Month: August 2004
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The Beauty and Innovation of Culture
Social Animals With a complex understanding of Evolution, one that goes beyond observable genetic traits, we find some deeper reasons for the human race’s success. Sure, we had some terrific genes. Those opposable thumbs were really handy (Get it, “Handy”?) and the subsequent tool use helped us to bonk the duller monkeys on the head…
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Universal Ethics, Virtues, and Vision
Ethics: The “Do Not’s” The following ideas were heavily influenced by the Theologian Dr. Huston Smith, who I saw give a talk on “The Enduring Truths of the Great Religions.” The word “Enduring” jumped out at me as the language of Science. There are not absolute truths, only enduring ones. While Huston Smith often laments…
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False Dichotomies: Poor VS Rich
“Class Warfare” is a term we often hear politicians evoke when attacking and when under attack by those who disagree with their economic viewpoints. Both liberals and conservatives charge the other with engaging in this tactic as a means of unfairly motivating the “poor” and the “wealthy” against one another. This rhetoric completely ignores the…
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Your Taxes as an Investment
Two and a half blocks down the street from my house stands a monument to the irrational enterprising spirit, the Old Dominion University Maglev train. “Maglev” is short for “Magnetic Levitation”. This is a train that would float on a cushion of air a half-inch thick above the track, shuttling students across campus. It would…