Climate & Climate Politics
- June 26 News: ‘Rising Temperature Is Going To Drive Our Forests Off The Mountains’ In The Southwest, Says Scientist | ThinkProgress
- Rinehart on climate: deeply concerned about our “lack of understanding” on issue « Watching the Deniers
Science
- Teach the controversy | Mind of Dan
Some how I don’t think this is what they had in mind:
A disagreement between the twin giants of genetic theory, Richard Dawkins and EO Wilson, is now being fought out by rival academic camps in an effort to understand how species evolve.
The simple fact is that with any scientific theory there is going to be some amount of controversy. The deep intricate details are often not known with perfect certainty and this is where scientists spend much of their time and effort.
Disputes are inevitable. However disputes over small intricate details do not in any way imply that the overall theory is being disputed. EO Wilson and Richard Dawkins might disagree over this particular detail but both of them would agree in the strongest possible terms about the big picture validity of evolutionary theory.
- Lonesome George Dies and With Him the Species | Use Celsias.com – reduce global °Celsius
- Lonesome George, ‘Rarest Creature in the World,’ Dies | Climate Central
Politics
Featured
- Afterlife – YouTube
Can you have a meaningful life without an afterlife? I asked several friends to join me in exploring the merits of human existence and the concepts of posthumous reward and punishment. It is my hope that this video will answer religious claims that a secular life is meaningless and void and remind us all to cherish our precious and temporary tenure on planet earth.My deepest thanks to AronRa, DarkMatter2525, DPRJones, Evid3nce, HealthyAddict, Laci Green, Thunderf00t and ZOMGitsCriss for their contributions to this project. I also encourage you to subscribe to their channels and support their work, and I’ve provided links here (in alphabetical order). All my best. -Seth Andrews
- 3.0 Atheism: A New Way of Seeing God – YouTube
Business
- The Hart of the Matter – NYTimes.com
And now for something completely different: I haven’t seen anyone point this out, but the very interesting Times story on why Microsoft is building its own tablet was a perfect illustration of Oliver Hart’s theory of the firm.
Just briefly: the theory of the firm asks why we sometimes rely on contracts — I sign an agreement with your company to make my widget — and sometimes go for direct control: I employ people to make widgets. Hart (and others) argue that such things depend crucially on our inability to write complete contracts, specifying all details — and that the incompleteness of contracts can pose problems for investment decisions. For example, if you contract with other people to build equipment, they may be unwilling to invest in quality in the belief that you will use your sole-buyer status to extract the benefits.
And that, apparently, is exactly what has been going on with Microsoft; its reliance on other people to build computers using its software worked very well for a long time, but lately Apple’s control-freak approach has been winning out.
Lots more to say, and I’m still on vacation, but this article was great fodder for the kind of economic analysis that I would be doing more of if we weren’t in such dire straits.