Cecil is, as long as, like me, you are looking for a more scientific approach to philosophy instead of a more philosophical approach to philosophy.
Can you give us some examples of columns where Cecil displayed a scientific approach to philosophy?
Cecil is, as long as, like me, you are looking for a more scientific approach to philosophy instead of a more philosophical approach to philosophy.
Well I don’t want to open a can here, but I was thinking of the article where he answered why Christianity has been so prominent for so long, or something to that effect. His approach was unapologetic and from the standpoint of why people accept it from a logical stand point, and not " because it is true" or some such, which I know is an over simplification.
Perhaps religion is not quite the same as philosophy, but to me they are similar enough that it shows what I mean.
I presume that you’re talking about this column:
I would call that a historical approach rather than a scientific approach. He doesn’t give any scientific proof of his assertions, just an attempt at putting them into a historical perspective. Furthermore, he’s talking about the history of Christianity, not its truth. He makes no attempt to prove the truth or falsity of Christian beliefs.
The Straight Dope knows that the name for that sector of spectacles is called the bridge.
'Cause there’s a lot of fart smellers here.
Mmmm…farts…
Damn, that’s well-articulated. I was a Conservative when I got here (well, a Pseudo-Libertarian, with a lot of views that hadn’t been challenged or played out). I’ve “leaned more Left” since joining, as a result of hanging around smart people.
I was about to say “So, the Dope is like Reddit for grownups!”
But then the fart jokes started…
Heh, no. You know it when you see it. Knowing nice from not for most is pretty clear by preschool or kindergarten. See? That was not nice.
OK, and next week start giving me twice your lunch money every day.
The SDMB overall does skew leftist, atheist, and male. What’s more, the personality typology INTJ is said to be unusually predominant around here.
I’m leftist but neither atheist nor male. As typology INFP, I match the SDMB 2 out of 4.
Discussions of the historical background of those questions and explanations of their boundaries is all I would want from anyplace.
My question is, have we become any more popular during the recent Covidness? More members, more posts per day, more time spent per visit, higher overall ranking, anything at all?
As for why we’re not more popular overall, it’s because over the past 20+ years we’ve turned from a new community into a small town, the type of small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business and we don’t take to strangers.
I think it’s because social media got everybody used to expressing themselves in 200 characters or less, and our posts are tl;dr with not enough cute abbreviations.
Hey! We’re plenty cute! When someone shows up with a new puppy or kitten, we (most of the time) insist on pictures. That cute enough for you? 
LOL UR RITE +1 #cutepuppies #cutekitties
No! UR the cute one! 
We also don’t allow avatars (if you don’t want 'em), animated gifs or indeed, pics of any sort in the postings themselves. I have described The Dope to people who are unfamiliar with it as The Grey Lady of message boards. In other words, we’re like the New York Times.
I’m not talking about people who don’t follow the rules, I’m talking about people who are new, and may not be quite up to the level of the discussions around here- they get lit up in terms of defending their positions, etc… in a NOT very gentle way, often with loads of condescension, snark and general smart-assedness.
And I don’t mean religious posters either, although they do get an outsized share of this. I just mean people who may hold views different from the mainstream, or who merely may not have articulated their point well. It doesn’t matter; we have a large contingent of seemingly bitter, angry, sarcastic smart-asses who despite being decades out of college, ***still ***seem to delight in showing how smart they are relative to others. And we have another group of ideological extremists who deal in absolutes, as if they are RIGHT, and everyone else is wrong.
Hell, this kind of BS is frustrating and aggravating to me, and I’ve been here for a long time and posted a whole lot. I can completely see how someone might chime in on a topic and get a hostile response, and say “Fuck this… I’ll go use Reddit”.