May 18, 2012, 10:29 AM ET

Buddhist Biology and Vice Versa

The connection (or lack thereof) between science and religion has been debated as long as science and religion have existed. Some scientists accept the late Stephen Jay Gould’s suggestion that the two are “NOMA”—Non-Overlapping Magesteria—because science and religion occupy distinct realms, the former concerned with what is, the latter with what should be. Others (including myself) reject NOMA, pointing out that religion often makes claims about the real world that not only overlap with those of science, but are frequently contradicted by the latter. There is, however, an intriguing exception: Buddhism. Perhaps this is because Buddhism is as much philosophy as religion, or maybe because Buddhism is somehow more “valid” than, say, the Abrahamic Big Three (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Or maybe its just coincidence. In any event, when it comes to biology and Buddhism,... Read More

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May 17, 2012, 04:48 PM ET

How to Write About Wittgenstein

“I first saw Wittgenstein in the Michaelmas term of 1938, my first term at Cambridge. At a meeting of the Moral Science Club, after the paper for the evening was read and the discussion started, someone began to stammer a remark. He had extreme difficulty in expressing himself and his words were unintelligible to me. I whispered to my neighbor: ‘Who is that?’: he replied, ‘Wittgenstein.’” So begins Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, by Norman Malcolm, a student of Wittgenstein’s at Cambridge and his lifelong friend. It is a small book, published over half a century ago, but its influence would be hard to overstate. Not many philosophical books have created as many disciples. If philosophers were evangelists (and some are), Malcolm’s memoir would be the Gospel of John, a strange, beautiful little book that you leave in hotel rooms and hand out door to door. I... Read More

May 17, 2012, 04:24 PM ET

Ain't I a Woman?

We all know the GOP ain't exactly feminist. After all, many Republicans want to control women's reproductive lives, destroy equal pay for equal work laws, and limit civil rights and privileges to women who marry men. But the GOP-controlled House bill on violence against women that passed last night has been called by The American Bar Association

a retreat from the battle against domestic and sexual violence.

Although the Violence Against Women Act has previously enjoyed bipartisan support, in the current and highly ideological climate, Republicans in the House wanted to take away key protections for battered women. They also did not want to extend domestic violence protections to LGBT citizens, illegal aliens, and American Indians. That's why Jezebel calls the GOP House version of the bill "The violence against SOME women act." According to Jezebel, the House bill is supported by a ... Read More

May 17, 2012, 10:16 AM ET

Where Do We Liberals Really Stand When It Comes to Free Speech?

Several commenters have asked Brainstorm bloggers to weigh in on the firing of Naomi Schaefer Riley. My conflicted opinion on the matter kept me silent for a while—perhaps no better than Hamlet’s dithering. In any event, with the dust now somewhat settled, I’d like to say something. I found Ms. Riley’s two Brainstorm posts on Black Studies programs so sloppy, arrogant, repugnant and indefensible as arguments that they pushed to the very back burner the issue of free speech in general and, in particular, Ms. Riley’s rights or privileges as a Brainstorm blogger. All I could focus on was that Ms. Riley had violated the fundamental responsibility of any writer—especially one who is involved in higher education—namely, the obligation to back up her opinions, however briefly and colloquially stated, with reasonable argumentation. On this count, Ms. Riley failed miserably. The... Read More

May 17, 2012, 10:00 AM ET

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Again?

On the front page of this morning's New York Times, above the fold, there appeared a curious story entitled "G.O.P. 'Super-Pac' Weighing a Hard-Line Attack on Obama." The story focuses on a 54-page advertising plan that somehow dropped into the Times' outstretched hands "through a person not connected to the proposal who was alarmed by its tone." The financial force behind the plan is the "conservative billionaire" Joe Ricketts who, according to a proxy, "is very concerned about the future direction of the country" (as conservative billionaires are wont to be). The prospectus itself details a media strategy to flesh out the connections between Barack Obama and his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, from whom he has now been estranged for years. These connections were picked over by the media for months in the raucous spring of 2008, where a double-primary kept Faith and Values an... Read More

May 16, 2012, 10:57 AM ET

Paint It High and Deep

Most working artists in America (certainly most who teach at colleges and universities) hold a Master of Fine Arts degree, established by the College Art Association, more than 50 years ago, as the terminal degree in the fine arts. As Dan Berrett writes in this week’s Chronicle, however, that may be about to change. The College Art Association is now tiptoeing around the idea of embracing the studio Ph.D. as the new terminal degree in the fine arts. Recently, the CAA hosted a workshop entitled, “Ph.D. for Artists: Sense or Nonsense?” The title tells you everything you need to know about how differently people in the art world view the idea. On one side are those for whom a Ph.D. in studio art can’t come too soon. It would address the needs of internationally active, postmodern artists who are prominent in the contemporary art world and strive to stay competitive with their... Read More

May 16, 2012, 10:05 AM ET

Nigeria, Boko Haram, the Massacre of Christians, and Oil

"No, no civil war. I'm an optimist," observes my colleague, the anthropologist and Georgetown School of Foreign Service Professor Gwendolyn Mikell. Dr. Mikell is here reflecting on the recent explosion of sectarian strife in Nigeria--strife which is often understood by analysts in the Western media as predicated on ethno-religious conflict between the Muslim north and Christian south. The treacherous headline grabber in all of this has been the jihadist group Boko Haram. This fundamentalist Islamist sect advocates the imposition of Sharia law and has engaged in horrendous assaults on Christian communities. Amongst the most frightful was last year's Christmas massacre which resulted in the deaths of dozens of Catholic worshipers in Madala. Professor Mikell complexifies the media narratives and argues against "Nigeria-on-the-brink" ruminations. In a piece in the Huffington Post she an... Read More

May 16, 2012, 09:30 AM ET

Commenting, Moderation, and Provocation

Not everyone writes to provoke, but provocative writing is common in the blogosphere, including the segment of blogging for traditional news and opinion outlets. Editors' goals for bloggers resemble their aims for columnists. Generally they want to hire someone whose edginess is both deniable and claimable—not one of our reporters, but one of our loosely affiliated thinkers. That dynamic tension is mirrored in commenting policy. Most provocative bloggers push buttons and boundaries in order to provoke reader reaction, yet moderate the responses they provoked. From the perspective of the provoked, that can feel arbitrary: You casually mishandled or demeaned my beliefs, but I can't call you or the persons who agreed with you an ugly name? That's not fair! On the other hand, bloggers who moderate their comments typically do so because they value the quality of the conversation that... Read More

May 15, 2012, 06:25 PM ET

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

My good friend Elliott Sober, perhaps today’s leading philosopher of science, is being roughed up by the New Atheists. Recently in a book, Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards?, and then in a lecture that he gave at the University of Chicago, Elliott argued that if mutations are guided by God down at the quantum level, science cannot lay a finger on this claim. I should say that I don’t think that Elliott thinks that this claim is true and also that it is not original with him. Physicist-theologian Robert J. Russell has been pushing something like this for some time now. Elliott is simply making a technical point. He wants to show that science is not all-embracing. There is room for claims of a non-scientific nature. Jerry Coyne, the biologist, for one, and Jason Rosenhouse, a mathematician, for another, have been all over Elliott on this one. The kindest thing that has been said... Read More

May 15, 2012, 05:55 PM ET

Waking After a Dream

As a child my mother told me that dreams had projective powers: I remember details of dreams I had when I was six or seven as accurately as I recall my best friend’s telephone number. One dream pulls me back to the nighttime fears the way a fierce undertow carries you out past the safe boundaries, past the point where you can still see the shore. I dreamed of death. I’ve since learned that most children do. Talk to a child for half an hour in calm conversation while taking a walk or making sand castles, and see whether death, heaven or hell does not come up. In this dream I spoke to my guardian angel, pale, thin boy who looked to be not of much use. "Do you know that some people don't go anywhere," said the angel, shifting transparent wings uneasily, "after they die?" "But I will," I can hear myself say, "I will go to heaven and be with everybody from my class and from my family."... Read More