Word: logical
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...screen). And our rationality is not a smooth machinelike intelligence but a complicated landscape of strengths and weaknesses. We're good at solving reasoning problems if they're presented as social puzzles. We don't do as well if the same problems are expressed in the abstract language of logic. A number of researchers argue that the results emerge from our evolution as social creatures, not logicians...
...rooted in the cold war mantra that even if a regime was a "son of a bitch," it should be supported as long as it was "our son of a bitch." It doesn't work. Washington supported both Osama bin Laden and Saddam in the 1980s on precisely this logic, but after 9/11, Bush himself acknowledged that coddling the enemies of our enemies had not made them friends; instead it had helped sow more extremism. And today Arab governments can no longer be bought by a single bidder. Avoiding too close an association with Washington, they toy with Russia, China...
...major aim of Bush's tour is to rally Gulf Arabs into an anti-Iran bloc bent on further isolating Tehran diplomatically and economically, without giving up the option of a military attack on Iran, on the grounds that Iran remains a dire threat to regional security. To such logic, Gulf leaders are tempted to reply, "Duh, it was your ousting of Saddam Hussein's regime that enabled Iran to expand its influence in the first place." Arabs would never want Washington to get too cozy with Tehran. But they've had enough Texas gunslinging...
...candidate’s personal religious beliefs should not matter for the presidency. It is this same logic that other candidates with secular, individualist attitudes use to defend abortion, yet when it comes to Mike Huckabee’s candidacy, students seem to find relevance in every detail of his theological predisposition. In other words, what does evolution have to do with being a competent public official and head of state? This is especially true since he has no objection to evolution being taught in schools. It is thus disingenuous to oppose Huckabee on the grounds of his Evangelical Christian...
...down to the gym and find the Republicans still sitting in their neat rows of folded chairs, waiting for their ballots to be counted while voting, by a show of hands, on their party platform. I'm sure they had their reasons, but I didn't immediately comprehend the logic of following a secret ballot with a process that involved raising your hands in a crowded room to declare your feelings on abortion, gay marriage and immigration...