Category: Philosophy


  • Nina’s book Skin was a great read. It was the first time I understood melanin and vitamin D. And cancer. If the video below does not work, then try Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color.

  • We tend to think of memory the same as an audio-visual recording of the events in our life. Unfortunately, it is not. Memory captures snapshots which influence what we recall later. So a relatively good experience with a particularly bad ending can bias memory to recall the whole as bad. If the below video does not…

  • E.O. Wilson on inspiring people to get into science. If the below video does not display, then try E.O. Wilson: Advice to young scientists

  • My main page on quotes is Quotes to Make You Think. Additional ones can be found under the Quotes tag. The future is here; it’s just not evenly distributed. — William Gibson (source) Shatner’s portrayal [of Kirk in Star Trek] is a little boy’s idea of what a captain is. He’s handsome, heroic, dashing, gets all the ladies. He…

  • For a few weeks The Demise of Guys by Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan has occupied a corner of my attention. It started when a friend posted about the Reddit AMA: I am a published psychologist, author of the Stanford Prison Experiment, expert witness during the Abu Ghraib trials. AMA starting June 7th at 12PM (ET). I even bought…

  • Two major recurring political issues in the United States are related, I think, to issues of mixing cultures. There is an instinct to trust those like us more implicitly and consider those who do not look or act like us as bad. Coming to trust people as members of our “tribe” can reverse this instinct.…

  • I tend to think things are going to be worse than they actually will be. That new restaurant will suck. Somehow I will manage to total my car on the trip I have taken 27 times in the past 5 years. I knew I failed every test I took in school until I get it…

  • The unity of science and religion is an important concept in the Baha’i Faith. They are two sides of the same coin. One side looks ahead with faith. One side looks backwards without faith. One is impatient while the other is deliberately slow. Where the two agree is the sweet spot of true knowledge. There…