In a recent essay on the cult of David Foster Wallace, Nathan Heller notes that DFW’s mature work deals with the crisis of contemporary pluralism: “how to think intelligently and truthfully about the world when that world is full of intelligent and truthful people who adhere to irreconcilable schools of thought.” While Heller [...]
Entries Tagged as 'natural law'
The Sins of an Evolutionary Psychologist
April 22nd, 2011 · 5 Comments · Emotions, Evolutionary Adaptation, Methodology
Tags:Alan Sokal·Catholic·confirmation bias·David Foster Wallace·evolutionary psychologist·fantasy·group level selection·group size·Jesus·language·Matt Rossano·Nathan Heller·natural law·Panglossian·parsimony·pluralism·Pope Benedict·postmodernism·resurrection·science·storytelling·supernatural selection·technology·truth·wish fulfillment
The “Sin” of Sodomy and Demographic Imperatives
July 13th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Ecology, Economy, Evolutionary Adaptation, History, Morality, Power, Ritual
When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method. So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality. We can therefore trace the history of the [...]
Tags:Assyria·Assyrian Empire·Aztec sacrifice·Babylolian captivity·Catholicism·Christians·demographics·demography·early Christianity·Egyptian captivity·fertility·group size·Hebrews·homosexuality·India's sacred cow·Jewish diaspora·Jews·Judaism·Levant·Lost Tribes of Judah·marriage·Marvin Harris·Mesopotamia·Michael Harner·Mormons·natural law·persecution·pork eating proscription·procreation·prohibition against homosexuality·Ralph Tanner·ritual regulations·same-sex preference·sin of sodomy·slavery·sodomy·taboo·taboos·The Social Ecology of Religion·Vernon Reynolds·warfare
