The Must-See of TAM2012 & Some Thoughts on Good Neighbors

The highlight of TAM2012 was an easy pick. That does not mean that the talks were bad by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, despite what some felt was a scarcity of “big draw” speakers (e.g., high-profile science communicators like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye or high-profile atheists such as Richard Dawkins), the […]

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Definitions, Data, and Poverty

‘Infographics’ seem to be the hot thing lately and they really, really bother me. I am usually fine with funny ones, but too often they portray a warped view of the world which is designed for the advancement of an agenda. I may even agree with that agenda, but whenever I see summations with percentages […]

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Are Atheists More Compassionate or Prosocial Than Highly Religious People?

I hope I grabbed your attention with that title, but do not expect to find the answer to that question here. What I am going to discuss today is a study that many people seem to think answers that question, but it doesn’t. As I noted in my last post, the study I’ll be discussing […]

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You Can’t Judge an Argument by Its Conclusion

I had promised myself that I would spend less time ranting about the problems of the activist community, but I was so disappointed and frustrated during a Twitter exchange with Melody Hensley (of CFI-DC, caveat: she was speaking for herself, not necessarily CFI) the other night that I felt it prudent to bring it up […]

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Wrap Your Brain Around Monty Hall

NOTE: this post also appears on the wonderful site about crazy coincidence, theoddsmustbecrazy.com. I have always been amused and intrigued by responses to “The Monty Hall Problem”, especially when I talk about it to audiences with a high concentration of engineers and mathematicians. If you are familiar with it, but you’ve always struggled with an […]

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