Let’s See What’s in the News Today (March 8, 2015)

Consciousness

• Galen Strawson has a great article about the history of the philosophy of consciousness.

Education

• How Higher Education perpetuates Intergenerational Inequality.

Ethics

• Sex while drunk: a moral dilemma.
• Why Our Children don’t think there are moral facts

Family

• If people see your son as attractive, they will see the father as attractive.
• When wives get sick, they are more likely to get divorced than when husbands get sick.

Free Will

• A great comic analyzing the linguistics between compatibilism and determinism.

Health

• Studies show that early consumption of peanuts in infants can prevent peanut allergy.
• People who took a daily dose of Tylenol over a 21-day period reported a reduction in hurt feelings and showed less pain-related brain activity after being socially excluded. (via Useful Science)
• Fit children have ‘greater brain capacity’ in areas important for memory and learning. (via Useful Science)
• Narcissism can enhance your life; being a psychopath can diminish your life expectancy. 

Humor

• Feeling downtrodden?  Maybe Stoicism Man can help you.

Logic

• An interesting game about fallacies.

Mind

• A girlfriend has DID (dissociative identity disorder) and momentarily forgets who her boyfriend is.

Philosophy

• Some really, really good advice about whether you should go to grad school in philosophy.
• Top 10 living philosophers to read today.
• Some notes on doing a Ph. D. and getting a job in philosophy.

Race

• 10 ways racism is still rampant in US society.  (Institutionalized racism still exists folks.)

Relationships

• An interesting article about how divorces don’t mean the end of a relationship, how marriages don’t end by one person’s death, and new forms of what relationships can be.  From the article itself: “So on your checklist of what you seek in a future spouse, alongside a sense of humour and desire for kids, include this: someone from whom you can envision being amicably divorced.”
• Interesting article from Dr. Helen Fisher: “Casual Sex may be Improving America’s Marriages.”  She used to be against anti-casual sex, but the article is looking at how casual sex may actually to contribute to lasting marriages.

Religion

An updated SEP on “The Problem of Evil.”

Science

• The first photograph of light as both wave and particle.

Sexuality

• Is porn addictive?  Probably not.  It may be a compulsion, but that’s not the same thing as an addiction.
• Among other things, having an open relationship reflected well-being and can be rewarding as much or more as being in a monogamous relationship.
• Among adolescents, males typically have greater influence for condom use.
• Positive attitudes toward casual sex in men (but not women) is linked to lower relationship satisfaction for men and their partners.
  
• Is the male sex drive higher than women’s?
• Speaking of differences between males and females, could genuine differences be because of nature and not because of patriarchy?
• Reverse beer googles: perceiving someone drinking wine is considered more attractive than perceiving someone drinking beer.
• Many women health providers use IUDs; the general population uses the birth control pill.
• A British court is considering the possibility of a man and woman consenting to sex as legitimate.  But if the man ejaculates inside the woman and the woman has refused that portion of consent, it could be considered rape.
• Americans are still divided on why people are gay.
• Do women prefer body hair on men?  It depends when the women are ovulating.

Stoicism

• Massimo Pigliucci has a new blog on How to be a Stoic.