Here are some things I found interesting online last month.
Confidence Level: Hard to judge because they’re not my ideas.
Estimates for travel time and cost between cities in the Roman Empire:
List of great scientists who believed in paranormal stuff:
Why haven’t we celebrated any major achievements lately?
While the article presents these as spontaneous celebrations, many of them were undoubtedly planned by local elites. Perhaps the question should be cast in terms of the local elites. Why have mayors stopped planning these celebrations and even passed laws discouraging celebration? Are there other local elites that could plan things then but have lost power as society atomized?
Did Swedenbourg influence Joseph Smith?
The author thinks no. Against Quinn and others.
The key similarity between Mormonism and Sewdenbourgism is that there are three heavens instead of just one. This first occurs in Mormonism with The Vision (D&C 76) in 1832 and in Swedenbourg’s Heaven and Hell in 1756.
There is one report of Joseph Smith saying something nice about Swedenbourg in 1839, after he had stayed with a convert from Swedenbourgism to Mormonism for a few months. This is too late to explain the influence on the theology.
Sidney Rigdon should have known about Swedenbourg because he was a well read minister and Swedenbourgism was popular at the time. (Johnny Appleseed was a Swedenbourgian missionary.) Rigdon was involved with The Vision.
Smith and Swedenbourg used very different terminology, analogies, and verses of the New Testament to support their view. It seems more likely that both were influenced by Paul than that they were influenced by each other.
There are a few more similarities between the views of heaven the author doesn’t mention: marriage exists in heaven and angels are people too. I don’t know if this makes the case for influence stronger or not. These beliefs are both common in folk Christianity, if not in theology books. It would also have to push the influence back earlier, to the Angel Moroni, which is before Smith met Rigdon.
What’s wrong with social science, from someone who read/skimmed 2578 (!) papers in the past year.
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/
He does not think that the replication crisis is because of subtle problems with the relevant papers. He thinks that it is because the majority of papers are flagrantly trash.
He has some recommendations. Like read the papers you cite and just stop citing bad research.
I had previously thought that you should be skeptical of claims from social science because the underlying problems are really hard. While this is still true, this article makes me more inclined to think that (most) social science communities are fundamentally broken. Not only do they seem to not be science now, this path isn’t getting them closer.
Mongeese solved inequality through a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. Scientists can’t introduce inequality even if they try.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210623091207.htm
Give people an extra thumb, controlled by their big toe, and see how well they can use it.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/ucl-rt051721.php
And it has a video: https://vimeo.com/551468278
