I can't imagine what this guy is feeling, but I am stirred emotionally a bit. I can almost describe the feeling I had when I first saw the image. I had been looking on Google Image for similar images to one which was used as illustration of the Romantic/Sublime arty-farty heyday. Google Images returns, most often, a similar colour-range (the illustration was blue) and quite often a contextual/conceptual similitude: the Google Image results for 'search for this image' gave "like" mountains, pea
Brant, some areas of biology are more complicated than flip one-liners ... I think you do well understand that there is variation in genitals. I have explained this before at length here. Please review the 'spectrum' of real-world and recurring cases of babies born with indeterminate external genitalia. It is relevant and not all that complicated in principle: the X and the Y have jobs to do as chromosomes. In a normally developing fetus, their job is done to the norm. It is the not norm I thi
[Added by WSS, August 18 2018: old placeholder thread, updated with a puzzler snatched from the front pages of OL. It's a neat little attribution discussion, with sides of psychology and morality ... I may not get around to answering myself for a bit, but thought to dust this old entry off, give it some glitz, and apply twenty-first century cogitation tech. ]
Argument Clinic May 12 and 13
-- thanks to the tipster who saw this entrained convo begin to derail.
I'd like to think tha
Objective eyes on November: Roundtable - May 11, 2016
Roger Bissell, Robert Campbell, and William Scott Scherk look through Objective(ish) eyes at the US presidential election. Get to know the spirit, humour and wit of the three amigos in the first of a series.
Presented as an audio-only podcast at Conversations with the Greats | Show notes at November Eyes Notes
No particular topic to start this off. I want to open a space where doubt is okay -- to have disquieting anticipation, to have issues and questions and even fierce criticism. OK to roll.
I will also act as a moderator. The rules that are in place are the same general OL rules, but I intend to be a tight-ass. Please do not overdo 'personalizing' discussion. Do not attack the character of discussants or otherwise be a conversational oaf. There is only one level of appeal.
So ... an
To be a real American, you must have a real name. Or not.
I have teeth that want to chew into this whole episode. But I am committed to the aural tradition, and will take these moments with me into the POD. Perhaps REB is interested in heading down this alley a ways. It is so depressing a subject, but I think worth the expenditure in sanitizing solution.
Where disagreement is starkest -- there is the coal-face of Reason. Together an epistemologically-sound team of technici
[Edited to add a clanger from 2008]
Robert Bidinotto's penultimate posting at OL:
From today (April 24) -- RC and MSK get closer to the nub of disagreement:
Thank you for tuning in. This is my script for responding to a notion put forward on the front porch of OL. I use the blog to form arguments and to analyze statements. Much of my work here is done to pre-load some assumptions. In this case, the prelaoded assumptions are in the quoted material
First step, orientation and identification. Think of you and a map in hand, along with a remembered direction. You are in America, where opinions flow fast and hot. Mark Levin is a radio-jock, a talk-
[http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/trumpAbortionTalk.htm]
QUESTION: Hello. I am (inaudible) and have a question on, what is your stance on women's rights and their rights to choose in their own reproductive health?
DRUMPF: OK, well look, I mean, as you know, I'm pro-life. Right, I think you know that, and I -- with exceptions, with the three exceptions. But pretty much, that's my stance. Is that OK? You understand?
MATTHEWS: What should the law be on abortion?
Fresh from today's headlines -- or rather, fresh from Today's front porch at Objectivist Living.
Brief audio introduction to the issues [TBRecorded]
Word People ploys, number 16 and 7 -- spins on "If I understand your points correctly." The double ploy depends on the operation of Compare and Contrast. What is being compared? To answer that question, one needs to understand the basic ploy parameters of the fallacious reasoning -- in informal English it is known
These are the kinds of commentary that I know I should give real thought to. Although Michael seems to insult me in one item [see clarification d"oh below], he follows it with a smiley emoticon, so I know it is 'banter.'
If I weren't a simple child like Pollyanna, I'd say that insults choke discussion. But that is for another day and another dollar. Some things just need to sink in.
First, as a boring
