Sophisticated skepticism isn't about rejecting the possibility for extraordinary events out of hand even when your senses seem to be telling you something else. It's about being honest with yourself about what you're really capable of knowing and that you are also capable of fooling yourself, along with an awareness…

It's not the artist who pisses me off, it's the response from the critics. In some ways they are praising the artist's idea of reproducing these covers in this fashion, but most of them seem to be praising what the content evokes, which this artist had absolutely nothing to do with except for the fact that he chose…

"Heat maps" is more than a little bit misleading.

I'm happy to say that I've already addressed most of these in the sci-fi world I'm building right now. One of the biggest problems I've had with writing about future-tech is that modern technology is developing so rapidly these days. It's hard to get a fix on what the future will hold with all of the crazy changes…

"I had thought ICBM’s were a relic of the Cold War..."

Correction: Hand movements are represented toward the front, not the back of the corpus callosum.

Borges didn't write the story you are referring to. You are referring to 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Where I'm learning to make maps similar to this one. :)

Sample bias, Night Fury. These are all i09 readers.

I'm sure most of the i09 crowd got 13/13, so I won't dwell on that. I have a problem with this test. While most of the questions are quizzing knowledge on relevant findings of science, only one addresses the scientific process itself (the one with the drug trial scenario). Ironically, this test illustrates exactly…

I always just assumed higher complexity to mean higher degrees of freedom or more kinds of things. More complex life forms can do more, have parts that can do more. They are also made up of more kinds of things, like more kinds of cells, more kinds of structures and mechanisms, more kinds of interactions between…

It seems an apology would have been forthcoming after that rather dramatic (and wrongful) accusation. smh.

But that's pretty much the entire anti-gay movement. ;)

Only the lowest of intellects waste their time interrupting conversation with spelling and grammar corrections. On the other hand, logical corrections are usually pertinent and require some cognitive skills. For example, your claim that a math teacher must also be a perfect speller on the internet is fallacious.

Isn't the observer effect in psychology fun? :)

The anti-vax butthurt reaction to this article on facebook is getting pretty entertaining.

Your appeals to the just-world fallacy make you sound simple. It actually devalues your argument. You should try to find better reasons for defending your position, or change your position.

Abortion is a political gravy train for them. It gets voters who aren't educated enough to understand the real issues in the ballot boxes. Abortion, framed as baby-killing, is something they can understand and get outraged about. It's also a strategy to unify the Christian vote.

Of course they're saying she's suicidal. Most women living there would (with good reason) probably equate what she did with suicide. Sad. Now the family's only concern is their own honor now, so they're probably planning on killing her.

I agree, but just wanted to point out that science itself should be considered indispensable to social progressivism regardless of the shortcomings of some of its advocates. Also, science is only very narrowly prescriptive in the sense that it says one should value hard evidence and be self-critical. Science doesn't…