Melting Asphalt | Essays by Kevin Simler_Education & Science

AboutArchiveGoodiesSubscribe Melting Asphalt Recent EssaysOutbreakHarry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease like COVID-19 spreads. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking it out. Today I want to follow up with something I've been working…Read more › Continue Reading »Going CriticalBackground: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make it play nice with WordPress. So I decided to host it on another part of the site instead. Click here for…Read more › Continue Reading »A Natural History of BeautyA mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo thrown in for good measure. —— Of all the problems that can plague a discussion of beauty — and there are several — perhaps…Read more › Continue Reading »The Elephant in the BrainIt's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book, coauthored with Robin Hanson — is now widely available. You can find the ebook version on Kindle, Google Play, and iBooks. It's also…Read more › Continue Reading »Here Be SermonsI've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite simply, is that they bore me. Honesty good. Violence bad. My eyes glaze over. Empathy, rah! Racism, boo! Please, don't we know this…Read more › Continue Reading » AboutI write things and put them here. Maybe once or twice a month. Essays about philosophy, human behavior, and occasionally software. It's my excuse for toying around with new ideas and practicing the craft of writing.I have to understand the world, you see. — Richard FeynmanNeeds some loveTearsPersonality: The Body in SocietyWealth: The Toxic ByproductAccepting Deviant MindsHonesty and the Human BodyGoodiesAboutArchiveSubscribeReading PipelineMore... All text licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (more)