And if I recall correctly, the much of the debunking of Mead's work on Coming of Age was itself debunked. It's (skeptical) elephants all the way down, folks.

Ah — a hobbyhorse of yours, then. Whatever misreadings of science may be found in other articles, I still think it's the case here that the author was being entirely ironic.

Yes — but then, the author's being ironic, no? The old hyperbolic trope of "If you knew anything about..."

Sounds great! And the Slavic folklore is definitely in the air these days. I heartily recommend Orson Scott Card's novel "Enchantment" — in which story, Baba Yaga is forever having to be recasting the spells that keep her husband, the bear-god embodiment of the Rus people, in thrall to her.

This. The Katie Baker asks, "How come Austen's popularity continues to climb?", and then dismisses a fact which seems to me to explain most of Austen's popularity: "it goes without saying that Austen is way wittier and more talented than her modern day counterparts." It's her writing ability — her wit and talent with…

The decay rate algorithm, in't it? http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/07/spider-man-equation/

Almost as bad as "Strider."

Feel free to suggest more for the list.

I found myself thinking the same thing while reading this article.

This is a conversation a number of people involved in secular activism (and community organizing among secular people) are having. Some folks think it's important, others think it less of a priority, but there you are. I've been collating all the responses I can find, at…

"I think your mixing up the literal definition of religion with the societal definition."

I think any socioloogist or scholar of comparative religion would disagree with you. Just consider praxis — when people get together on a Sunday morning, there're often not engaged in anything that invokes supernatural powers or that looks on the surface to be irrational. In other words, religion minus the theology…

I did not think that.

Do! You'll find my address online.

Er, everyone I know grumbles about the shortcomings of typing on touchscreens.

Holy hylomorphism, Batman.

Hmm. Where can I read some of this?

Melanie, are you yourself Christian? I ask because it seems odd you would not have mentioned Hyatt's Christian perspective. If you yourself were Christian, you might (I am supposing) not have realized how off-putting this perspective is to non-Christian or nontheistic readers. (For the same reason, a fish doesn't…

When teaching poetry, I've unpacked the lexical, phonetic, semantic, and conventional formal features of a couplet, using just as much diagram spaghetti and Greek.

Sigh. To ask just one question after an important distinction the author fails to make: