Archive for March, 2009
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Clever Corvids and the Death of Behaviorism
Just a few decades ago, scientists in thrall to an idiotic ideology named behaviorism believed that animals resemble machines that respond in automatic, Pavlovian fashion to stimuli. Dog hears dinner bell, dog drools. Wolf sees rabbit, wolf chases rabbit. Biologists studying chimps, wolves, elephants and hummingbirds weren’t supposed to consider what they feel and think, [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Do We Have an Essential Nature? No!
One of the most persistent, pernicious ideas ever invented holds that things have a basic character, nature, or “essence.” Philosophers call this notion “essentialism,” which when applied to humans manifests itself as racism, sexism and other nasty isms. Example: I’m descended from Irish immigrants, and I’ve been hearing since I was a kid that Irishmen [...]
6 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, March 16th, 2009
War Correspondence
I’m doing my humble best to pick away at the enormous problem of war from any and all angles. Last month I blogged about Wired for War, a book by the security
analyst Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution about the growing use of military robots. Bloggingheads just posted my interview with Singer about this [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
You Must Read This Book!
John Damien Sundman is the cousin of one of my best friends, the renowned computer scientist Chris Bremser, mate of Jennine Heller, also a renowned computer scientist and one of my best friends. Sundman has written a funny, fascinating sci-fi novel titled “The Pains, illustrated by someone with the lovely name Cheeseburger Brown. The books [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Ravens At The Feast: Sharing Versus Selfishness Among “Wolf Birds.”
A Talk By Bernd Heinrich.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009, Babbio Center, Room 122, 4-5:30 pm.
No Comments » - Posted in Events by Rand HOPPE
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
Sex and Violence on Bloggingheads.tv
Readers of this blog know that I’m obsessed with understanding why we humans fight so much and how we can stop.
5 Comments » - Posted in The Scientific Curmudgeon by John Horgan
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found her Wings
I’m biased, of course, because I’m married to the author. But it is as a hard-nosed professional writer with extremely high standards for prose that I recommend Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found her Wings, by Suzie Gilbert. The book’s official publication date is tomorrow, March 3, so if you order [...]