Category: reason

Movie Review: ‘Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop’ on HBO

May 13, 2015

“Dubbed ‘The Cannibal Cop,’ Gilberto Valle was convicted in March 2013 of conspiring to kidnap and eat young women. Valle argued it was all a fantasy; the prosecution’s narrative convinced jurors otherwise. Valle was facing a possible life sentence when filmmaker Erin Lee Carr began visiting him in prison. After 22 months behind bars, his conviction was overturned in a stunning reversal. Carr was there for his release and subsequent house arrest to examine a life arrested. But the question remains: given the chance, would he, could he, have done it? ‘Thought Crimes’ unravels the conflicting stories of a potentially dangerous young man and the unexpected consequences of our online activity.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/arts/television/review-thought-crimes-the-case-of-the-cannibal-cop-on-hbo.html?referrer=&_r=0

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4503900/

Lotteries: America’s $70 Billion Shame

May 13, 2015

“People spent more money playing the lottery last year than on books, video games, and tickets for movies and sporting events combined.

“In an age of rising income inequality, it’s pernicious that states rely on monetizing the desperate hope of its poorest residents. State lotteries take from the poor to spare the rich, all while marching under the banner of voluntary entertainment. Banning lotto games will not make our poorest communities suddenly rich. But these neighborhoods have lost enough lotteries in life even before they touch a penny to the scratch-off ticket.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/lotteries-americas-70-billion-shame/392870/?utm_source=SFTwitter

The Secret God of the Secularists

March 17, 2015

“The English philosopher John Gray, himself an atheist, says today’s evangelical New Atheists have far more in common with the religionists they despise than they think they do. In a rich, rewarding essay in the Guardian, Gray says that an earlier generation of modern atheists worshiped Science, which in their reasoning made them supporters of eugenics … until Nazism showed where that led. It is today conveniently forgotten, says Gray, that those who preached Science as the foundation for modern political life were, in the pre-Nazi 20th century, the most avid promoters of eugenics”

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-secret-god-of-the-new-atheists-secularists/

Parents’ Beliefs vs. Their Children’s Health

March 12, 2015

“The spread of measles has called attention to parents who don’t vaccinate children because of religious beliefs. New York City is accommodating an Orthodox Jewish circumcision practice that can infect babies with herpes. Some states even let believers in faith healing deny life-saving medical care to their children.

Should parents’ religious beliefs allow them to refuse medical care for their children or avoid standard medical practices?”

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/10/parents-beliefs-vs-their-childrens-health

Why People “Fly from Facts”

March 5, 2015

“Research shows the appeal of untestable beliefs, and how it leads to a polarized society

“As public debate rages about issues like immunization, Obamacare, and same-sex marriage, many people try to use science to bolster their arguments. And since it’s becoming easier to test and establish facts—whether in physics, psychology, or policy—many have wondered why bias and polarization have not been defeated. When people are confronted with facts, such as the well-established safety of immunization, why do these facts seem to have so little effect?”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-fly-from-facts/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20150303

Freakonomics Podcast: The Maddest Men of All. Episode about Behavioral Economics

February 27, 2015

Another interesting discussion on the field of behavioral economics (see a previous post on the topic). Some really interesting discussions on this podcast about the contrast between classical economics and behavioral economics. You get some insight into the different approaches to knowledge and assumptions between two related fields in the human sciences.

You also get some interesting insights about how we make decisions. To what degree are our decisions motivated by reason? And to what degree are they motivated by emotion? Is it ethical for someone to use their knowledge of our emotional decision making to push us to make a decision they want us to make (i.e. buy something we otherwise wouldn’t)?

“Let’s take an example where you go to an airline website and it … quotes you a price for your seat to Sacramento, whatever it may be, and it says only four seats left at that price. Now, that works on me. I’ve spent eight years studying this stuff, I know it’s an attempt to exploit my scarcity bias, but it still makes me click. That’s just the way I’m wired. Now implicit in that line is that subsequent seats will be more expensive. But actually the person in their weasel wording hasn’t exactly made that promise, have they? They’ve merely said at this price. At this price is not quite clear. It could be that the subsequent four seats are being sold actually at a lower price.”

http://freakonomics.com/2015/02/26/the-maddest-men-of-all-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Your Brain Is Primed To Reach False Conclusions

February 23, 2015

“Paul Offit likes to tell a story about how his wife, pediatrician Bonnie Offit, was about to give a child a vaccination when the kid was struck by a seizure. Had she given the injection a minute sooner, Paul Offit says, it would surely have appeared as though the vaccine had caused the seizure and probably no study in the world would have convinced the parent otherwise.”

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/your-brain-is-primed-to-reach-false-conclusions/