When Ignorance is Reassuring
A billboard reading “On March 16 We Choose” was part of the propaganda effort waged by Russia after it invaded Crimea and then held a…
How Does Putin Think?
(Photo: Kremlin.ru/CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons) It is surprising that no commentators have mentioned the parallels, but Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on a peaceful…
The Robot Will See You Now
Over half a century ago I obtained a computer program called ELIZA. It was a piece of software, probably what today we’d call an algorithm,…
Are Other People Hell?
A scene from Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. Over 30 years ago I submitted, what I thought was an amusing piece, for the British Psychology Society’s…
If Music Be…
Part of the Immix Quartet playing my composition Forse un Mattino. (Photo: Author supplied) My absence from these pages has been a produce of many…
The Irrationality of Risk Calculations
Preparing to inject the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo: gencat cat/CC0/ Wikimedia Commons) Whole nations have stopped the roll-out of AstraZeneca vaccinations because of reports…
The Comfort of Strangers
The unwounded help those injured after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. (Photo: Aaron “tango” Tang/CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons) With so many accounts of human nastiness…
When Ignorance is Anything But Bliss
An anti-vaccination protest from the last pandemic. This one, sponsored by the the Anti-Vaccination League of Canada, took place in Toronto in 1919. Fundamentalist Trump…
Harnessing the Power of a Mob
“The membership of this marauding group gives them a feeling of power and strengthens their identity.” (Photo: Tyler Merbler/ CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons) The outrageous…
Why Does Social Science Not Bite?
David Canter considers why the social sciences failed to influence behavior in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 The remarkably rapid development of a…