April 19, 2012, 10:10 AM ET

Lecturing in Front of Really, Really Old People

A few times a year, evincing uncharacteristic civic-mindedness and personal grace, I do some pro bono lecturing in front of local religious groups. Invariably, such groups are comprised of really, really old people. How old? Even older than my moms!, as I like to tell my moms when I call her up every night to report on my daily activities like the good Jewish boy she raised me to be. Now, as is most likely the case with you dear colleague, I spend the majority of my lecturing life in front of really, really young people. The types of people who say "Whatevs," "obvs" "idk" and call each other (and sometimes, regrettably, even me) "dude." They wear stained sweatpants to class and drink water out of huge plastic bottles--appalling cultural artifacts of high toxicity and dubious hygienic standing. As far as those healthy little bastards are concerned, I'm really, really old people. But... Read More

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April 19, 2012, 09:23 AM ET

Is Philosophy a Science? A Naturalist's Project: One

How can philosophy be done like a science? Again, obviously, I am going to rely on my own experience and I want to tell you about a project I had some 20 or more years ago. For us philosophers of science, the big problem back then was the extent to which science can be said to be a disinterested picture of objective reality and to what extent it is a “social construction,” an epiphenomenon of the culture or society (especially the values) of the day. Karl Popper, in a felicitous phrase, referred to science as “knowledge without a knower,” meaning not that scientists don’t do the knowing but that science is value free. The anatomy or sexual orientation or religion or race of a scientist or whatever his/her culture is irrelevant to the science. The Nazis were not so much wrong as conceptually confused when they talked of Jewish science. Following Thomas Kuhn, and infused with... Read More

April 18, 2012, 08:26 PM ET

America, Land of the Fat

I see we’re heading into another angst-fest over how fat Americans have become. It was about a year ago that I blogged on the breaking news that America was first in the world in terms of fatness. Today I read that starting next month, HBO will be showing a four-part documentary called The Weight of the Nation. A book with this title is forthcoming as well. We’re back with fat. All the studies on American obesity give us the same droningly depressing numbers: Two out of three adult Americans are overweight or obese, as is one in three children and teens. Experts are zeroing in on American food as the culprit. In particular, we’re overweight because of American agriculture (we produce lots of corn sugar and fatty meats) and the excess amount of food we eat. Instead of nourishing us, then, our food is killing us. Forces other than what’s in our food, and how much food we eat,... Read More

April 18, 2012, 03:31 PM ET

Robots Are Grading Your Papers!

A just-released report confirms earlier studies showing that machines score many short essays about the same as human graders. Once again, panic ensues: We can't let robots grade our students' writing! That would be so, uh, mechanical. Admittedly, this panic isn't about Scantron grading of multiple-choice tests, but an ideological, market- and foundation-driven effort to automate assessment of that exquisite brew of rhetoric, logic, and creativity called student writing. Without question, this study is performed by folks with huge financial stakes in the results, and they are driven by non-education motives. But isn't the real question not whether the machines deliver similar scores, but why? It seems possible that what really troubles us about the success of machine assessment of simple writing forms isn't the scoring, but the writing itself--forms of writing that don't exist anywhere ... Read More

April 17, 2012, 01:28 PM ET

Dear President Herbst: Here's What This UConn Professor Did Today

UConn President Susan Herbst's recent article in the Huffington Post defending the role of full-time scholars and teachers was encouraging to those of us who work at the place where she's the new boss. Herbst seems like she's doing a good job: The last time she met me she remembered my name. Pretty much that's all it takes to be my best friend. Apart from spending too much time--as does everyone else--talking about sports being UConn's "front porch" (which seems to be losing several of its central pillars to the NBA draft, not that I'm bitter), to her credit Herbst has made a dedicated effort to meet the faculty. She's been a presence on the campus and has pledged to support the hiring of new tenure-track faculty. But I thought it might be the right moment to give President Herbst an even more focused version of how, exactly, this UConn faculty member spent her day yesterday: 9:30... Read More

April 17, 2012, 09:05 AM ET

Studying Bioethics at Scandal-Plagued Universities

Why should students study bioethics at a university plagued with bioethical scandals? That’s the uncomfortable question here in Minnesota, where our bioethics graduate program is housed in an academic health center seemingly intent on making its way into the Guinness Book of World Records for Disgraceful Behavior. Research death, corruption, scientific fraud, invasion of privacy, nepotism, double-dipping, employment discrimination, manipulation of research data, improper industry influence, a U.S. Senate investigation into hidden conflicts of interest: As soon as the shock of one revelation begins to fade, the press uncovers another one. Which raises the question: Wouldn’t being admitted to study bioethics at the University of Minnesota be a little like winning a fellowship to study ethics in the Nixon White House? The problem is not unique to Minnesota. Like parasites in the... Read More

April 17, 2012, 08:58 AM ET

Is Philosophy a Science? Part 2: Science Helping Philosophy

A couple of people have asked me to follow up on my “Is Philosophy a Science?” post, so here we go. In this one, I will try to show how I think science can inform and help solve philosophical problems. In the next, I will show how I think a scientific (or naturalistic) approach to philosophy can pay dividends. And then perhaps to finish, I will tackle the perennial question of whether philosophy, unlike science, never gets any sure answers or makes any progress. For today, take ethics – moral philosophy. There are two big questions: What should I do? (This is known as substantive or normative ethics.) Why should I do what I should do? (Meta-ethics, to do with foundations.) As far as substantive ethics is concerned, from David Hume via Charles Darwin, I argue that ultimately what we should do is what we feel we should do – there is no higher court of appeal – and what we feel ... Read More

April 16, 2012, 09:55 PM ET

So How Will Mitt Romney Play the Religion Card?

That deafening, churning, leather-on-wood sound you just heard is the sound of the entire Romney campaign "pivoting to the general," as the pundits like to say. In the coming months, Mitt and his Faith and Values team will need to figure out how to draw lucrative religious voting blocs to the Republican side of the ledger. Faith-based politicking is always a complicated affair, and for these reasons I offer a few hopefully helpful suggestions on how the Romney team ought to proceed: Bait the secularists (if you must): Secular-bashing is among the easiest, and most intellectually dishonest, forms of Faith and Values politicking out there. Easy, because there is widespread confusion as to what "secularism" means. The dreaded "ism" can conveniently stand in for anything a politician loathes: godlessness, gang violence, pornography--it's all good. Or, bad as the case may be. It is... Read More

April 16, 2012, 09:17 PM ET

What Harvard Students Don't Know About Sex

I see the New York Times has a report out on the first Sex Week at Harvard. Apparently a decade behind Yale on this one, Harvard students decided it was time to explore their friskier sides. (At least they wanted to do so more formally. When I was a student, my house just had an annual party at which pieces of chocolate shaped like genitals were handed out. You weren't required to sit through any panels or lectures, as I recall.) Of course, events like Sex Week are always couched in the language of providing students with "more information." The piece begins with an exchange in which a senior finds out for the first time that Implanon, an implantable form of birth control, is available to her for free! How had she gone through four years without such a vital piece of information, the reader is left to wonder? Well, you know, it's because she's a Harvard student. As one of the organizers... Read More

April 16, 2012, 12:00 PM ET

If You Think Michigan Is Dopey, Take a Gander at Tennessee

After the least wintry winter in memory, Tennessee seems to have been brain-fried into cloud-cuckoo land. On March 19, the legislature in its wisdom mandated climate-change denial in the state's K-12 science education curriculum. The Assembly voted 70-23 and the Senate, 24-8. The Tennessee law matches a model called, of course, the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act, promoted by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council to

• Provide a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner. • Provide instruction in critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific and economic controversies. • Be presented in language appropriate for education rather than for propagandizing. • Encourage students to explore different perspectives and form their own opinions. • Encourage an atmosphere of respect for different...