Failing to respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinions about controversial scientific issues is bad pedagogy, and presuming that no legitimate controversy can exist, simply because the preponderance of evidence now at our disposal favors a particular theory, is bad science. How many theories, espoused within the last hundred years with as much fervor as those mentioned in the Tennessee statute, are now wholly or in part discredited?
The Contraception Debate in Cyberspace
Recently my personal cyberspace has been inundated with blurbs about the so-called Republican “War on Women,” mostly having to do with a conservative-led challenge to a national mandate that employers with religious objections to contraception and abortion be required to pay for insurance coverage for these services. It’s a genuine Constitutional issue. Freedom of conscience […]
Cancer and uncontrolled socioeconomic growth – a common cause?
Ras proto-oncogenes and memetic metastasis A hypothesis concerning how defective human pheromone receptors may be implicated in mental and social pathologies Could uncontrolled social growth have a genetic basis, in much the same way that cancers do? I was ruminating on this while walking past the old hospital complex in downtown Eugene, which strikes me […]
A Brief Excursion into National Vital Statistics
A few days ago our local paper, the Eugene Register-Guard, ran an article from a pediatrician. The writer talked about two parents of his patients who had recently committed suicide and speculated that the poor economy and chronic unemployment were contributing to a rise in suicide rates. The article caught my eye because three men […]
Key To My Heart
I have no particular sentimental attachments to Valentine’s Day. It conjures up memories of the second grade at Condon Elementary school in 1955, and an empty envelope taped to the front of my desk because none of those kids who brought in silly cheap cartoon valentines had addressed one to me. To my recollection, only […]
Capital Gains Tax Breaks – Not Just for the Rich
Recently there has been a flurry of outrage concerning the fact that some very wealthy individuals, notably Mitt Romney, pay Federal taxes at the 15% middle class rate, because of a law that put a cap of 15% on taxes on capital gains and qualified investment income. Before jumping on a bandwagon calling for a […]
Listening to my Gut
We all have them from time to time – strong, emotionally-colored urges to act in ways that make no rational sense and are counterproductive in our current modern society. Our forbears, and conservative Christians even today, ascribed this to “Original Sin” and prescribed prayer and penance as a countermeasure. Classical psychiatry presumes that the roots […]
Pathogenic Evil
Do Outbreaks of Evil have an Organic Cause? Martha Sherwood contemplates the idea that perhaps there was a biological cause to the savagery of World War II
Election-Year Paralysis Cripples American Legislative Process
Martha Sherwood provides some insight into current American election practices and how they impede effective legislative function by occupying our legislators’ time and forcing them to take short-term, popular stances contrary to the long-term public good. Could less frequent elections be a possible solution?
Adequate Wages are a Moral Issue
Martha Sherwood draws upon a heated discussion over the holidays to argue that the gap between the rich and the poor is not only increasing but many working people do not earn enough to sustain themselves. She argues that the current social welfare model in the US is failing everyone.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- Next Page »