I am noticing just how lonely i am feeling right now – reacting to an email exchange i had within a now virtual community with people i’ve deeply connected with when we spend 9 days together. I am posting this here as well to increase my reach. If my words (esp. in my first email) resonate with you, could you please contact me. I would love to connect with other atheists/skeptics who also value Nonviolent Communication (NVC). (Here is a feelings & needs inventory that might be helpful when practicing NVC). (Also note the emotional shift i describe in the … Continue reading »
Jul 022011
One of my most powerful experiences at the recent intensive Nonviolent Communication training i attended came when i shared with the group that i felt uneasy when i hear references to religion and spirituality. I believe there is no God (i am certain there is no God as described in the Judeo-Christian tradition; i am pretty certain there is no god period). I approach things skeptically and will ask for evidence that stands up to the scientific method especially if you make exceptional claims. I was terrified to share this because i also value connections with others, even across difference. … Continue reading »
Here we go again… The NYT is giving John Tierney room to lament why women are not represented equally in science. Maybe there is something biologically going on. Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke discussed this years ago. Pinker argued that there must be something biological. Spelke responded that as long as women are being discriminated from birth on (maybe even before then!), we don’t know what really is natural. To me, this is a great example of a misguided nature-nurture approach. Unless we take a systems approach, we cannot explain the low number of women in science – what appears … Continue reading »
Jun 112010
I have started to read a book on developmental systems theory (I’ve summarized a little on DST already). It is a fascinating read! And the themes raised are relevant to my recent musings on evolutionary psychology, so I thought I’d muse some more… The chapter I read was a reprint of an article by Daniel Lehrman originally published in 1953 critiquing Konrad Lorenz’s Theory of Instinctive Behavior (the link opens a PDF to the full article, which is excerpted in the chapter in Cycles of Contingency). I would like to touch on a couple of things in response to reading … Continue reading »
My most exciting discovery during my first year back in school was part of my research for a paper. I had planned on incorporating meme theory into an approach to explaining how beliefs become tradition. Fortunately, my professor pointed me to an article about cultural evolution, which turned me off from memes and turned me onto co-evolution. With excitement, I read about this emerging branch of evolutionary theory (for an introduction, please see the SEP entry). I abandoned that research during the semester when it became clear that my paper idea was way too ambitious. Now that the semester is … Continue reading »
One of the two most common counter-arguments to critiques of marriage is “but monogamy/coupling is natural!” (The other is “but it’s best for the children!” which I will not address here). As a marriage critic, I found that more of a challenge than a convincing counter, so I decided to investigate. Before I share what I found on that topic I want to provide some background information. Most of the claims that monogamy is not natural come from evolutionary psychologists, so I figured looking at that is a first step. I agree with Frans de Waal who suggests that the … Continue reading »
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