremonial plazas.

'Cahokia proper was the only pre-Columbian city north of the Rio Grande, and it was large even by European and Mesoamerican standards of the day, drawing immigrants from hundreds of kilometres around to live, work, and participate in mass ceremonies.'

Patients at risk after scientists withhold test results from clinical trials of

Patients at risk after scientists withhold test results from clinical trials of new medicines (UK Daily Mail 1-4-12)

Missing data from clinical trials could endanger patients, health experts have warned.

The British Medical Journal has raised concern that some test results go unreported and are deliberately hidden, enabling pharmaceutical firms to make unfounded claims.

Conflict at the heart of Scientology is exposed in bitter email outburst

Conflict at the heart of Scientology is exposed in bitter email outburst (UK Independent 1-4-12)

Debbie Cook's email, which was sent to 12,000 fellow Scientologists shortly after midnight on New Year's Day, alleges that Mr Miscavige has adopted a dictatorial leadership style which is at odds with the doctrines laid down by the church's founder, the science fiction author, L Ron Hubbard.

She further claims that, since succeeding Hubbard after his death in 1986, Mr Miscavige has become obsessed with fundraising. His regime is now “hoarding” a cash reserve of more than a billion dollars, she claims, and has spent tens of millions more on a portfolio of large, “posh” buildings which largely sit empty.

Hedy Lamarr's World War II Adventure

Hedy Lamarr's World War II Adventure (NY Times 12-15-11)

That a glamorous movie star whose day job involved hours of makeup calls and dress fittings would spend her off hours designing sophisticated weapons systems is one of the great curiosities of Hollywood history. Lamarr, however, not only possessed a head for abstract spatial relationships, but she also had been in her former life a fly on the wall during meetings and technical discussions between her ­munitions-manufacturer husband and his clients, some of them Nazi officials. Disturbed by news reports of innocents killed at sea by U-boats, she was determined to help defeat the German attacks. And Ant­heil, arguably the most mechanically inclined of all composers, having long before mastered the byzantine mechanisms of pneumatic piano rolls, retained a special genius for “out of the box” problem ­solving.

Alvin Plantinga and Intelligent Design by Michael Ruse

Alvin Plantinga and Intelligent Design by Michael Ruse (Chronicle of Higher Education 12-14-11)

Now, Plantinga has given us a full-length treatment of his views on science and its relationship to religion. I can only say that either he has changed his mind in the last year or, shall we say, he was not being entirely forthcoming. There is a chapter of the book on Intelligent Design Theory and I challenge any independent person to read it and not conclude that Plantinga accepts this theory over modern evolutionary theory, especially the dominant modern Darwinian evolutionary theory. But read the chapter yourself if you have doubts about what I claim. Make your own judgment.