Sounds like something out of Weekly World News, but it’s real! Check it out!

A great summer blockbuster. If you liked the first two movies, you will not be disappointed with this one. 4/5 stars.

How’s that for a snappy headline?

I’m surprised this wasn’t bigger news, but a jury just found a Pakistani immigrant guilty of conspiracy to bomb a New York City subway station in 2004. This man was set up in a sting operation where an informant posed as a terrorist and convinced him to help him blow up Herald Square station. His defense lawyers claimed he was brainwashed and subject to entrapment… that the informant had convinced him to do it, but he otherwise would never have considered it.

Whether or not he would have otherwise considered it, they have taped evidence of his agreement to blow up the station and was arrested carrying a crude map of the subway station. Was this a fair judgement? Is a person who is “brainwashed” or otherwise convinced to do something illegal responsible for their own actions? Or is the brainwasher ultimately responsible? This harkens back to the DC Sniper case, but I think in that case, the brainwasher should have been held fully responsible because the victim was relatively young. I think in the case of this subway bomber, he is old enough to be held responsible for his own actions. What do you think?

It’s been such a long time since my last book review! It’s because I had been juggling books for a while, and then I took a class where I was too busy reading articles with titles like “Cortical map reorganization enabled by nucleus basalis activity” to actually finish any of my own reading.

So anyway, Breaking the Spell is Daniel Dennett’s latest work of brilliance. The book is a philosophical, psychological, ethical, evolutionary, memetic, and historical examination of religion. It examines religion from every angle and is surprisingly fair and balanced. A fascinating must-read. 5/5 stars.

According to this news story, 1 out of 136 people is currently in jail or in prison. That number is based on the estimated 2.2 million people in jail or prison last summer. Even if we assume that they over-estimated the total US population, I think it’s safe to assume that there is between half a percent and one percent of the US population behind bars. That’s really shocking to me. Especially since I strongly believe (based on decades of psychology literature) that the prison system is better at reinforcing the criminal mindset than it is at rehabilitating criminals into well-meaning individuals.

This interesting paper explores the effectiveness of prisons. A noteable statistic is that the recidivism rate of someone who goes through a term in prison is inversely related to their level of education. The national re-arrest rate is around 60%, but for college-educated inmates, their re-arrest rate is about 10%. I can’t recall the exact study but I learned about a study in developmental psychology which discovered that mixing the “trouble” kids in with the smart kids is a more effective way of straightening out the trouble kids than grouping them together in a “remedial” class. Clearly, peers exert influence over eachother, so by sticking all the “bad guys” together in prison, they all exert negative peer pressure over eachother. There are no positive role models in prison for the prisoners to look up to. If someone really nice and well-meaning ended up in prison, they’d probably get beaten to death in no time. Misery loves company, so the miserable are going to try to bring down everyone else.

It’s unfortunate that few people care about our prison system. It’s even more unfortunate that the people who do care are not interested in actually helping for one reason or another. I am guilty of this, but seriously what could I possibly do about it? Is our prison system a case of treating the symptom (criminal behavior) rather than the problem (the cause of people’s criminal behavior)? I think it definitely is, but since we can’t really reach the causes, we will always have criminals and we’ll need to do something with them. Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

Anyone who has lived in Manhattan knows that Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar! His flyers are posted on store windows all over the place. But who is this guy? This article exposes the man behind the flyers. I had wondered for years… and now the wondering is over.

My favorite thing about the ads was always the threatening nature of the wording: Dan Smith will teach you guitar!

Here is a passage from Avery Cardinal Dulles’ The Rebirth of Apologetics (2004), which was quoted in a book I’m reading:

In a revealed religion such as Christianity, the key question is how God comes to us and opens up a worlds of meaning not accessible to human investigative powers. The answer, I suggest, is testimony…. Personal testimony calls for an epistemology quite distinct from the scientific, as commonly understood. The scientist treats the datum to be investigated as a passive object to be mastered and brought within the investigator’s intellectual horizons. Interpretations proffered by others are not accepted on authority but are tested by critical probing. But when we proceed by testimony, the situation is very different. The event is an interpresonal encounter, in which the witness plays an active role, making an impact on us. Without in any way compelling us to believe, the witness calls for a free assent that involves personal respect and trust. To reject the message is to withhold confidence in the witness. To accept it is a trusting submission to the witness’s authority. To the extent that we believe, we renounce our autonomy and willingly depend on the judgement of others.

I’ve never heard such a convincing argument against trusting human testimony. Ironically, this passage was meant to defend testimony as a viable source for knowledge. After reading this passage and thinking about it, I became even more confident in the power of science. It also gave me ideas about what I could say if I ever want to get out of jury duty

Apologetics is “the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position” according to the wikipedia entry. Also according to the article, apologetic arguments are targetted at wavering believers, not at skeptics looking for a cogent argument. The point I’d like to make is that if you’re going to believe in something, do so because you want to believe in it! It shouldn’t require anything more than that desire.

Steve Martin and Claire Danes had no chemistry in this movie, but that was part of the point. An interesting movie about relationships. 3/5 stars.

Which is more free? Freedom to do whatever you want, or freedom to do anything… even the things you don’t want to do? Is “Will Power” the ultimate form of freedom? Freedom from your own wants and needs… is that strength or corruption?

This clever and complex movie kept me guessing… I didn’t know who to root for. More movies should be like this. 5/5 stars.