December 26, 2007
Category: Philosophy
If I say that X has probability p, what does that mean? What sort of thing is X, and what does the number p represent? Philosophers have spilled a lot of ink on this question, with no clear answer emerging....
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:01 PM • 22 Comments •
December 19, 2007
Category: Mathematics
Meanwhile, the big Monty Hall book is slowly coming together. It seems like every day I discover new technical articles on the subject. Recently I thought to search through the PubMed database, looking for any articles that might have eluded...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 1:45 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Religion
Along the same line, here we have Georgetown theologian John Haught discoursing on matters theological. I see that P. Z. Myers has already given Haught a proper reaming, but perhaps there is a bit more to say. Haught is a...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 1:34 AM • 60 Comments •
December 18, 2007
Category: Religion
Meanwhile, former Archbishop of York John Hapgood weighs in on four recent books about religion and atheism. The first: The New Atheists by Tina Beattie. Sadly, I am familiar neither with the book nor the author. Hapgood's essay is the...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 11:20 PM • 13 Comments •
Category: Religion
All sorts of items in the news about science, religion and politics. As a warm-up, here's Christopher Hitchens stating it plain about the odius denizens of the religious right: Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 9:44 PM • 3 Comments •
December 13, 2007
Category: Politics
Chris Matthews, from last night's Hardball. His guest was talk radio host Racheal Maddow. MADDOW: Well, it's two sides of the same coin, as far as I can tell. And the real substantive story here is that almost all of...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:42 PM • 28 Comments •
December 12, 2007
Category: Religion
Well, I've been grading exams for about ten minutes, and I'm already depressed. (One of my students seems to think that one fourth is an integer. Get the idea?) So how about another post? Here's Keith Olbermann from last nights'...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:38 PM • 19 Comments •
Category: Mathematics
Here is an interesting variation on the Monty Hall problem. For now I will simply present it cold, without indicating the context of where I saw it. Feel free to leave your proposed solutions in the comments. Everything from vague...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:35 PM • 63 Comments •
December 7, 2007
Category: Religion
Meanwhile, here's Chris Matthews in full tantrum after the Republican candidates were asked if they accepted Biblical literalism in the big You Tube debate: MATTHEWS: Governor, I think you, like a lot of conservatives, believe in the original purpose of...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:00 PM • 18 Comments •
Category: Politics
There were a few bright spots in the way the media reacted to Romney's disgusting speech. Keith Olbermann offered these characteristically wise words:...
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Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:03 PM • 8 Comments •