I reread a book that influenced me a lot when I was younger and review it. Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate by Ullica Segerstråle chronicles the intense discussion in the wake of E.O Wilson's book "Sociobiology" from 1975. Read more (20 min, 5100 words).
Tag: sociobiology
A Deep Dive into the Harris-Klein Controversy
A long postmortem of the conflict between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein over Harris's podcast with political scientist Charles Murray. I explain their disagreement as stemming from differences in interpretation of the original podcast, cultural expectations and psychological tendencies. Read more (36 min, 9100 words)
A Lament on Simler Et Al
In response to an article by Kevin Simler I complain about how often people mistake "selfishness" in an evolutionary sense for selfishness in the normal sense. Read more (12 min, 2900 words).
Erisology of Self and Will, Part 6: The Need and the Reasons
Part 6 of a series adapted from my 2009 Bachelor's Thesis in philosophy. The reasons why the traditional view persists when prescientific thinking on other topics often doesn’t: freedom and responsibility. Read more (9 min, 2300 words)
Erisology
A new word that means ”the study of disagreement”. I think such a field is needed and has a lot of potential. Read more (2800 words)