The Philosophy of the Socratic Gadfly

This is a slice of my philosophical, lay scientific, musical, religious skepticism, and poetic musings. (All poems are my own.) The science and philosophy side meet in my study of cognitive philosophy; Dan Dennett was the first serious influence on me, but I've moved beyond him. The poems are somewhat related, as many are on philosophical or psychological themes. That includes existentialism and questions of selfhood, death, and more. Nature and other poems will also show up here on occasion.

The Philosophy of the Socratic Gadfly
Friday, January 02, 2026

Ignoring the possible roots of Hanukkah, throwing secularists under the bus

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Shock me that the "pergressuve" Texas Observer would do this, but it gave TCU prof David Brockman the space to do exactly that. A...
Wednesday, December 24, 2025

In the Pink is not "in the pink" with me with spinning Christmas legend for political reasons

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In The Pink Texas f inds the true meaning of Christmas badly misspins the story behind the Lukan nativity myth to present an interesting...
Thursday, December 18, 2025

Wait, you used an AI bot to ask what the top 10 existential questions should be for naturalists?

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I thought this was a Poe when Massimo first said this in this Substack piece , but the list itself is real, and nothing really objectionable...
Thursday, December 04, 2025

More r/AcademicBiblical moronity

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I'm doing this less and less, in part because I've weaned myself from there more and more. Nonetheless, stupidities still pop up and...
Friday, November 28, 2025

Pope Leo, immigration, sexual identification, and Protestantism

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 This is a different take on a piece last Friday at my main blog. If you're politically awake and not under a rock, you probably heard ...
Thursday, November 20, 2025

Did Leon Festinger commit some sort of research fraud?

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"When Prophecy Fails" is a seminal publication in launching the whole idea of cognitive dissonance . Now, there's new claims ...
Thursday, November 13, 2025

Bart Ehrman is retiring!

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Interestingly, it is next month, in the middle of an academic year, and not next spring. Why? Anyway, his blog site is promoting a final lec...
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