2012 November | The Socjournal

Ah, Black Friday. It’s typically the biggest shopping day of the year and, for that reason, the happiest date on the calendar for retailers. On Black Friday, retailers who have been languishing in the red can count on raking in a whole lot of black. Profits galore! As usual, Walmart, the world’s largest and most […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 21, 2012 | Comments 3

There is a crucial distinction between explanatory systems that are based upon fate vs. prediction. Both perspectives purport to shed light upon the course of future events, however, fate is based upon a faith in metaphysics whereas prediction is scientific. Determinism represents a branch of metaphysics primarily because determinists claim to know more about the […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 20, 2012 | Comments 0

Fate is the most potent weapon in a the arsenal of determinists like Stephen Hawking. To contend, as determinists plainly do, that the outcomes of events are pre-determined is essentially the same as saying that the ebbs and flows of history are all dictated by fate. Actors, whether animate or inanimate, have no control over […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 16, 2012 | Comments 0

Women @ work? Progress has been made, but more work needs to be done. Women still fall short in top level CEO positions and are conspicuously absent in certain industries (like the tech industry). Why is this? And what obstacles do women still face when entering and thriving in the workplace? Women are still the primary caregivers of the children. Women still take more time off than men. Women are still seen through the blinkered vision of a gendered world.

Dr. Michael Sosteric | Nov 16, 2012 | Comments 1

If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. Morpheus in The Matrix. Ray Kurzweil is obsessed with artificial intelligence (AI). Kurzweil has written a series of bestselling books–most recently How to Create a Mind–in which he advances the argument that machine intelligence […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 14, 2012 | Comments 1

As Republicans conduct an autopsy of the 2012 election they’ll need to acknowledge that their particular brand of vanilla–rich, white, and well-aged–is no longer a recipe for electoral success. No doubt, this will be a tough pill to swallow. After all, bigotry, greed and xenophobia have always been a sure fire recipe for success in […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 09, 2012 | Comments 3

Boy Scout Oath (or Promise)* On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.   Morally straight. Wow. In other words, queers need not apply. […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 07, 2012 | Comments 0

On Sunday, July 22, 2012, Penn State University removed the statue that the university had erected in Joe Paterno’s honor at Beaver Stadium. In removing the statue, the university has made an emphatic statement: Penn State University no longer wishes to commemorate its disgraced football coach How could Joe Paterno, a man who had been […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 07, 2012 | Comments 1

One can hardly broach the subject of agency without acknowledging the long-standing and unresolved philosophical debate regarding the agency vs. determination dichotomy. To provide an illustration of the extent of disagreement over this dualism, determinists, such as Stephen Hawking have argued that agency and free will are nothing but an illusion: …the molecular basis of […]

Timothy McGettigan | Nov 05, 2012 | Comments 3