Episode 2 is now available for download: Agassiz, Inc. Please share far and wide, early and often. Thanks! This week I speak with biographer Christoph Irmscher about the legacy of Louis Agassiz, one of the…
Posts tagged science
What is a Metaphysic?
Evolution may be considered as a fairly straightforward metaphysical theory with a long history which was not so much confirmed by the theory of natural selection as embarrassed by it. The difference between the two…
Thou Vain Toy
For Bobby C., underlinings from an essay by Morse Peckham, “Man’s Use of Nature,” offering powder and ball to my NO! in thunder. And, perhaps as expected, Ahab will have the last word. *** An…
The Binary Whole?
The militarization of life requires a binary mind, one prepared by ignorance for fascism. Black and white. Good and Evil. Us and Them. Terrorism and Patriotism Mine (Not Yours). This is the mind grown thoughtless…
Heat & Light
Think of all the religious imagery that depicts fire as Satan’s element–Lucifer’s light is flame and it burns, but it is how the deep is illumined–the cave sees not moon nor stars nor sun at…
Iniquitous Airy Abstraction, or The Lawyer’s Truth
Having neither the wherewithal nor the erudition (nor the patience, nor expectation of readership) to craft a cogent article on the fact that Western civilization as represented by governments and ideologies serving “manifest destiny” as…
Human Science…But a Passing Fable
In some particulars, perhaps, the most imposing physiognomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This aspect is sublime. In thought a fine human brow…
Addendum: Intruding Quantification Where It Has No Place
The question of whether politics can in fact be studied like the natural sciences is bewildering; it involves questions of free will and determinism, the nature of human action as distinct from animal behavior, the…
Calculable Obligations: Motivations of Money and Technology
Debt, that is, as opposed to a promise, is a calculable obligation. I was reading a review of two books on the current state of global indebtedness in the London Review of Books (“Forgive Us…
Girls Do Science!
Or, Learning Meaningless Utilities Today, via the local newspaper (Bloomington’s The Herald-Times), comes an illustration of the modern mind “on science.” My friend Monkeywrench is in my ear…slow down, find some common ground. It’s not…