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Summary of Entries on Urban Legends
What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind”, but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically.
~Ayn Rand
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On Grief and What It Does Not (Necessarily) Involve
Two of the most fascinating questions yet to be answered by science, in my opinion, are how developmental biology works and how the brain works. This is because they are, relatively speaking, some of the most complicated processes known.
On the other hand, while the questions asked by psychology are some of the most fascinating to me, psychology as ( Read more... ) -
On Who's Killed the Most People in History
This morning, an agnostic coworker of mine and I were walking and discussing religion. During this, he suggested the usual argument I have heard from anti-religion folk about how “Religions have been the cause of countless deaths.” As almost always happens, his example was the Crusades ( Read more... ) -
More on Pink Lemonade
thefaeway provided an answer to the pink lemonade question I posed yesterday. (Thanks!) However, I didn't trust Wikipedia on the answer -- which is rather common for me -- so I did a little more research ( Read more... ) -
More on Urban Legends
I have just started watching MythBusters on DVD from Netflix. I really enjoy the show, naturally, because I hate the existence of urban legends[1] and am happy to see them debunked in a very public fashion. (But also, as a genuine boy, I love to watch things blow up, etc. -- as long as people and animals are not hurt.[2]The main reason that I hate ( Read more... ) -
On Mr. Ripley
Just over two years ago on 1 Jul, 2006, on the last day of our honeymoon, sadeyedartist and I visited the original Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. In my "Happenings" report following, I indicated how visiting there changed my opinion of the man ( Read more... ) -
On Correlations: Barbie Dolls
It is frustrating as a scientist whenever people make the logical fallacy of assuming one thing causes another just because observation or studies indicate a correlation. (It is doubly frustrating when such claims are made by "scientists ( Read more... ) -
On Swallowing Spiders
Did you know that the average person swallows 8 spiders a year ( Read more... ) -
On Pain in Women and Men
Something I have wondered about but not shared often, as I was afraid to offend my women readers, was on pain and the differences between the sexes ( Read more... )