What does it mean to be fooled, especially Fooled By Randomness? Or to put it differently, what are the perils of being fooled? The collective work of Kahneman and Tversky convinced me that people are bad decision makers (link). The bottom line is that we take a lot of risk because of our ignorance. Once…
The Catholic Church is trying to balance, as always, two opposites: orthodoxy and reform. Orthodoxy is what the institution stands for. Reform is about realizing Catholic ideals in the ever-changing world; it does not mean changing institutional beliefs to align with the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the world has experienced many…
Is history a science? If yes, what makes it scientific? These kind of fundamental questions are raised by John Lewis Gaddis in his The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Gaddis is best know for his work on the Cold War era. The Landscape of History is a different type of book; it is…
Well, it is April, so this list is late.. but who cares as our world is upside down, anyway. Last year I created a list of books that I read in the last 12 months (link). Below is my 2019 list. In what follows, I briefly describe each book and assigned it one of the…
Ten years after my swimming career was over, I was getting desperate. My weight has ballooned from 190 to almost 240 pounds (an average of 5 lbs per year). I tried different diets, and programs, but their results were short-lived. I needed to change but did not know how. Then, I learned about P.D Mangan from…
My new book entitled, „Understand swimming: a guide for parents, swimmers, and coaches” should be available for purchase next month. Initially, the book will be sold only in Poland (and in Polish). Since I decided to self-publish, the plan is to make enough money to cover the costs of publication in the US. But what…
Teaching „Religion and Research Methods in Comparative Politics” this semester has given me a chance to assign methodological readings that would otherwise not fit comfortably with our curriculum. The overall aim of the class is to introduce students to different methods used in the social sciences while also exposing them to research on religion and…
Recently, I published my first solo-article and I am obviously very excited about it (you can read it here). However, this post is not about my article per se, but rather about how this article came into being. Apparently even peer-reviewed publications sometimes have a story to tell. The genesis of this publication date back…
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a master of capturing just how bizarre bureaucratic institutions can be. Some believe that his portrayal of mindless office workers and their system was foreshadowing the development of truly totalitarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union (1922-1991) or Nazi Germany (1933-1945) It is also common knowledge that for almost 50 years,…
The Catholic Church is an authoritarian institution. Although bishops are unable to exercise full control over priests and laity, they do enjoy a great degree of authority and decision-making. In theory, the Pope is the absolute monarch. In practice, the buck in each diocese stops with the local bishop. My experience with studying the Church…
