Hi, I'm david (b) hayes.

The Science Problem

I’ve been grappling with this for a while (e.g.: 1, 2), and I think this paragraph from Megan McArdle pins down pretty well the type of science skepticism I think is necessary:

This is not to say that the peer review system is worthless.  But it’s limited.  Peer review doesn’t prove that a paper is right; it doesn’t even prove that the paper is any good (and it may serve as a gatekeeper that shuts out good, correct papers that don’t sit well with the field’s current establishment for one reason or another).  All it proves is that the paper has passed the most basic hurdles required to get published — that it be potentially interesting, and not obviously false.  This may commend it to our attention — but not to our instant belief.

(via HN)

David Brooks, Equanimus

This is an unexceptional profile, but it’s solid and it’s subject is interesting enough to make it valuable to me.

What rankles him is the vituperative ideologue. The nastiest piece he ever wrote was a review of recovering neocon Michael Lind’s Up From Conservatism called “Portrait of the Autist.” It wasn’t Lind’s politics that bothered Brooks—he has cited Lind favorably since. It was the cavalier way he emitted “a constant and dizzying flow of certitudes.”

(via The Browser)

The Egg

I think we should file this, a screen cap of a story posted to 4chan, under “beautiful things found in unexpected places.”

(via Reddit, who determined the original is by Andy Weir)

Stephen Fry’s Advice

Responding to the question of “What do you wish you’d known at 18?”, Stephen Fry gives a damn good and rambling rundown of the proper perspective on life. (Audio is left-channel only, if that’s a big issue for you.)

(via MeFi)

Toward A New Agnosticism

This:

I would not go so far as to argue that there’s a “new agnosticism” on the rise. But I think it’s time for a new agnosticism, one that takes on the New Atheists. Indeed agnostics see atheism as “a theism”—as much a faith-based creed as the most orthodox of the religious variety.

The Afghanistan We Don’t See

This isn’t done often enough. Foreign Policy got a batch photos taken by Kabul teens which shows the day-to-day life of the people. While this may be antithetical to the traditional notion of news photography, regularly undertaking this practice would be an invaluable compliment to that.

(via Reddit)

Visions of Muhammad

It feels a little silly, but I’d never thought much about the similarity between the current heat surrounding images of Muhammad and the idol breaking that played a role both in the “Great schism” and reformation. The logic of the offended believers is similar:

“The prohibition is intended to protect the faithful from that sin [of polytheism]. The fear was that intense reverence for the prophet might if unrestrained cross over into worship. In the 8th and the 9th centuries a general consensus banning such depictions arose among the clerics, but not all Muslims knew of it, paid attention, or obeyed.”

(via Big Contrarian, who also links an internet exhibit of images of the prophet)

Ayn Rand Considered

I’ve never been a Randian, or done much study of the stuff, but I quite enjoyed this review of the author and the merits of her work:

Finally, there was the cult surrounding Rand that developed during the 1960s. Reasoned discourse with Rand became impossible unless you began by accepting her pronouncements about everything—then you could argue the logic of your position. What had been lively back-and-forth explorations of ideas in the early 1950s became sessions at which the students sat at the feet of the master, “shivering, scared children who dared not say the wrong thing lest they incur her wrath,” in the words of John Hospers.

(via ALD)

Why We Do What We Do

Shirky: Right—because television crowded out other forms of social engagement. Look, behavior is motivation filtered through opportunity. So if you see people behaving in new ways, like with Wikipedia and whatnot, it’s very unlikely that their motivations have changed, because human nature doesn’t change that quickly. It’s quite likely that the opportunities have changed.?

The emphasized sentence was a new frame for me. There’s other good stuff is this conversation between Clay Shirkey and Dan Pink, but that sentence was a mini-revelation.

(via Idea of the Day)

No Good News Today

This is a potent point:

One of the themes in my forthcoming book is that there are huge vested interests trying to prevent good news reaching the public. That is to say, in the ruthless free-market struggle that goes on between pressure groups for media attention and funds, nobody likes to have it said that `their’ problem is not urgent and getting worse.

(via Lone Gunman)