Daily question, August 12, 2026
Politics
Can a war ever be fought justly, or does the scale of modern weapons make the idea of a just war obsolete?
Source: A standing question in just war theory
The tradition sets conditions like just cause and proportionality; critics ask whether any real war has met them.
Mathematics
Non-standard analysis makes infinitesimals rigorous again. Does it explain anything the epsilon-delta account already covers, or just restate it?
Source: A standing question about infinitesimals
Both give the same theorems, so the dispute is about which framework matches how mathematicians actually think, not about correctness.
Physics
If entropy only increases, why was it so low at the start of the universe? No known law requires a low-entropy beginning.
Source: A standing question about the arrow of time, the past hypothesis
Some physicists treat the early universe's low entropy as a brute fact; others look for a deeper reason.
Psychology
Antidepressants beat placebo in trials, but the gap shrinks once unpublished negative trials are added back in. How much of the benefit is the drug?
Source: The antidepressant-placebo debate, after Irving Kirsch
The answer changes how doctors weigh medication against therapy for mild to moderate depression.
Philosophy
When two cultures disagree on right and wrong, is one simply mistaken, or is there no fact to be mistaken about?
Source: A standing question about moral objectivity
Everyone acts as though their own moral judgments are correct. Fewer are willing to say what makes them correct.
Biology
Most traits track thousands of small-effect variants plus environment. What does it even mean to call one gene 'the gene for' intelligence or height?
Source: Question about gene talk
Headlines routinely oversimplify polygenic scores into single-gene stories that the underlying data does not support.
