Joe Carter

An interesting discussion at LibraryThing on Dune ‘s effect on the science-fiction genre : One of my favourite things about SF is that the sheer amount of stuff that those authors pack into these books is unbelievable. Case in point: Double Star , by Robert A. Heinlein – in less than 200 . . . . Continue Reading »

About 10 percent of infants die in their first year of life in Africa—still shockingly high, but considerably lower than the European average less than 100 years ago, let alone 800 years past. And about two thirds of Africans are literate—a level achieved in Spain only in the 1920s. . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Post has a story about a group of Torah-toting, pistol-packing, karate-chopping rabbis that is almost too awesome for words. Fortunately, they include a Pulitizer-worthy photo (see right) and a a video which Gothamist describes as “mix of Wes Anderson, Adam Sandler, and the . . . . Continue Reading »

“Who’s the greatest mom of all?” Earth Mama!” Students in public schools are all too often forced to sing similar paeans to the environment. But at a Catholic school, shouldn’t kids be taught that Earth Mama comes in (at least) second to Mary, Mother of God? . . . . Continue Reading »

Jimmy Akin, my favorite Catholic apologist, has a detailed post examining whether Fatima al-Mutayri should be considered in full communion with the Catholic Church and whether she could be a candidate for canonization: Vatican II’s statement regarding Islam could definitely have been better . . . . Continue Reading »

So you know how when you’re coming out of the grocery store and someone says “Want to sign our petition” and you say “What’s it about?” and they say “It’s about getting to the truth about 9/11.” and you think “Well, I like truth but my my ice cream . . . . Continue Reading »

Newser , an online news aggregator started by Michael Wolff ( Vanity Fair , New York magazine), claims to “choose the most important stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs.” That reducing to a picture can be a bit . . . . Continue Reading »

For the last several days I’ve been writing about religious beliefs and how they are tied to theory-making (see here , here , and here ). In essence, my argument has been that (a) everyone has religious beliefs, (b) these beliefs form the basic presuppositions that shape our theory-making, . . . . Continue Reading »

President Obama may be a fan of Charles Darwin , but if he was truly an admirer of Edmund Burke this would have been his campaign slogan . . . (Via: Darwin 2009 ) . . . . Continue Reading »

Note: This is the third and final post in a discussion on the role of religious beliefs in theory-making. The other two can be found here and here . In ancient Greece a religious controversy once broke out over the square root of two. The Pythagoreans, a Hellenic organization of thinkers who . . . . Continue Reading »