Monthly Archives: January 2012

Overheard on the Ogosphere

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Mayo

 In response to Christian Robert’s remark that the journal name Rationality,Markets and Morals (RMM)  is “a rather weird combination, esp. for a journal name!” (in his Jan. 21, 2012 post on Senn’s article in that same journal), a RMM journal editor Max Albert responds:

Max Albert Says: January22, 2012 at 4:08 pm

Dear xi’an,

I am a bit surprised that you consider “Rationality, markets and morals” as a “rather weird combination”. It is a classical combination of topics in economics and philosophy. And it seems to me that just now all the world is talking and writing about it. Continue reading →

Categories: metablog, phil sci | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Mixed Feelings Page: Overheard on the Blogosphere….

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Mayo

female philosopher of science

A reader sends me a discussion post from a website Butterflies and Wheels:Fighting Fashionable Nonsense

Luna the Cat says (Oct 22, 2011):

        I never had much time for philosophy, personally, until I got interested in the question of how do we know what we know, and the philosophy of science; and when I started looking more into that, I stumbled across Deborah Mayo, http://www.phil.vt.edu/dmayo/dmayo.html. I was blown away at the rigorous logic of her thinking, and I have to admit to learning a great deal from reading her work.
        The thing that pisses me off is, nobody outside a very narrow field seems to know who she is, and I almost never see her name in discussions of the modern forms of philosophy of science, even when the discussion is all about the limits of falsification and Duhem’s problems, areas where her work is squarely situated. And when I have discussions with the occasional person who is interested in this kind of thing, I often get a reaction of “really? I’ve never heard of her; a woman, eh?”
And I cannot believe this is because of the quality of her work. Read some of it, judge for yourself. http://www.phil.vt.edu/dmayo/personal_website/bibliography%20complete.htm
        I’m so disheartened about the fact that sexism seems to be getting worse. I hate to say it, but I think JennieL might be right, there has been a kind of male backlash where some who don’t think women have any business intruding into such a serious field have gathered and made an immovable and hostile cohort. But that’s just so damned backwards.



Dear Luna the Cat: Get in touch!  I’ll send you a copy of my new book!: error@vt.edu

Categories: phil sci | Tags: , | 1 Comment

METABLOG QUERY

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Mayo

Can anybody advise about the relative merits of WordPress versus Google blogspot for blogging?  The Elbians worked to transfer this entire blog to WordPress which I take it is superior and might avoid a lot of the out-of-control fonts on this blog, but whenever I go over to that blog I have misgivings because, among other things, it’s always asking me to pay to avoid annoyances like ads, which never even came up as an issue on blogspot.  Moreover, as soon as I paid for one upgrade (just to explore it), 6 other choices of things to buy came up which made me very nervous, since it might mean having to understand what in the world they are selling (and I don’t).  So I just ran away.  The decision about switching remains in limbo.  It’s not paying that I mind in the least, it’s being confronted with a lot of confusing decisions that I’m worried about. I haven’t paid for anything on blogspot, and the informality is appealing, perhaps because it makes the whole thing less official, and lets me feel that I am free to escape from all this at any time.  I’d be grateful for advice and recommendations; I can’t ask the blogsfolk to keep up the shadow blog indefinitely, while I decide.  Maybe there’s yet a third blogging platform….

Categories: metablog | Tags: , | Leave a comment

PhilStock Blog: “Year of the Yo Yo” (Jan 19, 2012)

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Mayo

A couple of months ago I was about to start an “other blog” (as Google calls it), this one on philosophical reflections on the stock market (PhilStock), but as I cannot even keep up one blog, I wisely discarded that idea after a single post (on high speed trading).  So if I dip into that area on this blog, I will warn readers with the “Phil Stock Blog” tag[i].  First and last rule on PhilStock: Never listen to anything I say about the stock market.

 It’s a bizarre kind of comfort to see that stock analysts are much less inclined to tout their skills ever since the crash (of 08-09), admitting that, at least with today’s crazy market, performance is more “the result of luck rather than skill”.  Take the Financial Page of the latest New Yorker (“Year of the Yo-Yo”, Jan. 16, 2010): Continue reading →
Categories: phil stock | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

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