Most Popular Choices
Become a Premium Member Would you like to know how many people have visited this page? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.



Email: proftim@fulbrightmail.org
SHARE More Sharing

Tim McGettigan

Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

                 

Volunteer a little time and make a big difference

I have 15 fans:
Become a Fan
Become a Fan.
You'll get emails whenever I post articles on OpEd News

Prof Tim teaches sociology at CSU-Pueblo and he writes books about social change, such as... A Formula for Eradicating Racism, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/113759974X

www.amazon.com/gp/product/113759974X

OpEd News Member for 759 week(s) and 0 day(s)

100 Articles, 0 Quick Links, 348 Comments, 3 Diaries, 2 Series, 0 Polls

Articles Listed By Popularity
List By Date

Page 1 of 5    First  Last   Back  Next  2  3  4  5     View All

Stephen Hawking's Stubbornly, From ImagesAttr
(17 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Stephen Hawking's God: A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion It boggles the mind that two eminent physicists would be so unwilling to embrace the full implications of quantum uncertainty. With apologies to Einstein, quantum science has revealed the inescapable truth that determinism is naught but a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Elementary my dear Watson!, From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 16, 2012
Elementary My Dear Watson! The Beauty (and Baloney) of Being Right about Everything Fate is the most potent weapon in a the arsenal of determinists like Stephen Hawking. To contend, as determinists plainly do, that the outcomes of events are pre-determined is essentially the same as saying that the ebbs and flows of history are all dictated by fate.
Frankenstein's miscalculation: the monster has a will of its own., From ImagesAttr
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 14, 2012
It's Alive!! Ray Kurzweil, AI, and Frankentelligence Kurzweil not only believes that AI is inevitable, he also believes that AI will be a uniformly positive phenomenon. For example, AI-enhanced machines could repay their human creators by helping solve variety of currently intractable problems. However, no one should be surprised if sentient machines decide to focus on their own priorities.
Stephen Hawking is famous for asking deep, fascinating, enigmatic questions., From ImagesAttr
(96 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 29, 2012
Many Worlds, but only One Reality: Stephen Hawking and the Determinist Fallacy Through his affinity for Many Worlds theory, Stephen Hawking is trying to have his determinist cake and eat it too.
God's Loaded Dice, From ImagesAttr
(13 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 4, 2013
Feynman's Cosmic Onion Albert Einstein believed that the universe was governed by a rational god who would never play dice with his precious creation. Yet, if scientists have learned anything over the past century, it is that the universe is anything but rational. Thus, if there is a god, he does play dice. Further, scientists who don't wish to crap out would be well advised to wise up to the increasingly bizarre rules of his game.
I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details... - Albert Einstein, From ImagesAttr
(59 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Einstein's God is Irrelevant Einstein's oft-repeated, and dogged insistence that "God does not play dice" is scientifically wrong-headed for a number of reasons.
The Noah's Ark Fantasy, From ImagesAttr
(24 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 2, 2012
Blinded by Faith: Religion as Institutionalized Ignorance If the Bible encourages its followers to believe that dinosaurs accompanied the preposterous menagerie on Noah's ark, then I think we can safely conclude that the bible is not a tool of enlightenment, rather, it is an instrument of intellectual stultification.
Contemplating Lamarck, From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 25, 2013
Evolution 2.0: Lamarck, Culture and Human Ingenuity observers have also noted that humans have been liberated from the strict constraints of biological, or Darwinian evolution. For example, in Wired for Culture , Pagel (2012) argues that humans have been able to subvert the biological evolutionary process due to their unique capacity for cognition and cultural adaptation.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 14, 2011
Agency vs. Determinism: Redefining Reality One Creative Idea at a Time A surprising number of people believe that the universe is deterministic. Determinists believe that humans don't have any control over their lives, or the world around them. In contrast, I argue that humans have a capacity for agency--or a form of individual-level intellectual creativity that enables individuals to conceive original ideas and then act upon those inspirations.
Newton, Galileo and Einstein: Three major paradigm revolutionaries, From ImagesAttr
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 19, 2012
Paradigms Unlimited: Thomas Kuhn and Evolutionary Truth Though Kuhn's revelations stirred a great deal of discomfort in the scientific community, nevertheless, his analysis exposed crucial insights about the knowledge accumulation process.
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Innocence of Muslims: Sam "The Imbecile" Bacile, Religious Freedom and Free Speech Having amply demonstrated that his opinions are worthless, people should accord Sam Bacile the respect and recognition that he so richly deserves: Ignore the dumb-ass and move on! Continuing to fuss and fume over Sam Bacile's idiotic insults will only drag otherwise decent folks down to his slimy level.
(15 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 2, 2012
Charles Darwin: The Unlikely Revolutionary (Excerpt from Good Science) Darwin is one of the most widely revered and enduringly controversial figures in the history of science. Both are exceptional feats for such a mild-mannered gentleman.
From Images
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Time Surfers: Problem-Solving as the Path to a Better, Brighter, but Unpredictable Future Essentially, the future is a process. The fact that the earth has been revolving around the sun for eons is a fairly strong indicator that it will continue doing so in the future. One of the most unpredictable instigators of temporal change is the often improbable impact that human agents have upon the structure of unfolding events.
(19 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 13, 2012
Ayn Rand: The Blinkered Visionary It is worth emphasizing at this point that arch free marketers, such as Ayn Rand, typically endorse a qualified view of "government interference." Since the modern nation-state is tasked with the responsibility of maintaining a monetary system, in spite of Rand's idyllic view of a 100% laissez faire business environment, it would be impossible for an economic system to function in total isolation from government intervention.
Poisoning Young Minds for More than 100 Years!, From ImagesAttr
(33 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Boycott the Boy Scouts: Quit Teaching Kids to Celebrate Prejudice and Ignorance* Boycott the Boy Scouts! I am re-posting this article in objection to the Boy Scouts reaffirmation on February 6, 2013 of their poisonously prejudiced ban on gays.
Black Friday Strike at Walmart, From ImagesAttr
(18 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Thanksgiving at Walmart: Strikers Plan a Nationwide Celebration for Black Friday There is a tragic chink in Walmart's "populist" armor. While there is no doubt that Walmart loves to deliver severely discounted products to its customers, in order to maximize discounts, Walmart is infamously stingy with its employees. Actually, stingy is too generous a term: when it comes to caring for its employees, Walmart is like Ebeneezer Scrooge on steroids.
God's Loaded Dice, From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 20, 2012
God's Loaded Dice: Einstein and the Death of Classical Reality Try as he might to construct a unified field theory, Einstein never succeeded in shaping a coherent unified theory into which bizarre quantum phenomena would comfortably fit.
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 5, 2012
Catholic Bishops Fortnight Fiasco: Government Grants Freedom, Not God Via the Fortnight for Freedom, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are attempting to make the argument that the AHA's mandates will inhibit their religious freedom. In this case, "religious freedom' is defined rather broadly as "blocking access to contraceptives for Catholic Church employees.' On July 4th, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, asserted that "God grants freedom, not government.' However, on that poi
From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 15, 2012
The First Star Warrior: Galileo's Assault on Catholic Cosmology (Excerpt from Good Science) Following the invention of the first telescope in 1608, Galileo took up this new instrument with uncommon zeal. Imperfect as early telescopes may have been, Galileo was nonetheless enthralled by the wonders that his new star-gazing tool exposed. One glance through the telescope revealed that there was much more to the heavens than anyone had previously imagined: more stars, more planets, more beauty and more anomalies.
From Images
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 14, 2012
Get Your Geek On! The 100 Year Starship Symposium "The 100 Year Starship Mission will transform 20th century Star Trek science fiction into 21st century fact!" Nichelle Nichols Star Trek's Lt. Uhura
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 6, 2011
Bill Gates is an Idiot: A Recipe for Educational Failure Bill Gates should stick to what he does best: selling crappy software. As an education analyst he is a fish out of water. Software experts should run software companies. The more we rely on software experts to design educational policy, the greater the chance that we'll end up with Microsoft Vista-version of schooling.
From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 9, 2012
Sweet Revenge: Barack Obama and the Death of White Republican Privilege As Republicans conduct an autopsy of the 2012 election they'll need to acknowledge that their particular brand of vanilla--rich, white, and well-aged--is no longer a recipe for electoral success.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 27, 2012
The Sacred and the Profane: Religion, Military Occupation, and Intolerance in the Age of Reason The Sacred and the Prof As of February 25, 2012, the death toll in Afghanistan keeps climbing (28 killed in one week of rioting), but this time it's not because of terrorism, or because of some sneaky campaign by the Taliban or al Qaeda. No, on this occasion it's because some American troops accidentally--or, perhaps, intentionally--incinerated a number of Qur'ans, the sacred text of the Muslim faith.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 21, 2012
The Graveyard of Empires: The Debacle that is the US Mission in Afghanistan In the long years since the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom, endless miscues have transformed the mission in Afghanistan from unprecedented early success into America's longest and, increasingly, messiest war.
Silent March Against Racism, From ImagesAttr
(44 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Being black in public: America's most punishable offense Racism is the most sacred American value. Racism is the American obsession. America calls itself a democracy, but practices apartheid. Being black in public is a capital crime in Ferguson, Missouri and in every other US community.
Series: Science and Cosmology (2 Articles, 3212 views)
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 3, 2011
Artificial Intelligence: Is Watson the Real Thing? Artificial intelligence represents a threshold in computing that may someday transform machines into human-like entities. In a world grown used to rapid technological progress, it hardly stretches the imagination to contemplate next-generation computers that are substantially smaller and more powerful than their predecessors. However, the goal of transforming computers into sentient beings is an entirely different matter.
Donald Trump, From FlickrPhotos
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 8, 2016
Ten Reasons Why I Am Voting for Donald Trump Ten reasons why everyone should vote for Donald Trump: 1. Donald Trump is not a p*ssy. 2. Donald Trump will kick out the Mexicans. 3. Donald Trump will ban Muslims. 4. Donald Trump will make us all rich. 5. Donald Trump will end socialist healthcare. 6. Donald Trump will put a white man back in the White House. 7. Donald Trump will trample Hillary Clinton 8. Donald Trump is a real American.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 4, 2011
Live Long and Prosper: The 100 Year Starship Project The Defense Advanced Research Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced an extraordinary new project, the 100 Year Starship Study, http://www.100yss.org . Depending upon your perspective, this could either be the craziest or the coolest project ever undertaken by a US federal agency.
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, December 7, 2011
A Bungling Fox in the Henhouse: The Corporatization of Higher Education Milton Friedman, who cooked up the modern-day version of free market mumbo jumbo (aka, neo-liberalism) that brought the global economy to its knees in 2008. Three cheers for Uncle Milty! May he rest in peace and may his reprehensible ideas remain in repose with him for a long, long time to come.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Monkey Wars: Tennessee's New Monkey Bill Attacks "Controversial Science" The people who composed the New Monkey Bill, and the spineless governor who stood idly by as it became a law, are intent upon undermining science education. The Old Monkey Bill brazenly trumpeted its anti-scientific objectives where the New Monkey Bill is more subtle. Nevertheless, it is still designed to achieve precisely the same objective: privileging anti-science, and undermining science.
(26 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 21, 2011
Good Science: An Evolutionary Theory of Truth Thomas Kuhn argued that scientific revolutions take place when dominant paradigms are dislodged by emergent paradigms. Science undergoes such transitions when established paradigms fail to account for an increasing number of empirical anomalies. Though scientists are generally loath to admit it, the accumulation of scientific knowledge is a social enterprise and is, thus, replete with human shortcomings.
trayvonvigil_26_feb_13_DSC_0021, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 4, 2013
Race: The World's Deadliest Social Disease Racism is a socially-constructed disease of the mind. Racism is an infectious disease that is caused by a specific form of ignorance: a groundless, pre-scientific belief that race is based in fundamental biological differences among humans. Nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to biology, humans are all like (Gregor Mendel's) peas in a pod.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 17, 2012
Darwin Day: Celebrating the Scientist that People Love to Hate Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809-1882) is without doubt one of the most important scientists who ever lived. He is also one of the most controversial. First published in 1859, Darwin's theory of evolution has proven to be one of the most groundbreaking achievements in the history of science.
Paula Deen 's Racist Montage, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 1, 2013
Paula Deen and Pop Culture Racism As the Paula Deen case illustrates, racist vernacular among pop stars can stray too far across the line of good taste and decency. I think it is incumbent on responsible adults to impress upon our kids that using racially denigrating language--no matter which pop culture hero the user may be emulating--is hurtful, damaging and wrong.
Criminal por amor, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 5, 2013
Condoning Criminality: Sam Harris' Warped Determinism Paragons deserve to be celebrated, criminals deserve to be punished, and determinists need to get a clue.
Black Lives Matter at Minneapolis Police Department - Justice for Jamar Clark, From FlickrPhotos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Black Lives Matter Cracks the Blue Wall of Silence For decades, people of color have protested the horrific abuses that they have experienced at the hands of sadistic cops. Middle class America paid little heed to those protests because it was difficult for Ozzie and Harriet to imagine that police could really be as barbaric as people of color made them out to be.
Series: Racism and Democracy (5 Articles, 5553 views)
Humans celebrate diversity in dogs that we abhor in humans., From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 7, 2013
Racism and Hypocrisy: Celebrating Diversity--Just Not Among Humans Remarkable as the human enthusiasm for diversity may be among canines, humans tend to deplore diversity among their fellow humans. For example, common as racial discrimination has been among humans, has there ever been a dog park that discriminated on the basis of fur color? "No black dogs allowed!"
Senator Angela Giron and Friends on the day of ASSET Signing., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 6, 2013
Angela Giron: The Hardest Working Senator in Colorado Thanks to Senator Angela Giron, our kids will be better protected from rampant gun violence. Thanks to Angela, Coloradans will have better-funded schools in their neighborhoods, and more access to higher education. Thanks to Angela, when our kids complete their educations they are going to find more and better jobs waiting for them in an energized economy.
The NRA's Chief Gun-Nut, Wayne LaPierre, From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 7, 2013
The NRA: Proud Sponsor of Mass Murder Since 1871 Here are the facts: The National Rifle Association delivers unlimited guns and ammunition to trigger-happy gun nuts, while simultaneously preventing law enforcement from impeding even the most reprehensible psychopaths who are bent on carrying out mass murder against innocent victims--all too many of whom are sweet, little kids.
Joe Paterno Statue, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 23, 2012
False Gods and Monsters: The Terrible Costs of the Joe Paterno Cult at Penn State By removing the Joe Paterno statue, Penn State has taken the first crucial step toward dismantling the nefarious influences of its Joe Paterno Cult. So long as the statue remained, Penn State would never have been able overcome the taint of its slavish reverence for a false and tragically-flawed god.
Boy Scout Honor, From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 20, 2012
Queers Need Not Apply: The Boy Scouts of Amerika Continue to Disappoint On July 18, 2012, the Boy Scouts of America announced the results of a confidential, two-year review of its policy that explicitly excludes gays. The Boy Scouts' national spokesman, Deron Smith, stated that a special eleven-member committee came to the conclusion that the exclusion policy ""is absolutely the best policy'' for the 102-year-old organization.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 28, 2011
There Be Dragons: Science as the Realization of Fantasy For centuries, dragons have animated the folklore of many cultures. Whereas, dark matter and energy remain conceptual constructs that are intelligible to only a small number of ivory tower scientists. As such, of the two fantasies, one could argue that fire-breathing dragons have a substantially stronger footing in reality.
From Images
(29 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 1, 2012
To Infinity and Beyond: New Frontiers in the Science Wars It's easy to beat up on postmodernists these days. Ever since the Sokal Hoax, the postmodernists' Waterloo, the science wars have been a rout. Once it became clear that postmodernism was incapable of distinguishing between valid scientific perspectives and gibberish, postmodernists have bolted from the battlefield.
Democracy and white privilege. Whites are on top of the world., From FlickrPhotos
(63 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 20, 2015
What is White Privilege? Whites often react with hostility to the suggestion that white privilege exists. If white privilege exists then, on some level, whites must admit that they owe their good fortune to past and present injustices.
Series: Racism and Democracy (5 Articles, 5553 views)
Natural Philosophy, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Prove it! Scientific Prediction vs. Teleology The predictive power of science has made it possible for humans to exert unprecedented control over the natural universe. In the days before science, the winds of human fate were largely blown about at the mercy of the elements. But science changed all that.
Evolution at the Speed of Thought, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 21, 2012
Evolution at the Speed of Thought Humans are the first super-adaptable organism to evolve on earth. Rather than being determined by the constraints of Darwinian biology, humans are the only terrestrial species that is graced with the Lamarckian capacity to "redefine reality."
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 13, 2011
Occupying America: Middle Class Outrage Finally Transforms into a Movement The film, Inside Job, won the 2011 Academy Award for best documentary. Charles Ferguson the director of Inside Job kicked off his Oscar acceptance speech with the following statement, "Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."
(38 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 19, 2012
Dear Arizona, If Obama's Not American, Then Neither Are You In a recent email exchange, Ken Bennett, Arizona's sitting Republican Secretary of State, dredged up a particularly malodorous scoop of political muck by stating that "if Hawaii can't or won't provide verification of the president's birth certificate, I will not put his name on the ballot."
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The New World Order: Rush Limbaugh vs. Empowered Women in the 21st Century Perhaps it was due to the harshness of the terminology that Limbaugh used to excoriate Sandra Fluke that he ran afoul of his supporters. Truly, it is difficult to find humor in the profoundly stigmatizing labels that Limbaugh sought to apply to Sandra Fluke.
From Images
(28 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 20, 2012
There Ain't No Justice in Putin's Russia: Closing Statements from p*ssy Riot On August 8th, the three members of Russian feminist punk band p*ssy Riot delivered their closing statements at the Moscow Khamovniki District Court. Charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were first arrested on March 3, a day before the controversial re-election of Vladimir Putin.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 1, 2015
Let Them Eat Cake! CSU-Pueblo Wins Football Championship - Boasts Students and Faculty too Poor to Buy Food CSU-Pueblo President Lesley DiMare congratulates students for establishing Pack Pantry, a food relief program for faculty, students, and staff who can't afford groceries. DiMare gratefully accepted a year-end salary bonus in 2014 while many of her students and employees went hungry.
Lamarckian evolution ascendant., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Ideas Having Sex: Lamarckian Evolution Triumphant Matt Ridley describes the extraordinary, Lamarckian capacity that humans have developed to innovate via social and intellectual collaboration as "ideas...having sex"
Planet of the Persnickety Apes, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 10, 2013
Planet of the Persnickety Apes: Darwin and the Aesthetics of Survival Thanks to Darwin, the most straightforward answer to any question regarding survival vs. extinction is simply: advantageous evolutionary adaptation. Humans are discontented aesthetes because--at least, so far--it has been evolutionarily advantageous for humans to be agents of change.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 12, 2012
Airlines Considering Plan to Charge Passengers by the Pound - Satire (Satire) Some major airlines, such as Universal Air, have begun considering plans to charge passengers by the pound in response to Allegiant Airline's recently-announced plan to charge up to $35 per carry-on bag. "It's simple math," stated Howard Fine, a spokesperson for Universal Airlines, a rival of Allegiant Air. "Heavier passengers cost more to ship from point A to point B."
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 4, 2011
Science, Technology And The Future: The Promises And Pitfalls Of Elevated Thinking As we assess the current state of global affairs, it is easy to become disheartened. Problems that have plagued human society--poverty, hunger, disease, conflict, etc.--seem to grow more serious with each passing year. Yet, humans have always confronted seemingly insoluble problems.
The Mind of God and Other Known Unknowns, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Fate or Folly: The Mind of God and Other Known Unknowns In spite of its scientific veneer, fate is a patently unscientific superstition. Determinists admit that in order to predict future events with 100% certainty, an observer would need to be endowed with some form of superhuman omniscience.
(22 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 19, 2012
Putin's p*ssy Problem: From America with Love Pussy Riot's protest was an exceptionally courageous act because of Vladmir Putin's infamous knack for disposing of political critics in a heavy-handed fashion. In short, Putin's critics usually end up in prison or dead. Indeed, if I were a Russian citizen, I and my family* (*Putin likes to play rough and send clear and terrifying messages to his critics) could very well end up dead for defending p*ssy Riot.
Keep Cannabis Legal, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 28, 2016
The Benefits of Legal Cannabis Thanks to legal cannabis Pueblo, Colorado is undergoing an unprecedented green revolution. Legal cannabis has brought more jobs, businesses and investment to Pueblo than this community has seen since the industrial revolution. Legal cannabis is a clean, green industry that is helping Pueblo become a more vibrant, safe, healthy and wealthy community.
From ImagesAttr
(66 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 19, 2012
Say It Ain't So, Joe: Another Sports Legend Bites the Dust Unfortunately, Joe was not a man of his word. Winning football games did matter to Joe Paterno, and, it has come to light that winning obviously, and distressingly, mattered more to Paterno than the welfare of kids. Winning mattered so much that Joe Paterno, that great and honorable man, was willing to make a deal with the devil.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 21, 2011
Living the Dream: Transcending the Boundary between Sci-Fi and Reality Ever since Star Trek hit the airwaves, enthusiasts have been determined to erase the boundary between the realm of Star Trek fantasy and the real world. Although many Trekkies have become submerged in what Baudrillard would characterize as a pointless simulation, others have derived sufficient motivation from Star Trek to successfully redefine reality.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 23, 2011
Redefining Reality: Seeing is Disbelieving Redefining reality is a process through which individuals can challenge inadequate paradigms through a combination of astute observation and an ingenious capacity for innovative cognition (i.e., agency).
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 10, 2011
Steve Jobs, the Internet, and Revolutions at the Speed of Thought Einstein once said that imagination was more important than knowledge. By that, Einstein meant that scientific innovation was more a product of groundbreaking leaps of imaginative insight than a ponderous accumulation of isolated facts.
Rush Limbaugh, From ImagesAttr
(15 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Grumpy Old White Guys United: Decoding the Attacks on Barack Obama and Angela Giron Of course, even though hateful cowards like Ted Nugent and Rush Limbaugh deny the charge, their antipathy for Barack Obama derives from the President's ethnicity. Back in the good old days, majority rule meant that good old boys were guaran-damn-teed to come out on top every time. How's that for an illusion of democracy?
Series: Science and Cosmology (2 Articles, 3212 views)
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 15, 2012
The Future is a Fantasy: A 100YSS Presentation* Why bother with space travel? Because, quite simply, the stars light the way to a brighter future. Space travel paved the way to Kennedy's New Frontier in the 1960s. If the US remains committed to accomplishing ever greater feats in the future, then we should look to the stars to light our way. Thus, space travel is not a distraction. Space travel represents the path to America's--nay, humanity's--next Great Frontier.
From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Ward Churchill, the AAUP, and Academic Freedom Should the AAUP have done more to assist Ward Churchill in his long struggle to preserve and advance the principles of academic freedom? To that I can say, yes. Emphatically, yes! Indeed, I also believe that the AAUP needs to do more--much more!--to ensure that Ward Churchill's academic freedom (and, by extension, every scholar's academic freedom) is restored, reaffirmed and strengthened.
From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 10, 2012
The Federal Budget for Dummies: Tax Cuts + Increased Spending = Red Ink In the late 1990s, Bill Clinton managed to produce a series of record-setting federal budget surpluses. Not deficits, surpluses. For those who are unacquainted with such a foreign concept, budget surpluses occur when the federal government collects more revenue than it spends--which, as we all know, doesn't happen very often.
The NRA has put too many guns in the hands of psycho-killing nut-jobs., From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 8, 2013
Immediate Nationwide Moratorium on Guns and Ammo Beginning today, Americans should demand a national policy of Zero Tolerance for Gun Violence. In order to prevent any more needless deaths, Americans should also call for a nationwide moratorium on gun and ammunition sales until every gun, gun owner, and in particular, every wacked-out sociopath can be "well regulated" by appropriate, Constitutionally-empowered authorities.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 15, 2011
Introduction to a New Book: Good Science Science is a vehicle for change. Arguably, no human endeavor has ever altered the course of history more dramatically than science. Further, the effects of scientific inquiry on the earth and its inhabitants, though already substantial, are certain to increase in the future. Homo sapiens is fast becoming Homo scientia.
Donald Trump: Making America Racist Again, From FlickrPhotos
(24 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Donald Trump 2016: Making America Racist Again White supremacists like Donald Trump take pleasure in fomenting racism. Given Trump's nauseating popularity as a 2016 presidential candidate, it is also obvious that many Americans share Trump's White supremacist hatreds.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Nuclear Nightmares: Damned Lies about the World's "Safest" Energy Source Implausible as it may seem, as the Fukushima Daiichi disaster has grown more cataclysmic, nuclear energy advocates have come out of the woodwork to tout the virtues of nuclear as a "safe" form of energy. Safe? Last night, rain containing measurable levels of radiation from Fukushima Daiichi fell on the east coast of the United States. If nuclear energy is safe, then Hitler was a charter member of the Anti-Defamation League.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 2, 2011
Holy Megabucks, Batman! The Astounding Popularity of Superhero Movies Ever since people invented anthropomorphic gods--such as Thor, the star of a recent superhero blockbuster--it's fair to say that humans have been fascinated with superhumans. The coolest thing about superhumans is that they are sublimely untroubled by the mundane problems that plague mere mortals. Compared to the gods, humans are puny, weak, and insignificant.
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 22, 2015
Do Black Lives Matter? From its inception, the United States has been committed to the abhorrent idea that white lives matter and black lives do not.
Series: Racism and Democracy (5 Articles, 5553 views)
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Waste of Space: Inspired Leadership and the Struggle for the Next Great Frontier Why bother with space travel? Because, quite simply, the stars light the way to a brighter future. Space travel served as the path to Kennedy's New Frontier in the 1960s. If the US remains committed to accomplishing ever greater feats in the future, then we should look to the stars to light our way. Thus, space travel is not a distraction. Space travel represents the path to America's next Great Frontier.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 14, 2012
RVing for a Cause: An Alternative Vacation at Best Friends Honestly, you've got to experience Best Friends to believe it. It's difficult to imagine that such a vast and unreserved fountain of collective human kindness could actually exist in this dog-eat-dog world.
He's Number One: Trump Leads GOP Field in New Poll, From FlickrPhotos
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, March 21, 2016
Donald Trump: The Racist Messiah Trump has been running farcical presidential campaigns since the 1980s. Trump's Achilles Heel has always been his mouth . Every time Trump opens his mouth he lives up to his reputation as an obnoxious racist buffoon . Traditionally, after the first stump speech of each political season Trump supporters have evaporated faster than popsicles in the Mojave. But not in 2016.
Series: Racism and Democracy (5 Articles, 5553 views)
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 7, 2011
Osama is Dead, But What Have We Learned? As everyone knows, Osama became a household name when we was infamously identified as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. However, 9/11 was not Osama's first atrocity. Not by a long shot. In the 1990s, Osama orchestrated a sequence of bombings at US embassies in Africa. At the time, Bill Clinton's many detractors insisted that the President was wagging the dog when, in the midst the Lewinsky scandal, he mounted military op
Obama vs. Romney, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 26, 2012
It Takes a Village Idiot: Romney's Artful Distortion of Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Quote The beauty of this is that Barack Obama never did--and never would--make such an insulting statement. Again, in its proper context, Obama was simply saying that individual success is predicated upon support from a village--and the most successful villagers have an obligation to repay some of that largesse.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 7, 2011
Captain America, The All-American Drughead So, how do we know that Captain America is a true, blue American? Well, for starters, Cap is wrapped in the flag from head to toe. There could hardly be a clearer message: this guy represents the USA. He's strong, he's fast, he's fearless, and he is all of these things because he is...( drum roll, please )...a drughead!
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A New Energy Future: Obama's Sputnik Moment Far-reaching as Barack Obama's new energy vision may be, the current plan has a number of glaring deficiencies. For one, where does renewable energy fit into the picture?
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 10, 2011
Conquering the Beast Within and Without: Maintaining a Sibling Rivalry with Big Brother For his part, Hobbes was convinced that social control was the key to human progress. No matter how refined any individual may appear, Hobbes was convinced that a primitive beast lurked within. Yet, though Hobbes believed that a savage resided within every human heart, he also believed that it was possible to tame those internal beasts.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 11, 2011
iPad Delusions: The Curious Appeal of Workaround Computing Don't get me wrong, I like Steve Jobs: he's a visionary who's done more to spearhead the personal computing revolution than anyone in history, and I hope he lives to be at least two hundred years old. Three cheers for Steve! But, that said, he's got this one wrong.
The Ku Klux Klan Backs Trump. KKK, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 18, 2016
Racism 101: Debunking White Supremacy Describing the US as a white supremacy isn't an ad hominem attack. It is simply a statement of fact. The only people in the room when the founders mapped out the contours of American democracy were greedy white guys. Is it any wonder that the only people who have enjoyed unrestricted access to American democracy throughout its history are greedy white guys?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Trumped by the Dorkusians: Donald Trump's Evil Plan to Conquer the Planet (Satire) Just for laughs, let's ask Donald Trump to prove that he is really an American. Without even bothering to examine his 'official' birth certificate, I would be inclined to dispute it on his face. Why is Trump's birth certificate any more valid than President Obama's?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Power to The People's Attorney Since both candidates are Democrats one might assume that Bill Thiebaut and Jeff Chostner are interchangeable. Not so. Apart from the fact that they are both members of the same political party, each candidate emphasized throughout the debate that their views about criminal justice, the state of public security in Pueblo, and the manner in which the DA's office ought to be managed differ in practically every respect.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 16, 2011
AI and IQ: The Right Answer to the Wrong Question In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a group of truth-seekers entreats Deep Thought, an artificially-intelligent supercomputer, to reveal the answer to the most elusive question in existence, "What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?"
Evolution at the Speed of Thought, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Nature's Taskmaster Where humans were once the relatively helpless pawns of almighty nature, super-adaptable agents have transformed their former master into their servant. Nature now answers to the beck and call of its human masters.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 31, 2009
Welfare Cheats: Corporate America on the Dole In the 1990s, Bill Clinton ended welfare as we know it. Ironically, in 2008, George W. Bush once again ended welfare as we knew it. Whereas welfare had once been a system of social safety nets designed to moderate distress among the poor, during 2008, the federal government retooled welfare to bail out an entirely new cohort of economic bunglers: corporate America.
(18 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 24, 2011
If Obama's Not an American, Then Neither Are You In the days since Osama Bin Laden's execution much of the hullabaloo surrounding Barack Obama's citizenship has quieted. Putting a bullet through Osama's brain did more to convince the public that Barack Obama is a true-blue American than any deluge of replica birth certificates ever could.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 4, 2011
We should spend more on education and less on... In response to Governor Scott Walker's reprehensible proposal to slash $834 million from the state of Wisconsin's education budget, I would like to make a counter-proposal. We should spend more on education and less on...
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 16, 2011
iUniversity: Building Bridges to the Future If we want to blaze a path toward a better, brighter future, then we should do our best to ensure that every aspiring student has the necessary opportunities to access the innovation-inspiring environment of higher education. We may not know who the next Page, Brin or Zuckerberg will be, but the odds of producing the next generation of inspired geniuses will only increase by expanding access to higher education.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Cajun Culture Wars: Another Victory for LouSEA Science Education While at first blush the Louisiana Science Education Act (or LouSEA) appears to be an effort to promote science in the schools, a closer reading reveals that LouSEA is naught but a thinly-veiled attempt to subvert the federal ban on teaching religion in the public education system.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Capitalism 101: The Money Tree In the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, Ben Bernanke, America's leading scholar of the Great Depression, has been credited with saving the nation's economy. For the purposes of accomplishing his Miracle, Ben Bernanke suspended some of the most fundamental rules of capitalism.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 6, 2011
Pouring Gas on the Fire: Hugo Chavez Reaches out to Qaddafi Sensing that his comrade might be in hot water, Hugo Chavez has offered to serve as a mediator between Qaddafi and Libya's fed-up citizenry. Let's see, what kind of special skills would Hugo Chavez bring to the negotiating table?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 9, 2011
Butchery vs. Surgery: A Political Health Plan for the Middle East Even though I tend to be an advocate of peaceful diplomacy, I support the spirit of the US military intervention in Libya. Given the available alternatives, I would vastly prefer to see the US and NATO providing military support for Libyan rebels than standing idly by while Qaddafi exacts brutal revenge on his enemies.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 30, 2011
Publication And Progress At The Speed Of Thought Einstein once said that imagination was more important than knowledge. By that, Einstein meant that scientific innovation was more a product of groundbreaking leaps of imaginative insight than a ponderous accumulation of isolated facts. In his own career, Einstein demonstrated time and again that scientific progress is often predicated on breaking free from established modes of thought and replacing old ideas with revolutionar
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 2, 2011
A Prelude to Good Science Although I believe it is possible to identify demonstrable improvements in the progression of scientific paradigms, I do not believe that any paradigm that humans ever have or will produce is an expression of "The Ultimate Truth." Nonetheless, the process of redefining reality is an expression of human agency. Agency can be understood as a unique quality of creative, sentient beings and it involves three key components.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, November 19, 2015
Old Racists Never Die This is a satirical response from Reverend Billy Bob Butthole, Jr. to a Washington Post article about the insufferable anti-white prejudice that white racists claim to besieged by the contemporary USA.
Series: Racism and Democracy (5 Articles, 5553 views)
The Clockwork Universe, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 3, 2013
When You're Wrong...You're Right? Stephen Hawking's Implausible Defense of Determinism Hard determinists assert that nothing moves, interacts, appears or disappears in the clockwork universe without having been minutely pre-determined by a chain of causality that was set in motion at the origin of the universe. Thus, hard-core determinism leaves no room whatsoever for agency, free will or indeterminism.

Page 1 of 5    First  Last   Back  Next  2  3  4  5     View All

Tell A Friend