Month: April 2010

OU/Radio 4 series on which bits of history we remember and which we don’t

Be as obscurantist as you can get away with, decently or indecently.

All those mind-bendingly transgressive thinkers now formed a sort of tradition.

Ruse sees Richard Dawkins as the atheist’s Billy Graham

Attempts to reconcile science and religion usually fail because religions make claims about the real world that don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Gilligan’s teaching is in many ways reactionary, which also helps to account for its extraordinary success

Ants, pheromones, genes, biodiversity, ecological footprints, consilience.

Rorty has a gift for ducking and weaving and laying smoke

His obscurity is a depressing lesson in contemporary cultural memory.

Einstein’s theory of relativity did not spawn artistic modernism and moral relativism, Time magazine to the contrary notwithstanding.

‘Basically, Godel’s theorems prove the Doctrine of Original Sin, the need for the sacrament of penance, and that there is a future eternity.’

Both are obsessed with realism and the pursuit of objective knowledge

The anti-secularist reaction has been bad for women and children.

Or rather, a gene for something labeled ‘spirituality.’

The ASA said Peniel Pentecostal Church had to offer proof at least comparable with that required of makers of washing powder

Graham Larkin answers questions from New York Sun

Rebuttals and references from the scientific community to any and all of the various creationist claims.

Anti-science is a revolt wherein second-rate scholarship is parlayed into tenured professorships and book contracts.

Or as Tom Lehrer put it: Fight fiercely Harvard, fight fight fight: impress them with our prowess, do.

How human relationships are being pushed in new directions by virtual worlds.