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Monday, November 30, 2009

Massimo's picks

* The American Museum of Natural History displays a collection cabinet that belonged to Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection.

* Academic careers ain't all they are cracked up to be. Duh.

* Steven Pinker's review of "What the Dog Saw," by Malcolm Gladwell.

* CFI's "blasphemy contest" is over: the winner entry says "Faith is no reason." I liked better one of the runner-ups: "I wouldn't even follow your god on Twitter."

* Steven Novella on the physical basis of consciousness.


  1. Pinker's review of Gladwell (he really was reviewing the man) hit the mark. In a way, Pinker was reviewing large swaths of the popular science genre. So much popular science is written by journalists who don't understand what they're writing about, struggle to think quantitatively, and try to support this-or-that social ideal.

  2. Massimo,

    Here's the comment I submitted to Gibson's article about the blaspheme contest:




  3. Mann pulls out the old Christian trick of using "evidence" from within the Bible itself to argue for the Bible's accuracy.

  4. Richie,

    You suggest that I'm guilty of a slight-of-hand, but a magician I'd never make!

  5. Damn and double damn! Can you imagine walking into an antiques store and finding ARW's collection cabinet? For $600! I know that was 1970's dollars and might be comparable to say $3000 today but still... even in my state of penury I'd buy that in a minute.

  6. Rationally Speaking blog? Lots of Fun

    Article on Consciousness? Stimulating

    (in 1 of the comments) "Jeezmoid Fundies"? Priceless

