Feeds 
Rationality is a fundamental assumption about human behavior in neoclassical economics. A question that has long nagged the discipline, however, concerns how much of human behavior actually shadows those models, and what innate divergences exist.
Certain western thinkers use rationality as a ground for the superiority of western civilisation, a ground that gives them the moral authority to look down upon, and manipulate, the "irrational". It may come as a shock to them to learn that we are all irrational, equally human.
The single most pernicious threat to liberty today is humanity's natural tendency to misunderstand the statistics of rare events. We're just not wired to have good intuition about things that happen with extreme infrequency.
Teetering between its medieval past and the "Age of Reason," early 18th-century London was an environment in which the ancient practice of astrology held wide appeal.
If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it? Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny.
Man the lifeboats. The idiots are winning. Last week I watched, open-mouthed, a Newsnight piece on the spread of "Brain Gym" in British schools.
"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837. But his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States.
From the perspective of neoclassical economics, self-punishing decisions are difficult to explain. Rational calculators are supposed to consider their options, then pick the one that maximizes the benefit to them.
An atheist's elucidation upon the age-old wager of Blaise Pascal.
The Science Network has provided access to a full list of videos from the Beyond Belief 2006 conference, including lectures by many notable authors on science and religion- Steven Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Patricia Churc …
Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.
""With all your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is that light comes into the soul?" ~ Henry David Thoreau
Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom: (1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2) breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political pr …
Neuroscience research backs up the poll results. When voters are hooked up to brain-imaging devices while watching candidates, it is emotion circuits and not the rational frontal lobes that are most engaged.
I offer an analogy: Rationality is often thought to be about cynicism.
You can always smell the fear coming off the newsprint or screen when David Brooks descends into the viciousness usually masked by the professorial tone he usually aspires to as a "reasonable" conservative.
Look, no matter whether you are religious or an atheist or some other thing, no matter what you believe, I expect you'll agree with me about the importance of this question: why do so many people believe the wrong thing? The reason I can be fairly sure that this is a question whi …
Finally, some rationality in the "Global Warming" debate. Read this article, it may get you thinking in a way different from the "chicken little" debate going on today!
Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God — evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God, …
...Not only do the new atheists find religion intellectually irredeemable, morally dubious, and socially unnecessary, they judge it a clear and present danger, maybe even the greatest threat to the survival of the species.
In a world in which facts are malleable by spin, and the concensus reality is in the hands of the media, Bruno Latour tries to approach criticism in a way which builds certainty rather than casts doubt:
For many years Richard Dawkins has been engaged in a kind of war with God.
Religions will continue to thrive despite the rise of science and rationality because we are all born with a tendency to believe in the supernatural, according to research published yesterday.
The image you see to the right is the first page of what is supposedly the most important document in the world. At least according to Scientologists.
The stem cell debate is raging in the Senate, Bush is threatening to veto, and the future of rationality is dangerously close to the chopping block. Once again, America is allowing unjustified superstition to impede potentially stunning scientific progress.
Code of Honor
Log In | Register
