All entries by this author

BBC Governors Reject Springer Opera Complaints *

Mar 30th, 2005 | Filed by

Dissenter disagreed that artistic significance outweighed offence caused.… Read the rest



Mugabe: Opposition Victory Will Not Be Tolerated *

Mar 30th, 2005 | Filed by

Robert Mugabe called the Zimbabwean opposition “traitors” yesterday.… Read the rest



Yet Another Twist in Schiavo Case *

Mar 30th, 2005 | Filed by

Appeals court agrees to hear petition to re-insert feeding tube.… Read the rest



What’s Up With Harvard? And Larry Summers? *

Mar 29th, 2005 | Filed by

Is it all a ‘cleavage between coastal elites and certain mainstream values’?… Read the rest



Fear of ‘Playing God’ on Only One Side of Equation *

Mar 29th, 2005 | Filed by

Ignoring patient wishes for no heroic measures is perfectly all right. … Read the rest



Armageddon is Fun and Entertaining *

Mar 29th, 2005 | Filed by

Why does Jesus decide to wear a dress while riding a horse? And other puzzles.… Read the rest



DFW Science Museum to Show ‘Volcanoes’ *

Mar 29th, 2005 | Filed by

Reverses bad decision to heed complaints of evolutionphobic whiners.… Read the rest



Panda’s Thumb Round-up

Mar 29th, 2005 12:00 am | By

[Mopping streaming eyes] This is very amusing. Over at Panda’s Thumb.

Prof. Steve Steve holds the B. Amboo Chair in Creatoinformatics at the University of Ediacara. He has been nominated five times (only twice by himself) for the Nobel Prize and has received six Barnes and Noble gift certificates.

Read the whole thing. Admire Steve’s picture, too. And there’s the one on Scientific American’s surrender to the creationists. About time – elitist bastards!

Oh just read the whole site – there’s one good item after another. What do they think, that I’ve got all day to read their posts?!

And there is the NY Times article on the Imax theatres rejecting evolooshun movies.

People who follow trends at commercial

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Sham Inquiry

Mar 28th, 2005 8:37 pm | By

A bit from an essay of Susan Haack’s in Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, page 8.

And to inquire is to try to discover the truth of some question. But pseudo-inquiry is a phenomenon no less common than pseudo-belief…Peirce identifies one kind of pseudo-inquiry when he writes of ‘sham reasoning’ [Collected Papers, I. 57-58]: making a case for the truth of some proposition your commitment to which is already evidence- and argument-proof.

Yes. A neat summing-up. Also a neat expression of the basic, the as it were foundational principle of B&W – which could be called identification of and opposition to sham inquiry.

Also a neat, succint description of how Margaret Mead went wrong. I’ve just been … Read the rest



Unanswered Questions in George Sand Biography *

Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by

What were the origins of Sand’s rebellion and her ambition as a writer?… Read the rest



Illness as Identity *

Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by

Losing a leg and half your brain cells can be an opportunity to learn…… Read the rest



Cult Studs Condemned Adorno as an Elitist *

Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by

Dislike of American mass culture doesn’t make Adorno a political conservative.… Read the rest



Trivers’ Rhetoric of Maximum Affront *

Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by

Trivers’s legendary papers of the early 1970s changed many disciplines.… Read the rest



IMAX Nixes Darwin for Fear of ‘Offending’ *

Mar 28th, 2005 | Filed by

Decision also affects science museums.… Read the rest



Why so much fuss about ‘a piece of clothing’?

Mar 28th, 2005 | By Azam Kamguian

Why so much fuss about ‘a piece of clothing’? In France and elsewhere in the west, teachers have a hard time with girls who come to school wearing the veil, who refuse to attend gym or biology courses, and who won’t read Voltaire because he was a non-believer.

In my speech, I will argue for banning the veil for young girls. I will refute views that promote and support veiling for young girls and try to demonstrate how banning the veil is vital for the advancement of children’s rights and the progress of our civil society.

Some feminists oppose the law to ban the veil in state schools and institutions on the grounds that the ban will strengthen Islamism. But … Read the rest



My Ancestor Was Not an Underwater Vent!

Mar 28th, 2005 3:49 am | By

It’s good to have idiots deciding what people get to see at the science museum, isn’t it. Well, that’s the market for you.

Some IMAX theaters are refusing to carry movies that promote evolution, citing concerns that doing so offends their audience and creates controversy – a move that has some proponents of Darwinism alarmed over the influence of “fundamentalists.”…A dozen science centers rejected the 2003 release, “Volcanoes,” because of it speculation that life on Earth may have originated in undersea vents, says Dr. Richard Lusk, an oceanographer and chief scientist for the project. Because a only small number of IMAX theaters show science films, a boycott by a few can reduce the potential audience to the point that producers

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Egypt Arrests Muslim Brotherhood Members *

Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by

MB pledged to use peaceful democratic means to establish an Islamic state. … Read the rest



Muslim Brotherhood Demo Blocked in Cairo *

Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by

Police arrested some 50 members around the country on Saturday.… Read the rest



Genuine Trauma and Physiological Response *

Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by

But the stimulus was still fantasy.… Read the rest



Michael Shermer on the Fossil Fallacy *

Mar 27th, 2005 | Filed by

Creationists’ demand for fossils of ‘missing links’ reveals deep misunderstanding of science. … Read the rest