I’d like to thank Debtwell University for this opportunity to address your student body. Furthermore, I want to express my deepest hope that your original speaker overcomes [FOOD POISONING/ IRS DIFFICULTIES/ SUBPOENA/ ETC] without undue complications. [PAUSE. MAKE EYE CONTACT. SQUINT AS IF DRAWING ON A WELL OF DEEP WISDOM, BUT NOT SO HARD THAT YOU …
Those of you who read what I scribble here and elsewhere know I nurse a few curious theories about science, like that it ought to remain distinct from scientism, and that the scientific process taught in schools is hokum, and that reductionism is just as nonsensical when it comes to dominate the physical sciences as …
A reasonable response to the accusation that the evangelical mind is insufficiently expansive is to ask to what dimensions its critics would like to see it expanded. That question springs to the lips when considering Biblical scholar Peter Enns’s contention that evangelical minds are not only confined, but are required to remain in confinement. “The …
Whenever I have a lot to do, and I finally muster the resolve to do it, I’ll say “time to get down to it.” This always reminds me of that Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song, which makes me think of Kent State, which reminds me of the time I interviewed for a political science …
There are many plausible explanations for why men commit nearly all murders and start most wars. It could be that we’re just hard-wired to smash skulls. Or perhaps it’s that we’ve learned how much chicks dig a man in uniform. Or maybe, according to Jesse Prinz, philosophy professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, it’s because …
In his recent Boston Review essay, philosophy professor Carlos Fraenkel manages the neat trick of advocating a sensible position — that high-school students should be taught philosophy — so ineptly that he ends up proving the opposite, namely, that while it may be the case that students should learn philosophy, this is quite independent from …
The problem with political science professor Corey Robin’s claim that warmongering is woven into the DNA of conservatives is that he can’t seem to define his subject. One minute a conservative is a Burkean, the next he’s a tea-partier, then a neocon, then a Republican politico. Richer still, Robin represents these British-American country-clubbing anti-marxist quasi-literate …
It just never gets old, the article by an academic detailing all the work that academics have to do. Rob Faunce offers the latest installment: We have to plan for our courses weeks in advance. We have papers to grade. Students to counsel. Department meetings to attend. One thing I’ve learned, in my stints across …
I’m always leery of research by people who desperately, desperately want a certain answer. So when I hear shouts of joy over a new study running counter to previous studies in its conclusion that putting small children in daycare has no adverse effects, I develop a more skeptical eye than usual. Which I know is …
Call me crazy, but maybe it’s a good thing that the University of Iowa — and by extension, a great many schools in financially troubled times — has to decide not to have an Asian studies program, among other marginal offerings. Universities — their administrations, boards, faculties, and sometimes students — are almost uniformly gripped …
Perhaps most disturbing about Robin West’s attack on homeschooling is that it’s published in a scholarly journal, even if it does come out of the University of Maryland. One might expect more thoughtfulness, even from a second-rate scholar. But instead we get breathless fear mongering like this: “In other words, in much of the country, if …
I’m wondering if these researchers would have been fine with The Goonies if only all the kids had worn bicycle helmets while pedaling to the treacherous caverns.
. . . hates his child. Didn’t know that was in the Bible, did you? And now a new study suggests that children who are spanked as youngsters go on to be happier and more successful. I’m sure even now a phalanx of Ivy League psychologists with one medicated child a piece are lining up …