by Massimo Pigliucci There has been lots of talk about so-called “trigger warnings” lately. Although they originated outside the university (largely on feminist message boards in the ‘90s, and then in the blogosphere [1]), within the academy this is the idea that professors should issue warnings to their students about potentially disturbing material that they … Continue reading The false dichotomy of trigger warnings
Month: May 2015
Annus Mirabilis, geology edition
by Donald Prothero Every year of the 20th century included many scientific breakthroughs and achievements, but few years were as important as the year 1915 — one hundred years ago this year. It seems odd that it stands out as such a watershed. World War I had broken out the previous August with the rapid German advance … Continue reading Annus Mirabilis, geology edition
Ned Block on phenomenal consciousness, part II
by Dan Tippens Our Assistant Editor, Daniel Tippens, asks Professor Ned Block, of New York University, about his work on the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. This is part II of that interview, you can find Part I here. SciSal: Something I remember I was thinking about a lot is some of the … Continue reading Ned Block on phenomenal consciousness, part II
Ned Block on phenomenal consciousness, part I
by Dan Tippens Our Assistant Editor, Daniel Tippens, asks Professor Ned Block, of New York University, about his work on the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. This is part I of that interview, we will publish part II later this week. SciSal: I first wanted to start with an introduction to the concept … Continue reading Ned Block on phenomenal consciousness, part I
Freedom regained
by Julian Baggini [This is an edited extract from Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will, University of Chicago Press. Not to be reproduced without permission of the publisher.] We’ve heard a lot in recent years about how scientists — neuroscientists in particular — have “discovered” that actions in the body and thoughts in the … Continue reading Freedom regained
Reflections on the skeptic and atheist movements
by Massimo Pigliucci Groucho Marx, one of my favorite comedians of all time, famously wrote a telegram to a Hollywood club he had joined, that said: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” [1] I have recently considered sending such a letter to … Continue reading Reflections on the skeptic and atheist movements
Structural realism and the nature of structure
by Scientia Salon Our new pick for a "notable" paper is Jonas R. Becker Arenhart and Otavio Bueno's "Structural realism and the nature of structure," published in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 5:111-139, 2015. (Full text here, free.) Here is the abstract: Ontic Structural Realism is a version of realism about science according to which by positing … Continue reading Structural realism and the nature of structure
Measuring skulls, hereditarianism, and what data is for
by Joshua Banta, Jonathan Kaplan and Massimo Pigliucci Why would the popular media be interested in a story about a historical argument surrounding measurement techniques and statistical summaries of human skull volumes? A technical scientific paper published by Lewis et al. in the journal PLoS Biology a few years ago [1] was just that, and … Continue reading Measuring skulls, hereditarianism, and what data is for
The varieties of skepticism
by Massimo Pigliucci In this video Dan and I talk about different types of "skepticism." We start by recapping the history of philosophical skepticism, moving on to the (by now) classical question: how do we know that we don't live in the Matrix? We tackle what we call Descartes' "quaint" rationalism and we talk about a … Continue reading The varieties of skepticism
Scientia Salon 
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