This conversation dates back to January 2014, I think, and it happened on a PM exchange with a recently accepted Facebook friend. Mind you, we had just met. I hope I handled his query respectfully. Or maybe he got more information than he bargained for. Could ARD have been trolling me—or trying to convert me? […]

Taking after the rant by Cenk Uygur The Young Turks, 2/15/2017 There have been 7 school shootings in the USA in the first 45 days of 2018, including the Parkland shooting on February 14.* The USA is averaging a school shooting every week! In the USA there were 270,000,000 guns and 90 mass shooters from 1966-2012 […]

It was on this date, July 5, 1791, that English philosopher and philanthropist Samuel Bailey was born in Dunstable, England. He acquired a fortune as an industrialist and prominent citizen of Sheffield, where he was widely known as “Bailey of Sheffield,” and acquired some repute in the philosophical world through his publications, many of which […]

It was on this date, December 7, 1928, that American linguist, logician, political commentator and activist Noam Chomsky was born Avram Noam Chomsky into an affluent Jewish family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family was highly educated and instilled in Chomsky a love of learning that took him to the University of Pennsylvania at age 16. […]

It was on this date, July 5, 1791, that the English philosopher and philanthropist Samuel Bailey was born. He was educated first by his maternal grandfather and then at the Moravian school of Fulneck. He visited America to establish commercial connections, but became distracted by literary pursuits. Back in England he acquired a fortune as […]

It was on this date, June 11, 1818, that Scottish psychologist, philosopher and educator Alexander Bain was born in Aberdeen. Bain was one of the foremost psychologists and educationists of the 19th century, although he distinguished himself in logic and linguistics in grammar and rhetoric, as well. In spite of religious hostility to his naturalist […]

It was on this date, January 12, 1861, that American philosopher and psychologist James Mark Baldwin was born. He studied theology for a time at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), but switched to philosophy and taught French and German at Princeton Theological Seminary. Baldwin made important contributions to early psychology, psychiatry, and […]

It was on this date, September 18, 1954, that American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author Steven Pinker was born in Montreal, Quebec. In his popular books, he has argued that language is an "instinct" or biological adaptation shaped by natural selection. He is the author of six books for a general […]

Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832) It was on this date, August 16, 1832, that German psychologist Wilhelm Max Wundt was born. He studied at Tübingen University from 1851 and took his MD at the University of Heidelberg in 1856 (the year Sigmund Freud was born). He began as a professor of physiology, but from 1875-1917, Wundt […]

“We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.”