March 2021
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In Memoriam: Margaret Morrison (1954-2021)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 11–UPDATED A leading philosopher of science, Professor Morrison was emerita in philosophy at the University of Toronto, where she had taught since 1989. You can learn more about her work here. I will add links to memorial notices as they appear. (Thanks to Professor Stephan Hartmann [LMU Munich] for notifying…
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Faces reveal political orientation?
Maybe so. Who hasn't noticed that Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity…there's something "off" about those faces? The return of (gasp) physiognomy? (Thanks to Blake Myers for the pointer to the article.)
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Blast from the past: the Ward Churchill case at the University of Colorado
Back in 2005. Remarkably, the charlatan Paul Campos is still teaching at Colorado, while Churchill, after being wrongfully fired, has never taught again. Churchill was an early victim of right-wing cancel culture aimed at the universities.
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More good news about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines
Here; an excerpt: A new study suggests the messenger RNA vaccines produced by Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership appeared to be 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 infection in a real-world setting…. The study followed nearly 4,000 health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers in eight U.S. locations as the first Covid vaccines were…
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Derek Muller (Iowa) on the US News rankings disaster this year
Professor Muller's analysis and his recommendations are worth taking seriously. I'm far from being against rankings, as readers know; but the US News rankings use mostly garbage data, aggregate it through a meaningless and indefensible formula, and create massive incentives for dishonesty and strategic behavior, that distort educational goals and values. As Professor Muller suggests,…
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Christ is contradictory…
…but non-classical logic (with help from philosopher Jc Beall [Notre Dame]) comes to the rescue!
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Finacial issues in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
I asked philosopher Steven Hales (Bloomsburg) if he could share some of what he and colleagues in the Pa. State System are confronting. His account is bracing, and no doubt not unfamiliar elsewhere: Pennsylvania has a very strange public higher ed system. On the one hand are the state-related universities like Penn State, University of…
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Guest on Tucker Carlson show: Repugs will have to choose a fascist in next 10-20 years…
…to protect themselves from dastardly liberals! Or as Sinclair Lewis is supposed to have said: "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," to defend both against the liberals! It's temping to laugh at this, but bear in mind that Carlson and his acolytes are deadly serious. Add…
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US News seems intent on driving home the fact that the ranking formula is arbitrary and meaningless
Yesterday, they issued the third correction to the embargoed rankings (which will be released tomorrow) in the last week! Here's the explanation: For the overall ranking, U.S. News removed the metric for ratio of credit-bearing hours of instruction provided by law librarians to full-time equivalent law students [.25%, reducing the library weighting to 1.75%] and…
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Kosch from Johns Hopkins back to Cornell
Michelle Kosch (Kant, post-Kantian Continental philosophy [esp. Kierkegaard and Fichte]), who moved last year to Johns Hopkins, has decided to return to Cornell University.
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Informative news article comparing COVID vaccines
Here. All the vaccines are quite good, but Pfizer and Moderna results are really quite remarkable.
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“Rawls at 100”
Political philosopher Josh Cohen (Apple U & Berkeley) talks with economist Glenn Loury about Rawls on the centennary of his birth.
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Your annual reminder that movements in the US News.com rankings are almost all meaningless
With the new nonsense numbers about to appear, it's worth reminding everyone (and especially journalists) that: 95% of movement in the US News.com "overall" rank is attributable to (1) schools puffing, fudging or lying about the self-reported data more than their peers (or the reverse, for those schools that drop); or (2) simply being more…
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Huddleston from Birkbeck to Warwick
Andrew Huddleston (19th-century Continental philosophy [esp. Nietzsche], aesthetics), currently Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick starting the 2021-22 academic year. (His move will affect the recommendations for post-graduate Nietzsche study: Birkbeck is a less attractive choice [although Ken Gemes remains…
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Blodwyn Pig, “Same Old Story,” 1970
Another number from Mick Abrahams' post-Jethro Tull band that we've featured in the past; one of my two favorites songs by the band:
I wonder how feasible and time-intensive it would be to make it a standard policy check for undisclosed AI usage.…