Owl & Ibis - A Confluence Of Minds

The Well-Meaning Bad Ideas Spoiling a Generation Psychologist Jonathan Haidt on politics, morality, and the coddling of the American mind. Brian Gallagher Nautilus March 7, 2019 Above is an interview of Jonathan Haidt. It’s pretty good on some things like his latest book  The Coddling of the American Mind . I think he may be better on this topic than “human nature” and things such as the evolutionary emergence of human morality, values he contends we are hard-wired for and are therefore compelled to express. The following excerpted statement of his from the interview caught my attention in that it is revealing in terms of my critique of his book,  The Righteous Mind . He’s asked to account for the now Trumpian Republican Party. Haidt’s response raises this question: If his moral foundation theory is as powerful and useful as he leads us to believe in his book, how could one election and one president, Trump, in effect debunk it? JH: “Trump has shifted a lot of

The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey I watched this documentary and found it informative about the early 20 th  Century history of the idea of human genetic determinism. Although the film is fairly objective in its approach and what it presents, it regrettably tells only part of the 20 th Century nature vs. nurture story. The film is missing the subsequent responses to these early theories of human genetic determinism, including those of supporters and more importantly those of their detractors. To its credit the film does contain some accurate though horrific truths about 20 th Century European and American political and scientific intrusion in Africa. For its educational value alone the documentary is worth watching. In terms of the early 20 th Century thinkers who promoted the notion of human genetic determinism the film focuses mostly on William Hamilton , George Price , and later thinkers such as Richard Dawkins who were influenced by t