Paul Schofield

When is enjoying funny animal videos not anthropomorphism? | Aeon Essays Interpreting the emotional lives of animals requires a subtler and more nuanced understanding of anthropomorphism

aeon.co/essays/when-...

I’ve had a bit with my colleague Mike Dacey where I send him a YouTube video and ask him if the turtle is enjoying his bath as much as he looks like he is (or whatever). Glad to he’s gone public with the bit. (Link in next post)

I have a new essay in Jacobin, arguing that homelessness is at odds with the ideal of a democratic society. I'll take this opportunity to mention that I'm writing a book for Oxford UP elaborating on the ideas in this piece. It will be a trade book, meant for a popular audience.

14-year-old daughter couldn’t find any friends who wanted to go to the Vampire Weekend show tomorrow, so she asked me.

Here is a promotional code, if you want to buy it. It's also available on Oxford Academic/Oxford Scholarship Online. (6)

Here's the abstract for the whole thing. (5)

It's a serious academic book. But also it's just well-written, fun, whimsical--really, the kind of thing you can give to undergrads. (4)

Every chapter is full of descriptions of fascinating experiments, and raises insightful questions about what can and cannot be inferred from them. I learned so much from this! (3)

The basic idea behind the book is to identify difficulties that get in the way of making progress in the field of animal psychology, and to suggest a positive path forward for each (2).

My colleague Mike Dacey has an excellent and exciting new book out today. It's aimed at an academic audience, but not a narrow specialist one--great for students and also philosophers and animal researchers interested in the topic (1)

My mom got me this bookend when I was in college.

Facebook memory

Can’t believe this is the pope

My Robert Francis Prevost NFTs are probably worth more today.

Well, this would signal that he’s not the pope of the South Side, but the pope of all of Chicago

The new pope will sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at Wrigley next week.

What if ChatGPT added to the terms of use that you’re not allowed to use it to cheat?

I think the main thing that matters is whether the new pope vaguely agrees with my politics.

Really would like to see this level of enthusiasm from students these days.

Facebook is aggressively targeting me with these ads. I think it says a lot about society that we're now assuming that *this* is the answer to our problems, rather than antidepressants.

I think it tastes perfectly good, but it also absorbs flavors and spices really well. Sometimes you need to add oil or butter if the recipe depends on the meat being fatty

Important context. I hope he shared with HR.

“Couldn’t he have picked something else?”

He wanted to watch this one *last year* and I said to pick something else and he never forgot it.

13-year-old son wanted to invite friends over to have pizza and watch Charlie Chaplin for his birthday. Had to contact parents ahead of time and be like “content warning: it’s a Hitler comedy, but don’t worry, because it’s a *disapproving* one.”

Beyond pork on the beans, Beyond beef on the mapo tofu

Made wontons, mapo tofu, and dry fried green beans. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Does this mean she goes on to compete against other races now, or is the whole competition segregated by race?

Anyway, the book doesn’t talk much about education, and neither does my review. But part of why I was taken with the book is its relevance to domains of contemporary life that it doesn’t choose to focus on.

t.co/u1EeWq5Br7

And this isn’t really about Harvard. They made the subtext text by calling it “shopping”. But most of higher ed is now basically like this—with course selection resembling crude market activity.

But while I am definitely open to students having fewer curricular choices, my point here isn’t that students shouldn’t have choices. It’s that encouraging them to treat signing up for classes as an exercise in shopping affects how everyone views education at a college . . .