Philosophy & Ethics

The SciPhi Of Gay Adoption

Gay marriage is rapidly becoming less and less controversial, at least in the Western world. Yes, the battle hasn’t been won just yet, both in Europe and in the US, but we are getting there at a pace that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. T ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Feb 18 2014 - 10:26am

Dear Mr. President: To Restore Trust, Stop Saying That Paul Revere Was An NSA Agent

America has developed a surveillance problem, hiding behind a facade of security. Britain has been down this road before, the average citizen in London is photographed 300 times per day by government, which has done nothing to reduce crime. Thus it makes ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 23 2014 - 5:30am

Genomics May Usher In A New Era Of Scientific Racism

A hundred years ago, progressive efforts to bring about Utopia led to eugenics and social Darwinism, efforts to breed out undesirable traits by sterilizing people who had them. The concept was endorsed by luminaries such as the author H.G. Wells, economis ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 15 2014 - 4:30am

The Income Gap In Assisted Suicide

It used to be that only rich people could afford to be fat. Now only rich people can afford to be thin. And there's even a growing income gap when it comes to suicide. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland but that doesn't make it equal, and ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 18 2014 - 10:09pm

Is Information Physical? What Does That Mean?

I’ve been reading for a while now Jim Baggott’s Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth, a fascinating tour through cutting edge theoretical physics, led by someone with a physics background and a healthy (I thi ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Feb 24 2014 - 1:04pm

Sean Carroll, Edge And Falsifiability

Cosmologist Sean Carroll is one of many who have recently answered the annual question posed by Edge.org, which this year was: What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Sean, whom I’ve met at the Naturalism workshop he organized not long ago, and for w ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Mar 3 2014 - 6:30am

Is Theologian Alving Plantinga For Real? Alas, It Appears So

I keep hearing that Notre Dame philosopher and theologian Alvin Plantinga is a really smart guy, capable of powerfully subtle arguments about theism and Christianity. But every time I look, I am dismayed by what I see. If this is the best that theology can ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Mar 10 2014 - 6:31am

David Hume And The Missing Shade Of Blue

This semester I’m teaching a graduate level course on “ Hume Then and Now,” which aims at exploring some of the original writings by David Hume, particularly the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and contemporary philosophical treatments of Humean th ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Mar 17 2014 - 7:00am

The Science Way To Reduce Animal Testing In Science

By growing “mini-livers” from adult mouse stem cells, the road may be paved to replacing, reducing or refining the use of animals in science. Dr. Meritxell Huch from the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge received the National Centre for the Replacement, Refine ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2014 - 5:14pm

The Science Of Spite

Playing fair is an altruistic behavior- we sacrifice our own potential gain to give others what they deserve.  It's persisted since man has existed, so is it biological or social? Regardless, it's still nice. No one is against fairness except peo ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2014 - 1:34pm