‘The protection built into Theory…is composed of layer on layer of ignorance.’… Read the rest
Paul Boghossian on the Sokal Hoax.
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘To concede that no one ever believes something solely because it’s true is not to deny that anything is objectively true.’… Read the rest
Polly Toynbee on Religious Hatred Laws
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonConfusing religion and race is a clever trap the religious have laid for a worried government rightly anxious about race. … Read the rest
Monolithic Thought Unfair to Astrology
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The Epistemological Situation of Astrology in Relation to the Ambivalent Fascination/Rejection of Postmodern Societies’… Read the rest
Separation of Mosque and State
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Among intellectuals and in the academic world, any attempt to blame Islam for women’s oppression is stamped as Orientalism.’… Read the rest
Eagleton on Fish
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘A superficially historicist, materialist case – our beliefs and assumptions are embedded in our practical forms of life – leads not only to a kind of epistemological idealism, but to the deeply convenient doctrine that our way of life cannot be criticised as a whole.’… Read the rest
‘Frontline’ on Alternative Medicine
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAlternative to what? Testing and evidence?… Read the rest
More Than 500 Arguments for the Existence of God
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) Check out that tree. Isn’t it pretty?
(2) Therefore, God exists.… Read the rest
Paul Kurtz on Belief
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhy do people believe or disbelieve?… Read the rest
Webster Reviews Fisher and Greenberg
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘the findings were nicely congruent with the hypothesis’ – yes, they always are, that’s the problem.… Read the rest
Kevin McDonald on Crews on Freud
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘psychoanalysis, unlike a scientific theory but very much like certain religious or political movements, has essentially been immune from attacks leveled at it either from inside or outside the movement.’… Read the rest
Frederick Crews on Freud
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘the claims of psychoanalytic theory are not interpretations but determinate propositions about how the mind regularly works’… Read the rest
A look at Kent Hovind’s dissertation.
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn fact Patriot University seems to have no standards.… Read the rest
Dawkins on Maynard Smith
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘John does know more mathematics, more physics and more engineering than the average biologist. But he also knows more biology than the average biologist.’… Read the rest
Urvashi Butalia on ‘honour’ killing.
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWomen’s groups demand that murderers be treated according to laws of the land and not be allowed to find shelter behind the curtain of ‘culture’. … Read the rest
Melvin Konner takes on the opponents of sociobiology.
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBiologists who had done no primary research in human sciences nevertheless issued anathemas on it.… Read the rest
A Designer Universe?
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat a coincidence that we’re here and not on that nasty Pluto.… Read the rest
Mary Lefkowitz on Distortions of History
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe has his view and you have yours and they have theirs. So it goes.… Read the rest
Paul Gross on the Politicization of Science Education
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAttempts to reshape science classes delegitimize science as an especially trustworthy form of knowledge and promote “other ways of knowing” instead. … Read the rest
Therapeutic Touch
Apr 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Skeptical Dictionary looks at energy medicine, the flow of chi or prana, auras, chakras…… Read the rest