Quantum mechanics seems to be geared towards giving philosophers something to do:

Interesting note: If you pick the first link in the body of a wikipedia article (excluding portal links and stuff in brackets), you either end up in a repeating loop or on the philosophy page. I was showed this a while ago and it seems to work pretty regularly.

Given that science is (broadly) about the acquisition of knowledge, it's not really surprising that some of the foundations of the scientific method have come from epistemology. The emphasis on falsifiability, repeatability etc. The philosophy of science is not useless unless you consider the scientific method to be…

...That isn't even true. I don't understand why he'd say or think that. I watch a lot of sport and I've never come across a single (as in, one of many rather than unattached) guy who feels that way.

Yes. Yes it was.

There was an interesting BBC documentry by Marcus du Sautoy a while ago on artificial intelligence and the various approaches researchers are taking. Worth checking out if it's still on iplayer, although it may be a bit basic if you read a lot about it already.

I think my argument is far more along the lines of "treat others how you would wish to be treated" than it is like "pro-life" arguments. But misrepresent it all you want.

I said there would be exceptions for those people who are medically (or bureaucratically) unable to donate.

Yeah, I feel like it would be a pretty brutal lesson to learn (especially for those people who don't need to learn it) but I don't think they're going to learn otherwise. It's not like casting their gaze over the Europe and how "we" do things ("we" is in quotation marks because we're actually quite different with…

Yeah, when I originally wrote it, I did it in the past tense (as if the North had just let them secede instead of the Civil War) but I didn't feel comfortable idly wondering how awesome the north would've been and ignoring the fact that slavery would've continued in the South.

I don't think I said that the North would become Utopia and the South, hell. The South has a far greater proportion of christofascist politicians and people. The North, if they separated, would presumably be a great deal more socially liberal (on average) than the whole country is now (on average). So they'd have…

Also, who has a giant box of porn? This isn't the stone age. Unless his computer was in that box, or a print out of his internet history. I suppose pointing to his computer isn't as dramatic but I feel this change undermines the dramatic integrity of the story.

Fair enough. Thanks for the correction.

Czechnology's argument is backwards too. Cost of living went up (or wages went down relative to inflation) and so both parents needed to work.

Man, I feel bad for Yanks. How much better would the northern US be if they just let the South secede? I know that would be awful for the South and it'd be a complete hole but I can't help but be slightly curious.

Is this... Is this real? Like, not a parody?

Sorry, it just read as somewhat of a genuine question rather than a rhetorical one. Genuine apologies, I came across as a bit of an ass. There are plenty of people who do care, just not at the heads of major companies, or working as lobbyists. Or politicians.

I stand corrected.

I'm in favour of there being a gender neutral pronoun because I feel language needs one. "They" often feels a bit clumsy and generally is a plural. So I'm broadly in favour of this. And if I wasn't before, reading the criticisms in the article has only strengthened my support. "It might confuse my children" is…

A nutritionist registered with whom? As far as I know, nutritionist isn't a protected title. To prove this, a science journalist in Britain (Ben Goldacre) got his (possibly dead, I can't quite remember) cat a degree in "nutrition" and it's now a registered nutritionist. So yeah, I wouldn't care what this person said…