Critics of GM are missing the point.… Read the rest
Arguments from incredulity
Mar 3rd, 2003 | By Julian Baggini"No one in their right mind can look in the stars and the eternal blackness
everywhere and deny the spirituality of the experience, nor the existence
of a Supreme Being. There were moments when I honestly felt that I could reach
out my hand, just as the pilot John Magee says in his poem ‘High Flight’,
and touch the face of God."
Eugene Cernan, last man to walk on the moon (Source: Observer Magazine,
16 June 2002)
These few lines are stuffed full of argumentative bad moves. There’s the ad
hominem abuse – people who disagree are just not in "their right mind".
There’s also a whiff of the argument from authority: an "I’ve been into
space buddy, and … Read the rest
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Mar 2nd, 2003 9:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonOne of the terms the sociologist Robert Merton, who died last week, was known for was the self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s a lot of the sort of thing about. All the endless assuring each other, for instance, that rationality, secularism, skepticism, atheism are all wrong and mistaken and harmful and stupid because humans have a Deep Need for religion. We have a Longing for ‘spirituality,’ a Hunger for myth, a nostalgia for a Big Daddy to protect us. There is a god-shaped hole at the center of our consciousness and all the silly pointless time-wasting things we do are efforts to fill it. This review of Adam Sutcliffe’s Judaism and Enlightenment, for example, says as much (paraphrasing the argument of … Read the rest
Honderich Reviews Williams 
Mar 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And does not desire to be somplace else.… Read the rest
Midgley Reviews Dennett
Mar 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘He tries much harder than he has before to show that he understands the importance of our inner life.’… Read the rest
Part History Part Polemic
Mar 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And marred by bad arguments, Simon Wessely says of this book about science and the chemical weapons industry.… Read the rest
Galen Strawson Reviews Daniel Dennett
Mar 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Dennett on the evolution of freedom.… Read the rest
Postmodernism and truth
Mar 2nd, 2003 | By Daniel DennettHere is a story you probably haven’t heard, about how a team of American researchers
inadvertently introduced a virus into a third world country they were studying.(1)
They were experts in their field, and they had the best intentions; they thought
they were helping the people they were studying, but in fact they had never
really seriously considered whether what they were doing might have ill effects.
It had not occurred to them that a side-effect of their research might be damaging
to the fragile ecology of the country they were studying. The virus they introduced
had some dire effects indeed: it raised infant mortality rates, led to a general
decline in the health and wellbeing of women and … Read the rest
Fear of the Improvised, Ambiguous or Indeterminate
Mar 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Writing is always profane and promiscuous, Terry Eagleton says. … Read the rest
Warning Signs of Fakery
Mar 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
We all need to be able to detect bogus claims, Robert Park says.… Read the rest
