I think most people know that there are certain kinds of fires that you don’t throw water on to extinguish, primarily grease, oil, gasoline, and electrical. In such cases, water is simply going to make matters much worse, either by splashing and floating the burning substances to disperse in a wider range, or by producing greater damage to equipment and creating the potential for electrocution.
Category: Reference
Fallacy fallacies
Many a young, impetuous acolyte, on first learning the lore of the Thinking Fallacies, seeks to infuse their knowledge throughout both their lives and those around them, but lo! such a path is fraught with danger, because the Fallacies are not easily tamed. Within inexperienced hands, they can be poor weapons, even dangerous to the wielder.
Ahem. ‘Scuse me. Anyway, this post began
It’s like a metaphor
Walkabout podcast – It’s like a metaphor
I realized I haven’t been trying hard enough to earn my Shrill and Strident merit badge, which is funny, because there are certainly enough subjects that reinforce my atheism which could be lambasted. So let’s delve into the use of metaphors in scripture. While this will largely apply to the abrahamic scriptures (meaning
Unevidence
Some things get accepted into culture, maybe unintentionally, maybe in a casual way, but then become established enough that we get fooled into thinking they came from a reputable source, or from careful consideration most of philosophy is this way, it seems. One that I’m going to address here is something that I’ve coined unevidence.
Unevidence should not be confused with the curious
Book review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
There were two things that prompted me to read this book: an interest in the curious history of psychic research within the US military, and the reputation that the author seems to have in skeptical circles. I’ll skip the dramatic buildup by saying that the book failed to address either of these.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson, is an account of Ronson’s
I read this article that said…
When I was taking an online course on reasoning and constructing good arguments (which I never completed, but that’s another post,) there was one interesting tidbit that was covered: some conclusion might be perfectly correct, but the argument leading to the conclusion could be flawed or unsupportive.
The missionary position
At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne has tackled yet another foofaraw among philosophers this particular topic is one of frequent appearance, being Does science assume naturalism? And ever so typical of philosophy, it begins with traditional assumptions and goes even further off course from there.
The duel comes over the various definitions of terms like naturalism and supernatural,
Know your own way
I’ve mentioned that I find skepticism and critical thinking to be slightly different concepts to a large extent, this is in perception only, where many people consider skepticism (or being skeptical or a skeptic) to mean cynical, disbelieving, dismissive, and so on. In current
How to bake a human
Walkabout podcast – How to bake a human
I probably shouldn’t ever look at the searches that get linked here because of that title. Be patient, and it will become clear what it means.
I have, on numerous previous occasions, examined the various drives and emotions that we have from an evolutionary perspective – for instance, that morality is (almost certainly) an offshoot of inherent
Marvel of design
Walkabout podcast – Marvel of design
I delayed this one slightly to serve as my Darwin Day post ;-)
I freely admit that there are some really stunning things to be found in nature – in fact, that’s what many of my ‘Too Cool‘ posts are intended to highlight. Predator/prey relationships, highly