Case brought by Muslim World League, Mosque of Paris, Union of Islamic Organisations of France.… Read the rest
The Fictions of Foucault’s Scholarship
Mar 23rd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf extraordinarily large claims rested on a shaky empirical foundation, this was not immediately evident. … Read the rest
‘Honour’ Killing Victim Could Have Been Saved
Mar 23rd, 2007 | By Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights OrganisationWomen from the London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation have been attending the trial currently in session at Court 10 of London’s Central Criminal Court. Mahmod Mahmod, father to Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, and Ari Mahmod Babakir Agha, a wealthy business man and her uncle, are accused of her murder in the name of so-called ‘honour’. The case has been much covered by the media over its first few days. Banaz’s boyfriend, Rehmat Suleimani, a Kurd from Iran, has given his account, including a heartbreaking video recorded on his mobile phone in which Banaz herself accuses her father of trying to murder her, which reduced her former lover to tears. Her father and uncle remained stone-faced.
Rehmat himself reports … Read the rest
How different
Mar 23rd, 2007 11:59 am | By Ophelia BensonLet’s have a round of applause for the joys of tradition and folk medicine and spirituality.
… Read the restRamani had been bringing Sona up alone since her husband died from an unknown illness. Every day at 6am Ramani left home for her job as a labourer (painting the factories in an industrial area in the eastern Indian state of Jharkand), returning home 12 hours later. One night in January, Ramani and Sona were fast asleep when two neighbours broke down their rickety front door and dragged Ramani out of bed. As Sona fled to a neighbour’s hut, she saw one of the men’s hands cover her mother’s mouth and another close round her throat. Next morning, no one stopped Sona from
Sweeping absolutist generalisations
Mar 23rd, 2007 11:32 am | By Ophelia BensonSo it’s possible to get a BSc in a pseudoscience. Interesting.
… Read the rest[A] topic that many researchers see as a pseudoscience is claiming scientific status within the British education system. Over the past decade, several British universities have started offering bachelor of science (BSc) degrees in alternative medicine, including six that offer BSc degrees in homeopathy…Some scientists are increasingly concerned that such courses give homeopathy and homeopaths undeserved scientific credibility…Finding out exactly what is taught in the courses is not straightforward. Ben Goldacre, a London-based medical doctor, journalist and frequent critic of homeopathy, says that several universities have refused to let him see their course materials. “I can’t imagine what they’re teaching,” he says. “I can only imagine that they
Inner experience and doubtability
Mar 22nd, 2007 1:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonA little more on this puzzle about inner experience. No reason; I just find it interesting. I keep picking away at it. I suppose partly (or maybe mostly) because I know perfectly well that my instinct is simply to think the idea* is absurd – so that can be seen as a reason to try hard to consider the opposite. And there’s also the fact that Stannard obviously doesn’t think it’s absurd, and he’s obviously not just silly, so that’s another reason to puzzle. Plus it raises some interesting thoughts about memory and knowledge and so on – why some memories are harder to doubt than others, for instance. (In thinking about that I’ve had the mildly amusing realization that … Read the rest
A Pseudoscience Claims Scientific Status
Mar 22nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSeveral British universities offer bachelor of science degrees in alternative medicine.… Read the rest
‘Alternative’ Medicine Taught as if Science
Mar 22nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThere are now 61 complementary medicine courses of which 45 are science degrees.… Read the rest
German Judge Cites ‘Right to Castigate’
Mar 22nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe beat and threatened her; she wanted out; judge said wait a year, cited Koran.… Read the rest
Peter Tatchell on the Left and Human Rights
Mar 22nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUnlike global anti-apartheid movement, no global protests to support Zimbabwean struggle for democracy. … Read the rest
Students in Nigeria Murder Teacher
Mar 22nd, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAfter apparently accusing her of desecrating the Koran, police say. … Read the rest
A Dialogue with the Diggers
Mar 22nd, 2007 | By R Joseph HoffmannScene: At the tombs, outside Jerusalem:
Professor T: It’s got to be here somewhere. The map the antiquities people gave us says there’s a housing development on the site.
Jacob.: It doesn’t matter. You’ve seen one tomb….
Prof. T: No, we have to get this right. The archaeology has to support my theory….
Jacob: I know, the caliphate. What’s that about?
Prof T: Jesus was married. Maybe had a son. Heirs—but James took over from him when he died.
Jacob: James who? There was a James Christ?
Prof T: If I am right, we are literally standing on top of the tomb of the Jesus family.
Jacob: It is exciting. But there’s nothing left in the tomb, right?
Prof T: … Read the rest
Primate Behavior and the Roots of Morality
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFrans de Waal replies to philosopher critics.… Read the rest
Michael Walzer on the Left We Need
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe real left should never be muffled or evasive.… Read the rest
Peer Seeks to Block Gay Rights Rules
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Concerns that the regulations compromise religious liberty.’… Read the rest
The Wasteland – Inside Mugabe’s Crumbling State
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDaily life is consumed by the struggle to eat and finding the money for medicines and school. … Read the rest
Indian Women Branded as Witches
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThose not killed face humiliation, torture; belief is that shaming a woman weakens her evil powers.… Read the rest
Depends
Mar 21st, 2007 11:57 am | By Ophelia BensonIn other words there’s a difference between being convinced by something, so convinced that you are literally unable not to believe it, and being rationally convinced by it. Which is, indeed, interesting. It seems like a real problem, in a way – at least potentially. But maybe it is only potentially, not actually? If so, that too would be interesting. In other words – if there are few or no cases of (say) committedly rational people, with strong habits of questioning evidence, second-guessing their own inferences, and the like, who have (say) an unexpected religious experience – an experience like the experience Russell Stannard has when praying – and find themselves unable not to believe that the experience is veridical … Read the rest
Internal experience and rationality
Mar 21st, 2007 9:36 am | By Ophelia BensonThere’s this post on Talking Philosophy about religious experience and the fact that it can be or seem to be veridical, and the questions that fact raises.
The religious experience as veridical thing is interesting. If the experience genuinely has that quality – is it rational to take it at face value? Okay, I guess most people reading this will answer ‘no’ (and tell me off for suggesting such a thing). But I wonder…
I would say it isn’t entirely rational to take religious experience at face value as veridical, for reasons that don’t seem to appear in comments on that post; not exactly, anyway. I would say it isn’t rational because we know that experience can be misleading. That’s … Read the rest
Resist
Mar 20th, 2007 3:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrom The Improbability of God again. Page 383.
If there were an all-good and all-powerful God who could act in time, then we would have better evidence than we have…Why would such a God hide? Some theists answer that, if the evidence for God were stronger, believers would not need faith.
But why is that an answer? Why is that an objection? Why is faith taken to be a good thing? Why is it supposed to be a loss if we don’t need it? Apart from the obvious protective reasons – the obvious contorted explanations that theists offer to explain inconvenient realities such as God’s strange failure ever to drop by and say hello.
Is the idea that faith is … Read the rest