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Category: Atheism
I would very much like your help in picking out a tee-shirt to wear around town. Let me tell you about the town, and you'll be able to make an appropriate suggestion....
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:00 AM • 53 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
This is the third of three parts of this particular falsehood. (Here is the previous part)...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:01 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
The falsehood "Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex" invokes a sense of undeserved privilege in those who feel they are part of a civilization. This sense of privilege has a number of negative side effects.
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:38 AM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
I'd like to offer a way of thinking about the difference between what we call "civilization" and what some people call "primitive cultures" that will be more useful and less falsehood-prone
Posted by Greg Laden at 1:54 PM • 41 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
I'm an anthropologist and a biologist, so really, I have no problem with the idea of a "placebo effect" in which people become convinced that they are being given an effective treatment and thus, because of that thought in their mind, improve....
Posted by Greg Laden at 3:25 PM • 38 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
At issue here is the idea that "biology" is slow and ponderous, glacial, even geological, in its rate of change, while culture is quick and snappy and makes rapid adjustment. Connected to this is a subtly different but very important idea: Culture actually makes sensible...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:09 AM • 40 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
As the mother cougar approached the flood and all hope seemed to diminish, the narrator said "The mother cougar, driven by an instinct to save her species, searched desperately for any sign of the third kitten, who represented the next generation of cougars."
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:59 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
Today's falsehood is the assertion that the poor have more babies than the rich, or that the poor just have more babies to begin with. In comparison to ... whatever.
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:39 AM • 110 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Human Evolution
Did humans evolve from apes? It all depends on what you mean by "from." And "did." And "apes."
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:10 AM • 51 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
There is a lot of evidence that nature is in balance. An invasive species throws off the balance of nature in a given region by out-competing some similar indigenous form. When something destructive happens there is a return to status quo, eventually. A few...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:04 AM • 35 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
