As readers may be aware, Herbert Spencer has been much on my mind of late. As a side effect of this, I became curious about who first used "social" as an adjective in front of "Darwinism," and in what context. The answer may well be an otherwise forgotten writer named Joseph Fisher. [In wikipedia, there is a disambiguation page for the name "Joseph Fisher," which lists 13 different men of that name who are notable in various ways. Most of the "Fishers" listed are in blue, indicating that they each have a wikipedia article of his own. The Joseph Fisher I have in mind is the only one listed in red -- indicating no article -- so the only information about him you will find in wikipedia is the one fact used to distinguish him on the disambiguation page, that he "coined the phrase" social Darwinism.] In 1877, the TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY ran Fisher's (very lengthy) article on "The History of Landholding in Ire...
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Scientists recently announced that they are now confident phosphine is present in the atmosphere of Venus. This suggests -- it doesn't prove but it suggests -- that there is life on the planet. (There could be some strange but non-living chemical reactions going on, which would itself be a fascinating discovery but would make for less dramatic headlines than the one I used above.) On earth, phosphine results from the breakdown of organic tissue. It is the gas that produces the distinctive smell of dead fish, or garlic. The issue of life-on-Mars remains debatable. The issue of life-on-Venus may just be getting (excuse the pun) lively. But one can now make the case that life isn't a rarity in the universe. It isn't even a rarity in this one solar system. It may well be the norm given certain broad parameters of planets circling a sun at a given range of distances, and this solar system may simply happen to have three bodies within that range.
There are lots of stories in various media that follow this pattern: 1. Something spooky happens. 2. Someone (the story's rationalist) explains it, perhaps with the help of a surprising twist. The spooky thing has a natural explanation. 3. Finally, the twist is retwisted, the explanation comes unraveled. We are left with the initial spookiness. This was a common template in the old Rod Serling Twilight Zones. Here is a single example of which I have a memory both indelible and vague. A notorious bad-guy cowboy comes into town, and goes to a cemetery on a dare. He dies standing on a gravesite. It is the plot, we soon learn, of a man whom this newly departed hombre had murdered years before. Ah, spooky ... could the dead person have reached out from beyond the grave and killed him? Looks like it: but ... The town rationalist has an explanation. Lots of townspeople are standing around the scene of the suspicious/spooky heart attack while the rationalist expla...
In understanding the history of this pandemic, US edition, the Biogen meeting in Boston is several months back in the rear view mirror, but looms ever larger as it is studied. In late winter 2020, Biogen -- NASDAQ listed, and indeed a NASDAQ 100 component -- hosted a conference. I'm sure sure what the specific subject of the conference was, but it involved flying specialists in from Europe, from countries that were already contending with severe outbreaks of Covid-19. If you like irony you can find it in the fact that a company known for its IP portfolio in bio-med technology acted so naively. The conference proved to be a super-spreader event. In retrospect, it has "pandemic" written on it in neon. A lot of people from all over the US and the world gathered together in confined spaces to meet. Only a small number of them had any of the virus in their system when they got together, but many seemed to have had it when they went their separate ways -- again, to place...
A fine review. Is it rational for me to feel a sense of loss at the fact that the NDPR has said au revoir? https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/nothing-tome-a-defence-of-the-growing-block-theory-of-time/ I believe I've described it before. The "growing block" theory of reality, also a theory of time, is that which postulates that the present and past are real. The future is not yet real. So reality is growing, and the present moment is the edge of its growth. This is an attractive theory in that it sets out how the world seems to work. We should not depart from such a persistent seeming without reason. I wake up in the morning and find that a variety of changes that I made to my apartment are still here. The book shelf I put up yesterday is still here. Unless I'm a bad carpenter and it fell overnight. In which case there is a mess of books and wood on the floor. Even in that case, though, reality has grown by the addition of a new shelf, and then by the further addition of ...
Herbert Spencer is often called a “Social Darwinist.” I have called him that myself, and will probably do so often in the future as well, because that has become the traditional term and it is sometimes necessary to abide by conventions in order to make oneself understood. But I have come to believe that the term is inapt. Two other labels suggest themselves as superior. If one is looking for a label Spencer would accept for his own social/ethical views, the term "rational utilitarianism" would work. If one doesn't care to ask his permission, social Lamarckianism will also apply. Spencer's works on relevant subjects include SOCIAL STATICS (1851), THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY (1873), and MAN VERSUS THE STATE (1884). Spencer called his own view “rational utilitarianism,” because -- as one might guess -- he believed utilitarians before him had been inadequately rational. He did identify the good with happiness, and that identification was associated for him wit...
Amy McGrath, the Democratic Party's candidate in its effort to oust Republican Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R - Ky) from his Senate seat, recently hired a new campaign manager, Dan Kanninen. Kanninen is an old hand at running campaigns and is the CEO of a consulting firm. Of course, what the Dems really want on the national level is for MConnell to cease to be the Majority Leader. They're not necessarily dead set against his returning to DC next year as the Minority Leader. Although (a) the Kentuckians among them are, and (b) it would look like a nice extra kick from karma if he lost in his own district and didn't return at all. So ... what do we know about McGrath? We know that she has an appealing biography and that she has raised a lot of money. But she's been trailing in recent polls, even as those polls differ widely in how they depict the size of the margin. Some have her within striking distance, others have McConnell very comfortable at 17 p...
The year 2020. As the ball dropped, the First Quarter told its brothers, "watch me guys, I've got something special planned for this one." In January the govt of the Maldives warned that it could lose entire islands to the rise of the ocean level due to global warming, On Jan. 21 the US CDC announced the first case of coronavirus in the US, in Washington State. Over the last week of January the impeachment trial of Donald Trump played out in the Senate. On Feb. 7, the Chinese doctor who tried to issue the first warnings about the pandemic, died after contracting the virus. A week later the newspaper publisher McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 protection. On Feb. 22 a flat earth conspiracy theorist died after the crash of a homemade rocket he was using to try to test his theory. Social darwinians rejoiced at the implicit evidence for their rightness. By the end of the month the pandemic was running wild in Iran, Italy, Austria, and Spain. On March 5, the ...