Sunday roundup

On the cold chain and food waste.

What if scientists had Twitter earlier on?

George Ellis on philosophy in science (or lack thereof):

The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. As pointed out so well by Eddington in his Gifford lectures, they are partial and incomplete representations of physical, biological, psychological, and social reality.

It’s very ironic when [Lawrence Krauss] says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy...

If [Krauss, Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson] really believe [that philosopy is a waste of time,] they should stop indulging in low-grade philosophy in their own writings. You cannot do physics or cosmology without an assumed philosophical basis. You can choose not to think about that basis: it will still be there as an unexamined foundation of what you do. The fact you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundations of what you do does not mean those foundations are not there; it just means they are unexamined.

I recommend reading the whole interview.

In the interest of remaining above internet name-calling, I'm going to edit an earlier post in which I'd referred to Ash Jogalekar as a moron. Because he actually read and responded to my comment about him, but not because the content of his response--which was basically, "who the f* are you?"--does him any favors. Nonetheless, I didn't intend a personal attack, and I don't need to pile it on (goodness knows his silly Feynman column invited enough critique on its merits). I maintain, for what it's worth, that I never got much out of his rambling columns--to each her own--and I take his point that he's not impressed with whatever he's seen on my blog. Let's agree to be unimpressed with one another's work without name-calling.

As always, Carolyn nails it on boundaries:

There’s nothing wrong with your boundaries... you just need to accept that people won’t always respect them, receive them warmly or allow you to set them without consequences. That’s just part of the deal with boundaries, and the boundary-crossing people who inspire them.

Raise kinder kids.

This is a sort of flip-side to the non-white feminism question (or, more precisely, exclusion of WOC from whatever 'mainstream' feminism is). These movements--human rights movements--needn't, shouldn't be mutually exclusive or even at odds.

I have little to add to the responses to Lauren of Apples; I'd like to echo/elaborate on two aspects of the response I've linked to: I wish for her to love her body and also to know that her marriage is stronger than other women's mammary glands. And that the insecurity that is causing the problems is internally driven and can't be helped by anything on the outside. It's just self-defeating to be threatened by women. 

Ooh, Jonathan Yardley reviews Alan Connor's new book on crosswords.