Mark D. White

Writer, editor, teacher

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about

I’m a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where I teach courses in philosophy, economics, and law, and the author/editor/co-editor of several books.

Category: Evolution

  • Not so sweet: Crossing the line from science to opinion in the sugar wars

    Mark D. White In a New York Times op-ed this morning, Daniel E. Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, makes a strong case for our strong attraction to sugar, but a weak case for paternalistic action on the part of the government to limit our consumption of it. The problem is captured by the question he…

  • I may suck, but not as much as you

    Mark D. White Please excuse the flippant title, and get ready for a bit of a rant. (Listen–it's almost Friday, and it's been a rough couple of weeks.) I'll start with a old joke: Two campers are in the woods when they spot a bear heading toward them. One camper starts running while the other…

  • Why did we evolve to reason? (in Behavioral and Brain Sciences) [UPDATED]

    Mark D. White The new issue of Behavioral and Brian Sciences (34/2, 2011) focuses on the nature of the evolutionary advantages of reasoning; the target article, by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, is titled "Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory": Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better…