One of the things I like best about human beings is our persistent incorrigibility. Even when we don’t want to we often escape expert predictions of our behavior. Call it the human uncertainty principle. As soon as you know where we are you lose knowledge about where we’re headed and how fast we’re headed there. Or maybe you’ve guessed where we’re headed but you no longer know where we are.

Charles Ferguson has made a documentary that must be seen if you want to understand why the same people who let the housing bubble and the 2008 financial meltdown happen are still in charge. But if you can’t go out and see Inside Job right away (it opened in New York and Los Angeles Friday), read Ferguson’s article, “Larry Summers and the Subversion of Economics,” summarizing his case in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins, Sam Harris and their clubby ilk  love to ramble on about destructive, unreasoned religious beliefs that enchain humanity in a continued dark age. It’s a mistake to blame human wonder at the mystery of it all rather than the blowhards of institutional religion who turn our wonder and worry to their [...]