Jason Mitchell, a Harvard social neuroscientist, gives an argument against scientific replication, and a defense of unreplicated science, here.   His argument, in a nutshell, is that all we ever learn from the failure to replicate an experiment is that the attempted replicator is a lousy experimenter.  Quoting Mitchell:  Recent hand-wringing over failed replications in social…

The biggest policy issue of the moment is the Euro, which it can be said without much controversy  needs some form of fiscal integrationism, or federalism, to stabilise it. That means Eurobank bonds and a stronger Eurobank. There is no chance of the UK being part of the setup without a very big change in attitude,…

Discussing the ideal policies of the European Union raises a kind of controversy not so apparent when discussing the idea of Europe and political structures, since people who agree on these may have very divergent views on the relative merits of capitalist and socialist economics, social liberalism and conservatism, and so on. In any case,…

here. and more from Sean in response to a query from Wayne Myrvold here.  Wayne is hosting a series of posts from Physicists on "Why they talk to philosophers" that was inspired by his guest post here at NewAPPS.

 Continuing from a post of a week ago where I set up the discussion of renewed European Union institiutions, including a limited from of EU government replacing the Commissioners and the Council of Ministers, composed of a Council of Europe appointed by the European Parliament according to the strength of political groups, and a Council…

here. "Warning Iraq against Shiite Iranian influence is like warning Italy against Vatican influence."

Shelley Tremain, the philosopher of disability, brought my attention to a recent article in the CHE entitled Indifference Toward Disabled Scholars, Especially at Conferences, Troubles a Disabilities Scholar .* In it, bioethicist William Peace details a "nightmare" he experience as a disabled scholar trying to attend a conference. Peace also blogged about the experience here. Tremain offers…

and its role in the roots of the current crisis, here.   "If you were following the news during the March 2010 elections in Iraq, you might remember that the American press was flooded with stories declaring the elections a success, complete with upbeat anecdotes and photographs of Iraqi women proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers.…

Here is a thread for people dying to discuss the World Cup with other philosophers!     I'll kick us off with these beautiful animations in the NYT explaining how the Dutch beat the Spanish so handily.   Post your predictions, comments on past games, etc here.   If discussions get lively, I'll open up…

I've ended up writing two posts worth of material on European Union Institutions, so there will be a second part to this post, itself part of a series of posts on the direction of the EU.  The European Union has got caught up in a strange mix of technocratic centralisation, inter-state politics, and federal political…