Freakonomics: Forget Everything You Know About Your Dog “As beloved and familiar as they are, we rarely stop to consider life from the dog’s point of view. That stops now. In this latest installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, we discuss Inside of a Dog with the cognitive scientist (and dog devotee) Alexandra Horowitz. Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post…”
America is a dog-loving nation. Hard numbers aren’t easy to come by, but it’s estimated there are between 77 and 90 million dogs in the U.S., with roughly 40 to 50 percent of households having at least one. We also have a lot of cats, but dogs appear to be a bit more popular. The pandemic has brought even more dogs into our homes, and made us even closer. So, how well do you know your dog? We may think we know them pretty well. But the fact that they are so familiar can actually make it harder to see dogs as they really are…”
Reuters – “The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona. Associate Presiding Civil Judge Daniel Kiley on Tuesday granted Snell & Wilmer’s request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee. The RNC had teamed-up with the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party in the case, which alleges that Maricopa County incorrectly rejected some votes cast on Election Day. Snell & Wilmer partners Brett Johnson and Eric Spencer first moved to withdraw on Sunday, a day after the case was filed. Johnson and Spencer did not respond to requests for comment. Snell & Wilmer chairman Matthew Feeney said the firm doesn’t comment on its client work. Two other large law firms that have represented the Trump campaign in election litigation, Jones Day and Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, have faced an onslaught of online criticism this week from critics who say the cases erode confidence in the democratic process, sparked by a Monday New York Times story focused on the firms’ roles. President Donald Trump has refused to concede the election since major news outlets called it for Democrat Joe Biden on Saturday…”
Russian scientists discover huge walrus haulout in Arctic circle Reuters
Terrified Boxer Gathers Up The Courage To Walk Past The Cat Animal Rescue
If you’re a polar bear, your location may foretell your future Yale Climate Connections
Two new greater glider species discovered: ‘Australia’s biodiversity just got a lot richer’Guardian
What is it like to be a philosopher of Asian descent? — 29 philosophers share their experiences and thoughts
“I think we have now a way to answer questions about why the brain is the way it is” — deep neural networks, long thought of as “black boxes,” are now “not entirely unfathomable” and used as tools for understanding brains and perception
Is it the job of science or philosophy to explain consciousness? — Right now? Both, says Philip Goff (Durham)
“There is still relatively little scholarship on philosophy by German-speaking women around the time of Kant or Hegel” — but there were women doing philosophy there and then, and Anna Ezekiel tells us about them (via Oran Magal)
Sometimes, “sharing all our information with one another can make us less likely to reach the correct answer to a question we’re all investigating” — Jonathan Weisberg (Toronto) explains “The Zollman Effect”
“The only reason Descartes was singled out as the father of modern philosophy was because no one ever read anything other than Aquinas and if you compare those two, of course, Descartes looks new and feels fresh” — Henrik Lagerlund (Stockholm) is interviewed about Medieval and Renaissance philosophy
“While Nietzsche’s interpreters come from impressively diverse intellectual perspectives, very few of them are cyborgs”… until now? — Neil Sinhababu (NUS) in a PEA Soup book Ethics review forum on Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology by Mark Alfano (Macquarie)
“The face is the focal point of our most pressing ethical struggle, which is the struggle to see, vividly and without hindrance, the reality of our fellow human beings” — during the time of masks, a thoughtful essay by Talbot Brewer (Virginia) on the philosophy of faces, touching on race, humanity, love, the future, and more
“This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever read” — trending on Twitter: Patricia Churchland (UCSD) on the observation of Philip Goff (Durham) that “the data of neuroscience is neutral between materialism, dualism, and panpsychism”
Begin “with how ordinary people tend to see things and try to ‘meet them where they are at'” — Nathan Nobis (Morehouse) brings philosophy to the public with open-access books, a kind of introductory online philosophy encyclopedia, and “logic-based therapy”
“The most used and abused philosophical source to interpret [Trump’s] presidency” — yet now “her former aficionados will stop citing Arendt precisely when she is relevant,” says Samuel Moyn (Yale)
How many holes do various objects have? — results of a recent survey (via Fiery Cushman)
“Success in this profession is too unpredictable to try to game the system. So do work you’re happy with and hope for the best.” — Tamler Sommers (Houston) offers advice on writing public philosophy and related matters
Infinity vs. God — some arguments for why God is impossible, from Michael Huemer (Colorado)
An Oral History f 'Marge vs The Monorail', the Episode That Changed 'The Simpsons'. Always one of my favorites & quoted it endlessly w/ friends in college.
An interview with James Nestor, author of a recent book on the "lost art" of breathing. Inhaling through the nose "can trigger different hormones to flood into our bodies, how it can lower our blood pressure..."
"Young people with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic are at risk for developing potentially dangerous inflammation around the heart." In a recent study, 1/3 of student athletes w/ Covid showed "evidence of heart abnormalities".
A collection of the first words sent by various technologies (telegraph, telephone, ARPANET, YouTube)
Biden’s Dog Major Will Be The First Shelter Dog In The White House - BuzzfeedNews: “The 2020 presidential election is bringing a slew of firsts into the White House: the first woman vice president, as well as the first Black woman and person of South Asian heritage to hold the position. The first first lady to continue working a full-time job. The first Jewish spouse of either a president or vice president. But President-elect Joe Biden is bringing yet another first this January: the first ever shelter dog will now reside in the White House. The incoming president and first lady Dr. Jill Biden will bring two dogs with them, both German shepherds: Champ, who came from a breeder in 2008, and Major, who the couple adopted from the Delaware Humane Association in 2018…”
