Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
British economist, statistician (now he would be called a demographer), and clergyman in the Church of England, who is best known for his Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, first published in 1798. A second edition in 1803 included information collected on trips to the other main…
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Malicious animal magnetism
The notion of an evil force permeating nature that was put forward by Mary Baker Eddy founder of Christian Science. She had borrowed the idea from 18th-century Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that he had identified a sort of magnetism associated with animals and plants, an idea he soon realized to be without…
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Magic
From the Greek magika, meaning “what wizards do”; any ritualistic practice intended to produce results without using the causal processes of the physical world. In its less elevated form, it could be any sleight-of- hand trick used by conjurers or any demonstration of mind reading or Table rapping by stage entertainers. The concept behind the…
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Roy Mackal (1925- )
One of the founding members of the international society of cryptozoology, an explorer searching for the fabled long-necked monster Mokele-Mbembe of Lake Tele in the Congo and one of the many investigators into the legend of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. In 1980 Dr. Roy Mackal accompanied by James H. Powel, a crocodile expert,…
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Lysenkoism
Marxist approach to agricultural science. Trofim D. Lysenko (1898-1976) attempted to reform Soviet agricultural practices during the 1930s and 1940s by utilizing a version of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theories. Lamarck’s version of evolution rested on the idea that life starts out simple and then becomes more complex as environmental forces act on it. In the late…
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Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
Geologist who vigorously attacked the theories of catastrophism. Lyell believed instead in uniformitarianism the uniformity of geological forces that requires an Earth old enough for these forces to account for its present state. Lyell was a powerful influence on Charles Darwin, providing for him the stage on which he could set his theory of evolution…
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Lucky Unlucky numbers
One of the most abiding superstitions throughout history, that some numbers are lucky and others are unlucky. In our society, 3 and 7 are commonly held to be especially lucky; why this should be so is uncertain. Perhaps 3 is from the Holy Trinity, or it may have an earlier origin, such as the three-legged…
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Percival Lowell (1855-1916)
American astronomer best remembered for his popularization of the existence of Martian “canals,” first reported by 19th-century Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Sciaparelli. Through his early career, Lowell was successful in business, finding opportunities to develop cotton mills and electric companies. Between 1883 and 1893 he traveled extensively in the Far East, serving for an extended…
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Lourdes
A place of pilgrimage for millions of devout Christians each year, where visions of the Virgin Mary were seen by a local girl in the mid-19th century. Lourdes, of Roman origin, is situated in southern France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. On the right bank of the River Gave, which flows through Lourdes, stands…
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Lost tribes of Israel
Ten tribes of the northern Hebrew nation of Israel taken captive by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C.E. They never returned to Israel. The fate of the Lost Tribes became a matter of much theological debate, especially after the discovery of the Americas in the 15th century. Some clerics advanced the opinion that Native…
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